Posted Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Wendi and I extend hearty Holiday wishes to you and yours. Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year of 2015!
Just a bit of news: our family and friends suffered a series of deaths this year, mainly in September and October. Wendi’s health has not been the greatest either. But we are happy to be still together after 32 years of marriage.
Our son and his wife are expecting their first baby, due on March 12, 2015. Gender is yet unknown. This will be our first real grandchild (we have several unofficial ones through friends), so we are excited about that. Also, I (Charlie) have signed up for my first full marathon (26.2 miles, for those unfamiliar) which I will be running in Rockford, Illinois on May 31, 2015. So far I have run two half-marathons and several shorter races, so this will be a whole new adventure.
Our old car died, and we now have a 2001 Dodge Grand Caravan in good condition. This is my first minivan (Wendi talked me into it), and I love it! Also, we had no working oven in the kitchen for nearly a full year; only the stovetop worked. In November of this year, a friend found an oven to be given away; he delivered it to our house, and another friend installed it. It turned out to be the nicest oven we have ever had, so that was a big blessing! Often we don’t really appreciate certain things until we lose them for a while. It is so wonderful to be able to bake casseroles, cakes, or whatever we want again!
This website has been “in ruins” for quite some time. Design-wise, much of the site is still in an older version and also needs going over; some pages should be updated or rewritten entirely, while others serve no purpose anymore and should be removed. While the Holiday season is busy by nature, hopefully the New Year will afford the opportunity to fix up the site. Check this page every now and then for updates, changes, or more news.