– MERRY CHRISTMAS –

2011 has been a very good year for all of us. We certainly count our blessings once again as we look back on all the great things we were able to do this year.

Last spring Julie spent 15 days in France with 14 of her classmates and two French teachers. She toured Paris first, touring several of the historical sites and museums, also visiting Normandy to see the D-Day beaches. Then, she spent some time with her host sister Laureline and her family in Avignon. Julie learned a lot about daily life in France and attended school with her. Finally, she visited several more historical sites by bus, ending in Nice on the Mediterranean, where everyone finally got their beach vacation! In her own words, “It was a very enjoyable and educational trip.”

While Julie was in France, Donna, Chuck, and Liisa spent some time in Las Vegas. Chuck was attending a business convention and figured it would be fun to capitalize on Liisa’s spring break and have her and Mom join. Donna didn’t need a lot of convincing to go along, but Liisa was a little reluctant at first. Once she got there she had a great time sight seeing with Mom as her veteran tour guide. Dad appreciated coming back to his hotel suite and having family time after a day of sessions, manning the booth, speaking and networking.

In June we took a family vacation closer to home. We went to Door County for a week of fun in the woods. Well, we stayed at a resort (The Rushes) in the woods. Because of Chuck changing jobs last year, he didn’t have enough earned vacation to take the full week so he took off Tuesday and Thursday while working remotely the other days while the girls went out and had a good time around the beautiful peninsula in Wisconsin. On the “off days” and during the evenings the family enjoyed walks in the woods, a hands on art studio, canoeing, and just being tourists. It wasn’t one of our most exotic destinations, but it was definitely memorable.

On the homefront, we gave the kitchen a face lift with new counter tops and cabinet refacing. The original cabinets were approaching 30 years old and had problems with hinges, mildew damage in places, and generally looking kind of crappy. The color scheme was still fairly up to date which is probably the only reason we didn’t do this sooner. The girls helped pick out the color scheme. The goal was to have everything done in time for Julie’s graduation party on the 4th of July weekend. We placed our order late in May and it was going to be close… Over the course of a week (one of the few Chuck was not traveling on business) the contractor came in, ripped out everything but the frames, sanded everything down, put on a nice new laminate, new doors & drawers, corian countertop, sink and fixtures. It looks (and works great) – just in time for Julie’s graduation.

Yes, Julie graduated from Appleton West High School – with honors. Lots of family showed up for the party in early July. The weather was fabulous as we ate outside under the tent. It was great to see so many people, many of whom had traveled long distances. Thank you everyone! The weekend was filled with activities including a Timber Rattlers baseball game, a trip to the National Railroad Museum, Bay Beach amusement park in Green Bay, and of course fireworks. A huge thanks to Donna for pulling all the plans together!

As summer turned to fall, we got Julie off to college. She started her freshman year at Michigan Tech University in Houghton Michigan where she’s a Chemical Engineering Major. There are lots of new challenges and lifestyle changes and she seems to have adapted well – as we all have. At first there were lots of email, phone calls, text messages, and even postal mail going back and forth, but it has calmed down to an occasional quick status update. She made a quick weekend visit home in October and a week for Thanksgiving which included one weekend in Marquette so we could visit with grandparents. The house definitely feels a lot emptier without her, which makes us appreciate the visits even more.

Julie isn’t the only one who had a change of academic lifestyle. Liisa switched from Appleton West High School to The Academy, a private Cambridge International school,  this fall. The smaller environment seems to be suiting her well. She’s motivated, less stressed, and challenged. It’s great to see her not only enjoying school, but thriving.

Labor Day weekend was Dad’s annual pilgrimage to Atlanta GA for Dragon*Con (big nerd-fest.) This is the third year he’s gone with his podcasting co-host and co-author from South Carolina, Kreg Steppe. Among the traditional activities of doing a live podcast show, seeing friends and celebrities of TV/movies/books/etc, they were selected to do a session on webmail security. However, the highlight was when their podcast “Technorama” won a Parsec Award.

In November, Liisa and Dad earned their second degree black belt after two years of black belt training. We spent September and October working 1-2 extra (intense) training sessions in preparation for the test at the end of October. It wasn’t easy and at times both had thoughts of delaying or giving up, but they inspired each other to keep going. Dad is very proud of Liisa. Thanks to everyone who showed up in early November for the graduation ceremony.

Work is still going well for Mom and Dad. Mom has a new position in IT at Plexus. This came up after one of the other IT employees resigned. She’s still using her experience with JD Edwards software (that’s the software that drives practically all the business at Plexus.) She’s still very busy and enjoying the new role, except when the pager goes off.

After Dad’s job change from Plexus to ServiceNow last year, he’s settling in to the work-from-home lifestyle. He spent the first half of the year working with GE then was assigned to Johnson & Johnson on their software deployment. Everyone asks about travel – it averages about 1 week/month (out Mon, back Fri) so not too bad. It’s a little higher when he gets called to backfill for some of the training instructors (a nice diversion).

Again, a very good year and blessings to remember (and who to thank for them) at this time of year.

Merry Christmas

–Chuck, Donna, Julie, and Liisa