C & T Spears - OK Clan

Christmas Letter 2018

Once again, the end of the year has caught me unprepared! Terry and I wish you all a BLESSED Christmas and new

year. We are aware that not all of us can have a merry holiday season, but recognizing and celebrating the birth of our

Savior can be a blessing, full of joy even in the tough times. In that vein, please remember us around December 22. In

the last 26 years, we have learned to navigate through our lives without Wendy’s physical presence on most days, but the

anniversary of her death is still a hard day to get through.

This year has had an added difficulty for us. Terry has been diagnosed with dementia (a neuro- psychologist

has labeled it as Alzheimers) .I guess the signs have been there for several years, but I have been able to work

around them and ignore them until just before Christmas last year. Several of you are already praying for us and

God has helped us through several difficult situations and helped me adjust my my responses to Terry’s

situations. Please pray that we can continue to communicate and that I will be alert when I need to. He seems

to still recognize people, although maybe not recall their names. So in case you want to visit with him, now is

the time. House phone is 405-693-7332. My cell is 918-327-9506. We are nearly always together. Or if you can

make a visit to the OKC area give us a call to make sure we are home.

We managed to have a whole family vacation in Maine this summer. We rented a huge old farm house with 8

bedrooms and a sleeping porch. We took day trips to Bar Harbor, Acadia National Park, Fort Knox (in Maine!), and

some art galleries in Blue Hill and ate lobster every chance we had. But the best part was getting to see our newest

grand daughter, ”Reggie” for the first time and be there for Ev’s 4th birthday!

And now for the annual report on family events! The Cowley’s have had a BIG year. Cameron graduated from

high school (We got to fly to Orlando for that!) She is about to finish her first semester at a community college and

she got her drivers license. She does some commissioned art work and is very talented in that area. Annnd… they all

finally got to move into their new house! Heather and Darren are still doing some finishing touches, but after a year

of building headaches they are greatly relieved to be in the house. One finishing touch was that they made their own

beautiful counter tops with epoxy.. Darren got a promotion to Senior Manager Systems Engineer at Harris Company..

As a Master Gardener, Heather teaches quite a few classes at the Orange County Extension Office. She also

participated in another successful presentation of Handel’s Messiah the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

Libby and Pat Schaper seem to be just as busy as ever even though the kids are starting to leave the nest. Libby

competed for and got a promotion to managing partner at 3Share. Pat is staying busy with his job at IBM doing Hertz

computer work. He also works the scoreboard at the Thunder games in Oklahoma City. Tyler finished his first round

of Naval classes in nuclear engineering right on schedule. He had a long period of guard duty and other menial duties

while they did his background check and has now started a new round of classes. He gets leave to come home for

Christmas again this year! We are taking advantage of that as long as it lasts. Leah is doing well in her second year at

Wichita State. She has joined a sorority, which has helped her get better acquainted with classmates and to study

better. She also likes her job in the produce department at Target; she gets to use her art skills drawing pictures of fruits

and vegetables for the signs. Pacey is a high school senior this year. As she has been keeping up with her studies and

finishing up her last marching band season and cross country season, she has been busy with college applications. She is

hoping her decision on the best offer will be soon. She also got to play flute with the orchestra for the drama

department’s play, Mary Poppins! Cohen is in his last year at middle school. He is in the band’s percussion section, so

he moves around to different instruments during the concerts. He also got to go on the field at one of the high school

football games. He thinks he will study architecture in college, so may try some drafting classes while in high school.

Bri and Bridget’s year has been eventful as well. As if life were not crazy enough with a baby and toddler, they bought a house. It is tiny, so they will have to be pretty minimalistic or as much as you can be with two growing kids. Also, Bri got a new job with Maine DOT. She is the GIS coordinator. Since she has to drive to work in Augusta now, they had to buy a second car. Ev is already in PreK and Reggie goes to a day care a few days a week (They were able to get in to the day care where she knew the ladies, so she was not too afraid.) when Bridget is teaching one of her two classes at Bates College or doing research and writing on the Violence Against Women Act Measuring Effectiveness Initiative at the University of Southern Maine. I think her next writing project will be her doctoral thesis. We are all pulling for her to get that finished!

Tyler Schaper