Dear Friends,
"Three... Two... One... Ignition! " Suddenly, the night sky turns light as day and a new sun rises to the east! A skyscraper rides a giant tail of flame into the air. Cloud layers flash red and yellow as this huge rocket ascends. Another space shuttle is off. Seconds later the ground trembles and the air is filled with the roar finally reaching us from the launch pad. By the time we turn around to go home, the shuttle is already two hundred miles away and sixty miles high.
An exciting part of living here is being able to see many of the space shuttle launches from up close. We have gone down to the Cape to watch three night launches this year and they were each really awesome! On the launch pad, the shuttle is so big that it is clearly visible from five miles away. We have taken visitors to these launches whenever we can and have really enjoyed each one of them.
Jessy moved to the other side of the world this year. She now lives in Yokosuka, Japan. Her husband, Mark, is stationed there in the Navy. That's right, she also got married this year! Her and Mark were married in Missouri City, Texas on May 12. Mark was home for about three weeks and then he went back to Japan to rejoin his ship, the USS Midway. Mark and the Midway are now in the Persian Gulf and Jessy came home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. She will be returning to Japan in January.
That makes two of our children who are married and on there own. Bennie and Lisa still live near San Francisco. They have a really nice apartment in Vallejo. Bennie commutes to the Alameda Naval Air Station, where he is stationed. He has nearly an hour's drive each way every day. Lisa is still going to college and working so she is one busy girl.
Lisa, Bennie and Jessy were all here to stay with us for a week last fall. That's the first time since we moved to Florida that both Bennie and Jessy were at home at the same time. Mark was the only one who couldn't make it home then. Jan's parents were here over Thanksgiving too, so we've had lots of company this year. We love to have friends and relatives come to see us!
We even enjoy visits from perfect strangers! Mathieu, a young man from Grasse, France, spent three weeks with us last spring as a part of the foreign exchange program. Mathieu, a twelve year old, came to Ormond Beach with his whole school class. They all stayed with families here and attended school with Joy at Pine Trail Elementary. Then, during the summer, Christine and Valerie came to spend three weeks with us. These two young ladies live and go to school in Nice, France. While they were here, Christine's father, Roland, also came to visit. We really enjoyed showing these young people some of life in the United States and learning something about life in France. Communications were interesting too, as Mathieu did not speak English and Christine and Valerie were just learning the language. None of us speak any French, even though we attended a crash course early in the year. It was a great experience and we loved it!
April is now a senior in high school. She will graduate in June, probably Summa Cum Laude since she is ranked sixth in her class. In her spare time, April manages the girl's basketball team and she has been keeping records for the school's volleyball team, boy's basketball team and for girl's softball team. She has already lettered four times and will get a fifth for managing this year's boy's basketball team. April also runs the church nursery every Sunday for both church services. She has begun to apply for college and has been accepted with honors at North Dakota State University. Her application has also been accepted by the University of Texas at Austin and by Florida State University. She plans to attend UT at Austin.
Joy has taken up the violin with vigor! She has played at several school concerts. Her and April have been working on an at-home Christmas ensemble for us with Joy on the violin and April on the keyboard. Joy was also the hostess for our three visitors from France. As always, she has made three more close friends! Joy has a standing invitation to visit her new friends in Grasse and Nice. Joy is now attending Middle School here and seems to like it. She's doing a science project for school. She also works at "Santaland" a live exhibit of Santa's place and the North Pole put on here every year by the JC's. This is the second year that she has worked at this.
Nicole continues to swim. Point her to some water and she's off. She has been steadily improving her times throughout the year and swims in competition about once a month. She is still at Pine Trail Elementary and enjoys her schoolwork. She has more homework than I ever remember having and more than the others had at her age. Both her and Joy are doing really well at school.
My work keeps me really busy. It’s continually challenging and always interesting. I still travel quite a bit too. This year, I've been to Toronto, Canada, California, Oklahoma (twice), Dallas, Houston, New Orleans and Philadelphia. Jan came with me to New Orleans and we toured the city whenever I didn't have meetings to go to. Otherwise, I've been dabbling in gardening, trying to improve our yard a little and on finishing up the Kaeding Genealogy. The Genealogy is finished and the last books that I have orders for right now will be bound this week. I have been hand binding each book individually so that I can put one together for anyone who orders one. I've been about a year late in getting some of these first ones together, but now that I'm caught up, any new requests shouldn't take so long.
Jan spends lots of time with the YMCA swimming team. She is in charge of registration and the new member contact for the Ormond Beach YMCA Swim Team. She's also been busy handcrafting, as many of you will notice on Christmas morning! Jan has also been working with the church "Projects Group" where she has helped make quilts and other crafts that are sent to needy people or world relief or are used to raise money for the church. She has taken Nicole all over northeastern Florida for swim meets during the year. During the past month, her and Jessy have been going places and doing things in preparation for Christmas too.
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