A PROJECT!!!

Hallelujah!!! Jim will begin a new project tomorrow morning in Flint, MI with GMAC. Sounds like it might be kind of short term, but infinitely better than nothing!

Nerd Gene Alive and Well

Thankfully, our kids are proud to be nerds. We're so glad that (at least so far) the stigma of being smart is nothing of which to be ashamed.

Esme has really taken to reading over the last year, and we are sometimes surprised at her choice of reading material. Typically I try to choose shorter chapter books for her, so she has uncomplainingly read several of The Littles books, some of the Bailey School Kids stories, and some of the Magic Tree House series. However, lately she has been wandering off the "approved" reading list, choosing her own material. It started with her diving headfirst into the Charlie Brown 'Cyclopedia set from my childhood; then she moved on to the Children's Dictionary, which she spent countless hours looking through and tracking Jim or me down to explain her most newly discovered word. A few days ago she chose The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe from her brother's bookcase, and has been plowing through it, faithfully dog-earing a page every time she puts it down. My five-year-old daughter is reading C. S. Lewis.

Aidan, while he prefers the Lego catalog and his Star Wars and Indiana Jones novelizations to most other reading material for entertainment's sake, also has his little quirks. At school he has been working very hard to read Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, as it is worth a lot of Reading Counts points. I tried to read the first chapter and it is practically incomprehensible - but he's reading it nonetheless. The local Rotary Club gave the third graders up-to-date dictionaries yesterday, which include all sorts of reference information - maps, the periodic table, etc. - and he has been perusing that as well.

Hooray for reading, the gateway to everything else.

Yes, I AM an April Fool.

My "dear" brother left a message on our voice mail this morning, while Jim was on a business call and I was on the treadmill: "I have news. Call me."

"News" at this point, given that Cathy was in premature labor a couple of weeks ago, seemed obvious, so as soon as I got off the treadmill, I called Scott's cell phone. No answer. I called Mom and Dad at home. No answer. I called Mom's cell phone. No answer. I called my sister in Minnesota, who knew nothing and who is now really mad that I disturbed her twice while she was trying to get ready for work. I called Scott a few more times. No answer. I called his home phone, which Cathy answered. "News? What news?"

Duh. April Fool - as if I needed telling.

It must be said that while we do KNOW today is April Fool's day, it is also Jim's birthday...and that is how we think of it around here. Jim's niece's baby is due today, also, so I think we should be forgiven our stupidity.

Happy good wishes to Cathy and Jenilee, and we'll look forward to the times Emily and Chloe decide to arrive.

Tax Man Appeased

We received a lovely form letter today from the IRS, stating the following:

"We are pleased to tell you we did not make any changes to the tax reported on your return."

Hallelujah! We sufficiently proved our 2006 charitable contributions.

Out Like a Lion

We're having a little snow today. It's not sticking, but it's cold out there.

Thursday IBM laid off 5,000 U. S. employees. We are prayerfully thankful that Jim survived the cut; and also prayerfully hopeful that he can have some job security. We are still waiting to hear about the same three possible projects - Astra Zeneca in Manchester, England; the U. S. Department of Education in Washington, D. C.; and a bank in Toronto, Canada. All of them have start dates around the beginning of April, so we should hear something soon.

Jim will be 37 in just a couple of days. Please send him birthday greetings, if you get a chance: jwlowry@att.net.

Parent-teacher conferences were mid-March and I was proud. Both children had excellent report cards, their teachers are very pleased with their performance, and so are we. Aidan gave a presentation as part of his conference - with PowerPoint slides and everything. He even wore a tie.

Both kids are trucking right along with their AWANA programs. They have both finished the main body of their memorization work for the year and are working on review material. They're also both looking forward to this week's carnival.

We're looking forward to warmer weather, which will eventually mean that the kids can stop wearing and/or carting their hats, mittens, boots, snowpants and winter coats to school every single day in creation.


I made this quilt for my soon-to-be niece, Emily Anne Hollopeter. Mom quilted it. Thanks, Mom!


