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| View from the back of our new house. |
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| The front of our new house. |
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| Breezy, Hetty, Spears cousins Lloyd and David, Libs! |
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| Libby's family, do you think this is posed? |
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| Darren when his Seminoles are winning. |
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| Beautiful Cameron and her 13-year old 'tude! |
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| Briddy cheering for her Red Sox. |
Our biggest news is we are changing addresses between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We will be back and forth some, so if you have already sent us mail by the time you get this we will still probably get it. Our new address is 4401 Shoreline Dr., Norman OK 73026. Who would have thought an address in Oklahoma could be called Shoreline, but there IS a little lake behind our house.
I snitched these pics from the kids’ Facebook pages. It is hard to get real printed pictures any more, but we get the digital ones more often. We have had another eventful year. We started the year with the flu, so our visit to see Terry’s dad got postponed even longer. We finally got out to Roswell in March and April, but Otis’ health was not improving, he still had a lot of back pain and was falling often, so we began to wonder if he would make it to his 100th birthday on December 8, 2013. He made it a little past 99 1/2. Heather and Cameron had flown in to visit us and we were about to head out for their last visit with Grandad/Great Grandad when we got the call that he had passed away. The sadness of losing him was tempered by the fact that he had lived a long full life and was prepared to go. His wife Christine took such good care of him, we are sure it is part of why he lived so long. She has now moved from Roswell, NM to a suburb of Portland, OR, to be closer to some of her children and grandchildren, and she loves it! And what a change in climate for her that has been!
Terry officially retired from UOP on July 1. So far, he has stayed retired and I think is enjoying the freedom. So for now we are both busy deciding what to move and what to give away and what to throw away. There may be another round of that as we see what will fit into the new house.
Heather and her family are still in Orlando. They are looking for a new place to live, but not too far from the friends they have made in their neighborhood. They want something a little more rural, but they do live in alligator country, so do they want land with a pond? Cameron is finishing up middle school this year. It is not her favorite place to be, so I think she is looking forward to the end of this school year. Darren is still employed by a company that does lots of work for the government. We think he must be a fantastic computer person to have gotten a promotion instead of a layoff since lots of government jobs are being cut. Heather is still involved in the Messiah Choral Society; she does lots of fundraising for them throughout the year and participates in the performance that is free to the public the Sunday after Thanksgiving. She is also into diet and exercise regimes, so she sometimes leads her friends in a good workout.
Libby and her family are always on the go, sometimes in multiple directions. Pat is still in management at Hertz and is also a fantastic computer person. Libby changed employers this year, she is sad that she does not work with some of her good friends at OU, but she also likes the people she works with at 3 Share. She works from home except when she needs to be on site. She is also a fantastic computer person. She participated in the Tough Mudder in Dallas with some of her former OU work friends. They raised a lot of money for the Wounded Warrior Project. Tyler is a sophomore at Norman North High School. He is taking a class that exposes him to engineering of all kinds, and he really likes it, so we guess there will be another engineer in a few years. I’m not sure he has chosen which area yet, but there is time. He is also 16, but not really interested in driving, even though he has had his driving classes. Leah is a freshman at Norman North and can’t wait until she is old enough to get that driver’s license. She is a good student, as well as a very social gal and she plays ice hockey on a traveling team. Pacey is in 7th grade at Whittier Middle School. She is a super student and continues to enjoy cross country running. We managed to get to a few of her runs this year. Cohen is in 3rd grade this year. He is getting better at reading. Since Oklahoma has a law that you have to read at a certain level or stay in 3rd grade, he is getting a lot of extra help at school in hopes of reaching that level in the spring.
Brianna and Bridget are still in California, so we hope to make one more trip out there to enjoy that mild California climate before Bridget gets her doctorate. We might need to plan on a trip when that happens too! They have been enjoying seeing as much of California as they can between work and school. They have camped out in Yosemite a few times. Brianna is into rock climbing, and California has some big rocks to climb. They have some friends that are teaching her the safe way to do it, thankfully. Brianna got promoted from map print production associate to GIS Cartographer Production Specialist for maps.com. She works at the office and at home. She came to Roswell for her grandad’s funeral, and they are both coming for Christmas to see our new house, so we get to see her twice this year.
The ladies bible study group discovered a neat book, All the Parables of the Bible by Herbert Lockyer . There are way more than we could ever be able to study as a group, but he has analyzed them very well and we can look at other sources to see if others agree with him or disagree or just have different explanations. It has opened our eyes to even more exciting things in the Bible. I’ve also discovered a great website: http://119ministries.com. They really concentrate on the fact that the Old Testament is important to understand the New Testament. I’ve enjoyed their teaching very much.
Before we run out of room, we want to wish all of you a great Christmas season and a happy healthy new year! Whether you believe Jesus was born on December 25, was conceived on December 25, or do not believe in Him at all, it seems to be a very special time of year for us all, and we pray that you discover you do believe he is the Son of God and learn to trust him and enjoy the security of knowing him as your Savior. Times may still be tough, but knowing he is going through those tough times beside you can be the biggest comfort you will ever know. He certainly carried us through the loss of Wendy 21 years ago. Although we miss her terribly in our lives today, we look forward to the reunion with her when it is our turn to pass into eternity.
Merry Christmas from Terry and Cheri
