UGH! I’m not sure I’ll ever get out of this cycle of making updates so infrequently! It is what it is I guess. Anyway, here’s a quick update on what’s been going on with our family.

• Like most everyone else, the biggest dynamic of our lives over the past year has been the overreaction to the Wuhan-Chinese Coronavirus. Given what we now know about the origin of the virus and how the virus behaves, I really don’t have any problem referring to it in those terms. More and more information comes out all the time, specifically about the people that we were supposed to trust for information on our health and how to combat this virus and it is becoming more clear that (surprise, surprise) it was nothing more than a power grab by politicians and a news media organization with their own agendas which didn’t include looking out for the well-being of anybody. Okay, that’s enough about that. I’ll get off of my soapbox.

• My employment has not been impacted that much because of the “pandemic”, and I thank God for that. In July of 2020, I changed roles and moved from the Sales team into our Global Business Development team, which seemed to be more of a natural fit for what I was doing. I was thankful for the move. However, in early 2021, my supervisor was let go and I was moved temporarily back into the Sales team while the BD team is being reorganized.
• Sonya has just recently (semi) retired from watching kids. It was just getting to a point where she needed to move on to something else after 21 years and probably 25ish different kids over the years.
• Sonya and I were asked to serve on the board for Friends of Indiana Youth, which oversees Midwest Summer Camp, which we have been a part of for several years. I have been involved with a website overhaul and Sonya was put in charge of social media messaging. It’s been an exciting experience!
• Zach will be starting his third year at Purdue, West Lafayette and is really enjoying college. He changed his major from the Engineering path to Marketing at the Krannert School of Management. After a year and a half of Engineering classes he decided that he wasn’t really that interested in Engineering and chose to make the move to a career path that he would much rather enjoy. He has been dating a beautiful young lady, Hadassah, who he met his freshman year in a study group. I’m so very proud of the man that he is becoming and excited for his future.
• Eli just graduated from Greenwood High School. So proud of him! Next week he starts work for a local company, Endress+Hauser, which is world-wide supplier of process automation equipment (fluid pressures, levels, sensors, etc.). They have a wonderful apprenticeship program which he is currently a candidate for. He’ll work for them over the summer and then (hopefully) start work in the program in the fall. He will work 3 days a week, go to school 2 days a week, be paid 40 hours a week by the company and have all of his schooling, supplies, tools paid for by the company. He’ll have an associate degree after 3 years and have the option to continue work with E+H with several more opportunities in the future. It’s an exciting time for him.
• Meagan is the newest addition to our family. She is a sweet girl who we are currently in the process of adopting from Bulgaria. She enjoys running in track and field events and has even played the cello in the past. Sonya and I both are very excited to bring her into our home, to get to know her better, to provide her with opportunities that she otherwise would not have had, to just be a kid, and to watch her grow.
  • I have not written too much about the adoption, but I have created a series of videos documenting the process. The adoption process is an exercise in patience development, even without a world-wide pandemic going on, so it’s been an extremely frustrating process with several months of additional waiting. You can see information about the adoption HERE.
• Savannah just wrapped up her freshman year at Greenwood High School. She did very well this year, academically. She also excelled in tennis this year! It was so much fun to watch her play and to grow and we’re excited to see her advance over the next 3 years. She turned 15 last month and is starting to look forward to driving. Also, she decided not to go on to marching band last year.
• Seth just turned 14 years old and has wrapped up his time Greenwood Middle School. He had a quandary, whether or not to go into marching band. Ultimately he made the decision not to go on and concentrate on his academics. He will also be involved in tennis in the fall and we’re anxious to see how he does. He did very well playing on the middle school team. Like a lot of teenage boys, he’s nuts about Legos and he’s gotten into some games with his friends (maybe a little too much).
• Vivian continues to be our comic relief. She is (almost) always very happy and strives to make people smile and laugh. She just finished 2nd grade after moving from Westwood Elementary to Southwest Elementary in the Greenwood school program, and is doing very well – advancing so much this year! For a while (both before and after the Wuhan Shutdown), she and her dad were making it a habit to go to Waffle House every Saturday. Dad had to put a stop to that due to an excess of “COVID weight”. She also just started attending a special-needs ballet class which has been very fun to watch! She is really enjoying that.