Our 2022 Christmas Letter
We wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas this year! We wanted to give you an update on our family and what we've been up to lately. 2022 was a big year of change for our family. After 18 years of owning a family business, we decided to sell it! John and his parents started The Maids in 2003 right after Joshua was born and grew it from 0 employees to 60 in ten years. They worked hard and long and it grew tremendously. Over time, they were able to hire managers to run it and begin working less and less. John's parents retired and once our kids were all in school full time, Deanna joined in the business too. All four of our kids were able to work there at some time over the past 10 years. There were times over the years where we weren't sure if we could press on, but God really showed us to persevere and really blessed us. During COVID both John and Deanna started working full time again to keep things running smoothly and we made it through. John had really enjoyed business mentoring the past few years and was wanting to pursue that more full time. Deanna had a hard time not bringing work back to our home life and knew that she couldn't continue to work there full time as well. So when an offer came in to sell the franchise, we really began to pray. And God really showed us both that this would be the best thing for our business and our family. We sold it to a friend who owns the Johnson County Maids and we knew we could trust him with everything we had built. So on January 14th of this year, we handed over our keys and sold The Maids. We miss our employees and friends we made through The Maids the most. And Deanna misses having her house cleaned professionally sometimes :) After the sale was final, we made the decision to take some time off before we both started looking for new job opportunities later in 2022.
Since selling The Maids, John and Deanna were able to travel a few times together and get more involved in our new church. We both worked on losing weight and eating healthy (that's still a work in progress!) Overall, I think our time off was beneficial and productive to our health and marriage. Deanna spent most of her free time this year working on home projects that have been sitting on her To Do list for some time. She plans to finish by updating the kitchen cabinets next and then plans to look for some part time work in 2023. She was a substitute teacher this past Spring and wants to flip a house for an Air B and B next year if the housing market improves. We'll keep you posted next Christmas on what she ends up doing. John started a new career as Training Director for the Chick-fil-A in Liberty in late October. He loves it so much and is diving right into the people and business there. He is also able to still continue his ministry work with Partners Worldwide and his business mentoring here in KC. He does miss having free time and flexibility, but loves his new job. Deanna misses not having him at home with her all the time too.
Ashlyn finished her third summer interning on the Amazon AWS team. She was able to live in Seattle this time, which ended up being wonderful because she was able to see if she liked the Northwest and working with her team in person. She will graduate from Truman State University with a BS degree in Computer Science in May. She has accepted an offer with the Amazon Web Services (AWS) team in Seattle starting in July. She hopes to travel and rest between May and July. We will miss her greatly as she begins this new journey on her own in July. We are thankful for direct flights! She also bought her first pet this November - a bearded dragon named Barry. Barry is on TikTok and Instagram if you wish to follow his journey called barry_the_bearded_dragon
Joshua graduated from Park Hill High School in May this year and made the decision to head to Rolla, MO to The University of Missouri Science and Technology to begin an Engineering degree in the fall. He is really enjoying it so far. He accepted a bid into the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity in August and is an official frat brother. He loves the brotherhood the frat offers along with a busy schedule. I often read of new freshman there struggling to leave their dorm room, and Joshua loves it when he can find an hour to lay on his bed and rest. He's involved in a community service frat, the Baptist Student Union and a couple other clubs as well. He found a church in walking distance and is looking forward to some rest over winter break. Overall, Joshua would say he loves his new adulthood and time away at school. He made the best Thanksgiving dinner he has ever cooked this year too, and we miss him (and his cooking) at home.
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Caleb will finish his last official high school class this month. He plans to start his internship in January with Climate Control Cooling and Heating to finish off his senior year. He will still attend Northland Career Center on Fridays through May. He worked for that same company full time through the summer and will begin a career with them after graduation Lord willing. He will graduate from Lead Innovation Studio in May and is still deciding if he will live at home for a year to save money or move in with friends this summer. We are so proud of his hard work and can't wait for him to be a service technician in HVAC soon. Caleb still enjoys working on cars, dirt track racing and spending time with friends when he's not working.
Bear is doing great and is aging as most black labs do. She's 10 already! She got used to us being home all summer and most of the year and pouts sometimes when she is home alone for long periods of the day. Bear really misses Joshua now that he is gone at college so she's reserved his bed as hers most days. We think Bear has been wanting a puppy to care for as she grows slower, but John isn't convinced. We will keep you posted on how that turns out next year!
We would love to hear from you as you finish this letter. Please comment on this post or email us to let us know how you are doing! Our email is deannakhanson@gmail.com
John is often on LinkedIn and Twitter and Deanna is on FaceBook. Let's connect to stay in touch better! I've struggled to keep this blog updated since before COVID, and rarely get on here anymore. If you're new here, please enjoy our archives from 2006-2020 in the left menu bar. You will have to click on "View Web Version" at the bottom of the page to see the left menu bar if you are on your phone.
Enjoy the remaining days of 2022. We pray you are well and are so grateful for your friendships and love toward our family. We rejoice in the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ and his salvation for us as we celebrate this season. We love and miss you!
With love,
John, Deanna, Ashlyn, Joshua, Caleb, and Jonathan Hanson
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