Aidan took the "Shutterbugs" class at the Frederik Meijer Gardens in early March. It was a dark and rainy day, so most of their pictures were taken indoors. We think he did a great job with this flower:


Aidan also took this picture of the butterflies' traveling cases! Yeah, we know the butterflies don't need luggage. :)

This picture of the Gardens' main tropical greenhouse gave us a very "grey-day" feeling:

The third and fourth grades' music concert also took place in March. Here Aidan's class is singing a song and playing their boomwhackers in time to the music.

They are quite the young musicians. I really enjoyed myself.

Aidan clearly enjoyed himself, too, despite his moaning and complaining before the event took place.

A big smile for Mom before the concert got started.

Esme at breakfast on a school day. She still won't eat her cereal with milk, and it still takes her forever and a day to eat even a handful of cereal in the morning. *Sigh*

I just finished this quilt for Esme's kindergarten teacher's new baby, who will be born in early May. We will miss Mrs. Morrell while she is away on maternity leave, but we are happy for her and her family! (Mom quilted this one, too. Thanks, Mom!)

Mom also quilted this one. What a great mom she is. :) This baby quilt is for a friend's baby, due in early June.

The grand finale at Aidan's music concert. Try as I might, I can't figure out how to get Blogger to put my pictures in the right order.

Singing and motioning, they all did a great job.

Yeah, right, he didn't have any fun at all. Thanks to the third and fourth grade staff and students, who worked so hard to produce such a cool concert.

Quick Update

Hi everybody! We have all been really busy and the last couple of weeks have included a lot of noteworthy stuff...but I only have time for a brief note now!

Jim is still looking for a project. Please hope and pray with us that he is assigned billable work soon. Possibilities at the moment include an assignment in Toronto, one with the Dept. of Education in Washington, D. C., and one with Astra-Zeneca in Manchester, England.

I have several projects going right now:

• Working for my cousin and friend Geraldine Thornton, assembling Mayflower society documentation and working on general genealogy for her.
• Working with the sexton of Oakwood cemetery in Lowell, compiling and editing his book about the early businessmen in Lowell.
• Finishing the transcription and cataloguing of family letters from the 1930s through the 1950s - and the scanned images that go along with them.
• Promoting myself (!) for a possible new genealogy client - finally the brochures and ad at the Kent County GenWeb are paying off.
• Keeping up with transcribing the obituaries I've requested over the last several months for my own research on the Byers and Clay families.

Not to mention - you know - motherhood and housekeeping and all that.

Please keep my sister-in-law Cathy in your prayers - Baby Emily is a little too anxious to join us here on the outside. Cathy went into labor early last week; at the hospital they were able to stop it, but her doctor has ordered that she no longer work, so she won't be teaching the rest of the school year. She needs to rest and relax at home, which is tough for all of us. Feel good, Cathy and Emily!

Esme Gets Some Ink

Esme and some classmates appeared in this month's BC Connection, a publication of our school district.

Busy February

Well, I have sent off the paperwork to the IRS for their review of our 2006 charitable contributions, and I know they received it, but I haven't heard back from them yet. Further bulletins as events warrant. Also our 2008 taxes have been filed, as have those for Jim's mom, who finally let me do hers for her this year. It is a crying shame, how much a CPA charges an elderly woman with no income, to file her taxes.

Jim is still working on looking for a new project. At the moment there are several possibilities, one in the US in the public sector, though we don't know with what company yet. There is another possibility with a bank in Lagos, Nigeria, a contract that should last a couple of months. A third possibility is with Astra-Zeneca, a pharmaceutical company in Manchester, England, a contract that could last as long as a year. We are all hoping that somewhere a contract is being signed that will get Jim billing hours really soon!

