Greetings to friends and family near and far:
We are squeaking in under the wire to send you holiday greetings for 2010 and all best wishes for health and happiness in 2011. Here is an update on the family:
Anne
retired in 2007, but almost three years later to the day, went back to
work at the State Department. While happy being retired, she said the
college fund was stagnating and needed a boost. She was offered a job
working on American cultural centers in a new unit she heads of four
people. The new work pace is mellower than her last job. She can leave
the office at 4PM (beating the traffic home to Reston, VA) and she
telecommutes on Wednesdays so she can manage kids' ortho appts and such.
She made her first work trip to Casablanca, Marrakesh, Cairo,
Alexandria, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Nov 3-13 to see how our cultural
centers in those cities are faring. She reported that all are in need
of more human and funding resources, although the federal budget deficit
makes near-term hopes for more resources slim. Her next trip is to
Jakarta, January 7-14, to check out a dramatic new center there, @america .
Our
almost-13-year old daughter Emily started at Herndon Middle School, and
loves it. She's very social and self-possessed so swims in the stream
easily; she's in honors English and history and doing fine academically.
She enjoys dabbling in crafts, her music gadgets and reading for fun.
Fifteen-year old (on Dec 30) son Steven just started Herndon High School and is also doing well. He is in the challenging honors history/English class that is team-taught as a block course by wonderful teachers. He really enjoys it. He's very into photography and computers for inventing, filmmaking, architecture and the like. Tony is working as a software engineer writing code at Northrop Grumman. He really enjoys his work and rides his bike about ten miles round-trip each day to and from work. He even rides in the winter, unless the trails are too snow-covered. For fun he likes to do carpentry projects like building a bridge for the back yard. He just finished a big, folding table for his slot car race track (see photo). For the many on this list who know Anne's mom, Jean Stenzel, just a note to say she is doing very well in her San Clemente home. She just got an iPhone so is keeping up with the times! We hope you enjoy the attached slide show giving some of the highlights of our year and a look at how the kids have matured in 12 short months. We all hope that you and yours are well and happy and that the new year brings joy and good health to everyone. |