Christmas, 2006!
Unbelievable! It is December, and another year has slipped away. It is funny how every day has 24 hours, yet a year seems to flash by in the blink of an eye. One of the things that I look forward to each year is sitting down and writing to you. It is a peaceful activity that takes me away from the daily/weekly/monthly chores of managing a family. I’d like to think that it is special for you as well.
As has been my agreement with you since I started writing these letters; if you like reading ‘feel good’ holiday letters, sit down and escape the holiday rush as you and I catch up. If you can’t stand reading yet another letter “where all the kids are above average”, then sit and pretend to read it while escaping from whatever is on the top of your to-do list at the moment.
In case you missed last year’s letter, we have moved. Our new address is:
We are in a lovely six-bedroom, seven-bath home that we were able to custom build to accommodate my mother and her sister, as well as my ‘traditional’ family. The basement is a two-bedroom ‘condo’ that has a full bath, kitchen and laundry; in addition to a lovely living area with a beautiful stone fireplace. It really is nice and I hope that my kids are taking note of how to care for their mother in her golden years!
The ‘Ladies’, as Jon calls them, are both doing quite well. Both are as healthy as oxen and ready to tackle another year. Their biggest challenge is deciding which station to watch now that we have over a hundred channels coming into the house. I think their favorite is the Turner Classic Movie Network.
A funny thing happened the other day with the TV. Jon went downstairs to get something from his workroom and came back up mumbling about having to fix the TV. He thought the cable amplifier or some other piece of electronic mumbo-jumbo must have stopped working since the picture was so bad. I went down to check on the ‘Ladies’ and was immediately able to solve the problem. He could have worked all day and never gotten that Clark Gable movie to be the right color since it was originally filmed in B&W! (He hates when I am smarter than him.)
Allison is my beautiful seventh grader. Still a few days short of being a teenager, she has nevertheless taken over controlling our lives. She is on two basketball teams and a travel softball team. It seems that we are always driving to one gym or another. Jon and I truly enjoy watching her play so it is not as onerous as it may sound. The coaches are great and the teammates and their parents are wonderful. They have become our second families, which is a good thing considering how much time we spend with them!
Bill is a college freshman, majoring in Mathematics and Computer Science at Marymount University, a small Catholic school about thirty minutes away. He is living in the dorm and doing quite well. He has a very eclectic course load that includes philosophy and heavy duty math. His e-mails to Jon regularly mention Descartes, Pascal and Leibniz; and to think I studied "Playground Dynamics". He absolutely loves the school and teachers. One of his calculus teachers is the Dean of the department, yet she still teaches undergrad classes. Although we haven't seen the official grades yet, he thinks he'll have a 3.2 at the end of the semester.
His long-time girl friend, Ally, is also at Marymount. She is working on a five year Masters program in Psychology. She was on the Dean's list last year and has just shy of a 3.5 GPA. I think she wants to be a child therapist after graduation.
Jim is a junior at Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh. He is studying Electrical Engineering and is a third year midshipman in the Navy ROTC. I think he is planning to fly helicopters after graduation. He spent the summer in the Persian Gulf on a Navy cruise that included visits to Rome and Bahrain (as well as many days at sea). It sounded like he really enjoyed it.
His big news is that he has asked Lizzie Forster to marry him after graduation. They were high school sweethearts. Lizzie is going to finish her undergrad work at Georgetown (in Foreign Studies) this spring and is planning to start on her JD in the summer. (Which is only marginally better than last summer when she went to Fort Benning to learn how to jump out of airplanes!)
What a year! I just hit 50. Jim's turned 21, Bill is 18 and Allison is days away from 13! Who knew that all these milestones would coincide? I guess this is just God's way of helping me remember a great year! I hope that your holiday is as special as mine has been and that next year is even better.
If you live in the DC area and haven't visited us recently, please call; we'd love to see you! If you are out of town, make plans to visit. One of the great things about this new house is that we have plenty of room for overnight guests.
Have a great Holiday!
Maria