Parent-teacher conferences are Thursday for both children. The third graders will be giving their own presentations as part of the conference, for which they must dress "professionally," so Aidan is looking forward to doing his part and actually being there for the big secret that is a parent-teacher conference. I really hope we don't disappoint him. :) Aidan got in some trouble on Sunday during Kidmo (our church's current Sunday School curriculum) because he was not participating and actually disobeying the adult leaders. His dad and I had a long talk with him on Sunday and we hope that (a) now he understands why Sunday School and AWANA are so important, and (b) he will behave himself and participate in the future. In the meantime he is losing some of his privileges. At school Aidan is doing well and having fun, though I think he and the three other boys in his reading group wish they were reading something other than "Little House in the Big Woods". Today Aidan has a dentist appointment, just a regular cleaning, and Saturday he is taking a photography class at the Meijer Gardens, which we hope he enjoys.

Esme has been reading and drawing a lot...mostly to do with fairies, of course. She always has a bunch to say about school and is doing well and having fun. We have been working hard at spelling, which doesn't seem to come naturally to Esme...she has been allowed to do "inventive spelling" for too long and now we are paying for it. I am anxious to hear what Mrs. Morrell has to say about her work lately when I go to conferences on Thursday. Esme and I will be taking a butterflies craft class together at the Meijer Gardens next weekend, which we're looking forward to.

The seasons of Monk and Psych are now over, and we were disappointed to hear that the last season of Monk will take place this summer. If they're going to stop making the show, though, we at least hope they will solve Trudy's murder, once and for all. The Closer is also over for this season, and there is only one more episode of Burn Notice. Good thing we have a lot of DVDs to catch up on, right?

I am still working on lots of genealogy research for my cousin and friend Geraldine Thornton, and I just finished a contract with a friend of hers, Geri Elliott. Both ladies have asked for brochures to hand out to their friends, for which I am grateful. So I have been pretty busy and I actually have had a little income this year. I'm also going to be working on an editing and formatting project with the sexton of Oakwood Cemetery in Lowell, MI - he's working on a second guided historical tour of the cemetery.

Aidan and I finished getting all his Legos sorted out and organized. Our system looks quite nice and he has been having fun building all sorts of weird things.

The groundhog was right, and we're in the middle of those six more weeks of winter. Today it is nice and sunny...but super, super cold. The kids haven't been having outdoor recess lately because the windchill has been below zero.

We had the definite pleasure of visiting with Jim's sister Cindy and her husband Gerry yesterday, who were visiting from their home in Thompson, Manitoba. We were glad to have the chance to talk with them, and are very grateful for their advice! Here they are in Grandma's kitchen with the kids:


As members of the Public Museum of Grand Rapids, we were invited to opening night of the new dinosaur exhibit, which is really cool for kids...if you have a chance to go over the next few months, the kids will love it. After touring the exhibit, Aidan and Esme rode the carousel.


Dinner was also part of the event. We were able to choose between brontosaurus meatloaf and pterodactyl on foccacia - I think it might have been beef and chicken, though! Aidan chose to be a veggiesaurus, though, and had mostly salad.

The beautiful, sweet-smelling flowers in this photograph were my Valentine's Day gift...thank you, James! The lemons and grapefruits in this photograph were a very unexpected gift from a distant cousin of mine, Milt Sprowl, and his family in Scottsdale, Arizona. We're still planning on making fresh lemonade with the lemons, and Jim and Aidan have been very much enjoying the grapefruit. (I have to abstain from grapefruit due to warnings printed on my cholesterol medicine.) What a great thing to receive, in the middle of a Michigan winter!

We did have a few days near the beginning of February when the weather warmed up a little bit and stayed clear. We took advantage of the sunshine to pick up a hot dog dinner and drive to the airport viewing area one evening. It was nice. We miss that. Here's Aidan, happy to be hot-dogged and plane-watching.

We visited Mom and Dad a couple times in February...you can move out of your parents' house, but you'll still need them! In early February, Dad helped Aidan shape his AWANA Grand Prix car on all of his fancy woodworking equipment. Jim and Aidan finished the car - sanding and painting, weighting and wheeling. Aidan finished every single heat in which he participated in third place. But in watching the rest of the entries, now we know what to do next year!

Last weekend Mom helped me finish a baby quilt for my soon-to-be niece, Emily Anne...and we discussed and prepared for several other quilting projects! We missed Dad, as he was hard at work in the Northern Indiana maplewoods, drilling holes and running tubing...it's syrup time again, folks!

Stay warm and watch for a new update in early April!

Two Thousand SIX?!?!?!

Wish me luck in my crusade versus the IRS in their "review" of our 2006 charitable contributions. *Sigh*

It's a Small World After All

No one I have ever met outside the confines of my own family has ever even heard of Churubusco, Indiana, where my parents grew up. Thus I was so shocked I gave myself whiplash this morning when I heard Jim LaRue, a friend of ours at church, mention Churubusco as his hometown while telling the congregation about his mission work with Youth for Christ here in Grand Rapids. After church I caught up to his wife, Christine, to ask her whether Jim really meant Churubusco, Indiana when he said that...and she said "Yes! Turtle Town, USA, right?" Oh...my....gosh. Sure enough, I asked Jim what year he graduated from Churubusco High School, and his response was "1971." "Did you know Marcia McEowen?" "Yes! The McEowens were particular friends of ours!" "She's my mom." We didn't have long to talk about it, but vowed to soon!


I called my mom, who remembers Jim LaRue and his family well, as does my dad, who was in band with some of Jim's brothers, who apparently played the sousaphone. :) So anyway, we and the LaRues have lots of catching up to do. See? It really IS a small world!

Last week on Facebook one of the "People I May Know" was Aimee Cretsinger, whom I don't know, but her last name seemed familiar from my genealogy research. I did some checking in my omnipresent family file, and there she was, wife of Reggie Cretsinger, a distant cousin of ours in the Byers branch (my grandma's mom was a Byers). It turns out she has always been friends with my cousins Mindy, Taryn and Travis, and still goes to church at Churubusco Nazarene with Travis...and none of them knew they're related. Wow!

Here at home everything's been humming along frantically.

Jim spent a few weeks in December and January working on a contract with Navistar out of Naperville, Illinois. He started out the contract driving his Mercedes-Benz C240, which developed severe electrical problems. While in Chicago, these problems stopped his skid/slide prevention program from stopping his car in icy conditions, and he was in a minor accident (no one was hurt, nor was the exterior of the car damaged). After several go-rounds with the Mercedes dealer, which claimed variously that there was no problem, that the problem was already solved, and that the problem would cost $big to fix; Jim decided to cut his losses and traded in the M-B for a Mini Cooper Clubman.

Minnie Pepper (this is her name) is "pepper white" (sort of a creamy color) has a "cargo bay" that really isn't as large as that sounds, and a "club door" which makes it easy for the kids to slip into the back seat. She has "mood lighting," a secret compartment, and much more storage space than you would think, looking at her from the outside. She's also very easy to drive, and has several safety features - including airbags about everywhere you look. Nice car. Meanwhile our grocery-getting HHR is chugging right along, still doing great, thank goodness.

Now Jim is working overtime at home on a proposal for a contract with Nationwide Insurance in Columbus. If IBM wins the work he will be the project manager there; if not there are several other projects on the back burner, including one in St. Louis.

Aidan has settled back into the school routine and just received his report card for the second marking period. I'm happy to report all A's as usual, with room for improvement in only two minor categories, on which he has promised to inject some extra effort. Aidan's teacher, Mrs. Throop, tragically lost her baby girl Gracie to miscarriage at the beginning of December, and has decided to take an extended leave of absence for the rest of the school year. Mrs. DeRidder has been hired to complete the school year with the third graders; the kids like her and she is doing a good job. I am still volunteering in Aidan's class on Tuesday mornings; mostly helping with spelling. The kids, I reiterate, are all SO nice and polite, and it's a pleasure to help them.

At home Aidan is up to his usual stuff: Legos, computer games, reading and reading and reading, and much to his chagrin, homework. He's particularly enjoying the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series in books, Star Wars: The Clone Wars on TV, Nee-Nee and Papa's Looney Tunes on DVD, and the new Disney World of Cars website on the Internet. We have a plugged-in kid, but his screen time is limited and he still loves traditional "reading". He has 371 Reading Counts! points at school.

Esme missed school on Friday due to illness, but she is usually ready and raring to go to school. She loves kindergarten and Mrs. Morrell often gives her extra responsibilities. Esme began the Reading Counts! program last fall, which kindergarteners don't typically do, and now she has delved into chapter books, as well - she was whipping through picture books and early readers too fast for Mrs. Morrell to keep up with the Reading Counts quizzes! Her teacher also makes sure she gets a chance to be the "teacher" at one of the stations once in a while, so Esme gets to help the other kids with their reading skills, too. I volunteer in Esme's class every second Thursday; they are learning a lot and they are quite well-behaved, usually very caring and kind.

At home Esme is doing better at doing her own thing, rather than watching whatever the rest of us are up to. She is currently on a fairy craze - her favorite books right now are the Pixie Hollow chapter books, her favorite movie is Tinkerbell, and her favorite website is Disney's Pixie Hollow. Typically she's only allowed to watch one movie a week, so Mondays after school she always wants to sit right down and watch Tinkerbell, surrounded by her Tinkerbell toys. This week, though, she got the flu on Friday, so not only was she allowed to have a TV in her room to watch Tinkerbell, but she also watched Toy Story, Toy Story II, Matilda, Charlotte's Web, Curious George, and Pocahontas. Whew. She got sick right after she woke up in the morning, so she didn't really feel inclined to sleep, but she had to stay in bed. Movies helped to keep her mind off of puking, poor girl. She is just fine now!

We have returned to our "old" Sunday school class at church, and it's great to be back among our "old" friends. Having just finished a study of the end times, we're looking forward to seeing what Lynn Ball will have in store for us when we return to class next week. On the first Sunday of the month, I spend the Sunday school hour in the nursery, getting my baby fix; Jim spends the Sunday school hour in the kindergarten room, playing "bad cop" to Karen Neimeiyer's "good cop". They're a tough bunch of 5-year-olds, let me tell you.

We're glad that the winter TV season has brought us partially out of the fall "nothing on TV" funk we were in. Burn Notice is back on Thursday nights, and Monk and Psych on Fridays. We were disappointed to learn that Doctor Who won't be back until 2010, and have no idea when Robin Hood, The Sarah Jane Adventures or Torchwood might make a reappearance. We are, however, looking forward to new episodes of Dog the Bounty Hunter this month. Last night we watched My Big Redneck Wedding, but I will never watch that again, I cried from a mixture of being amused and embarrassed to even be watching it. But we did have a reason...Marge's Donut Den provided the wedding cake and Marge has been this episode's strongest advertiser the last few months. It was probably the only episode of that show that will ever take place in Wyoming, Michigan. I hope.

I have a contract doing genealogy research for my cousin and friend Geraldine this winter, and I'm looking forward to learning more about her folks. I met her daughter Rhonda a couple of weeks ago, too! I still have eight copies of The Glander Family of Preble County, Ohio from the last printing. Anybody interested? In what spare time I have (which isn't much, lately), I've been tackling the Byers family, and I've actually got about 50 pages of a book started on that branch. Shhh...don't tell anyone, but I've also got Clay research going at the same time. I know, tooooooo many projects.

I'm also gearing up to finish preparing our tax returns in the next couple of days - federal, Michigan and Pennsylvania - and shipping off that pile of paperwork to the next number cruncher in line.

Oh...and Aidan and I are working on a new Lego storage system, involving many little drawers, a few big drawers, a file box (instructions) and No More Ziploc Bags! It's turning out to be a very time-consuming project, but one feels very accomplished to see all those little pieces sorted into such neat little groups.

Well, a teeny bit of our snow is melting today, so I have high hopes for Punxsutawney Phil tomorrow. Here's to winter's end for this go-round, everybody!

And now, it's Sunday afternoon Homework Time!

Sorry, folks, I didn't take any pictures in January. I promise I will in February!!!