Ringing in 2011

We've had a wonderful 2010 - a little excitement, many blessings, and lots for which to be thankful.

For the first time in many years, Jim spent the bulk of the year working from home. He spent a little time in a lot of cities this year - Raleigh NC, Warren NJ, Newport Beach CA, Chicago IL, Houston TX, Dallas TX, San Francisco CA, Charlotte NC, Fairfax VA, New York NY. But we were fortunate to have him at home most of the time. He left IBM at the beginning of April to work for Bluestone International, but at the beginning of November was back at IBM. Working from home a lot gave him some perspective on the arrangement of his home office, and we redecorated in that room this year! We removed the desk and task chair, and put two Papasan chairs in that room - a one-seater and a two-seater - along with a Japanese-style floor lamp and a bookcase for storage. He looks quite comfortable in there now, usually sitting in the single Papasan chair with his feet up on the ottoman, a laptop in his lap and three phones within easy reach. :) We often do our bedtime reading in that room as a family now, as well.

Currently Jim is on contract with Mann Financial Global of Chicago and New York.

Aidan "graduated" from elementary school this year when he completed fourth grade, and has moved up to intermediate school and fifth grade. He really loves it. He has a whole set of terrific teachers, and feels challenged and motivated to do his best. No longer is homework time always a horrible experience for anyone in the house - he comes home, has a snack, gets it done and moves on. A typical week's homework includes a three-page spelling packet, six "daily science" activities, and usually some math a couple nights a week. Aidan is also taking private guitar lessons from his school music teacher, and is a member of his school's Art Club. Jim and I attended the school VIP Day not too long ago, and quite enjoyed our time following Aidan's schedule, which included time doing some math, then a group story-writing activity, working on a PowerPoint presentation in computers class, a discussion about cephalopods in science, and lunch in the cafeteria. It was very enlightening. :)

Esme is doing very well in second grade. She is an excellent reader as always and her teacher reports she is always eager to help out. Her work is usually too easy for her, but she does it happily and without complaining, and spends her free time reading books, writing poems and stories, and drawing pictures. Her teacher is expecting her second baby in March, so we know that several months with a substitute are in the works. Esme's private piano lessons are the highlight of her week, and her teacher raves about her ability and her commitment to practicing.

I volunteer once a week in each of the children's classrooms, and while I don't often get to work with my own kids, I'm still finding it a fun and rewarding experience. I am helping the second grade students with sight words - words they should be able to recognize right away without sounding out - and keeping track of their progress for the teacher. I know most of the children in Esme's class quite well by now, and they're all good kids that try really hard. In Aidan's fifth grade room, I help a few of the kids (usually the same ones) with math concepts. They're working on long division and fractions right now, and I think I'm doing a little good at least! :)

By far the news of 2010 of which I am most proud is this - I lost 27 pounds. I started 2010 weighing 172, firmly in the "overweight" BMI category. I entered the "normal" range in a few months, and now at 145 I am well within that range and intend to stay there. Jim lost about the same amount! We counted calories using our LoseIt! app for the iPhone, and worked out almost daily (I skipped maybe a total of 8 days between March 1 and December 31) using Wii Fit. We recently also acquired Gold's Gym Cardio Workout for the Wii as well, which is adding a little variety to our daily workouts. It worked, we both feel better, look better and are sick less often, and rewarded ourselves with some new clothes too. I can't say I've given up cookies (or any desserts, really), but I count every calorie!

I have done a lot of genealogy work this year. I published my Byers book and sold quite a few copies, though not as many as I had expected, probably due to the economy affecting folks who would ordinarily have bought one. I began work on a Wetzel volume, and hope to finish that this year as well; though I'm not sure whether I will publish in book form without a list of orders and payment in hand. I also began work on a Peckham book, descendants of Jim's grandparents William Henry and Lena (Ryder) Peckham. There are many, many more descendants of the Peckhams than there are of Wihelm and Anna Maria (Pflaumer) Wetzel, who arrived in the United States in about 1882! It will be much more difficult getting the Peckham information together, mainly because most of it deals with living individuals, for whom data is typically less available online. In the last couple of months I have also consolidated and updated my Outlook contacts list, which started out with over 1,150 people in it - including all my family and friends along with all the folks I've written to over the years about genealogy. I still have the Ys and Zs left to do, but the list is pared down now to 954 individuals. Many of the folks on the list had passed away, some now have unlisted contact information, or I just could no longer find them anywhere. I'm also planning to go through another box of photographs from the McEowen homestead (it's still sitting here, I haven't even opened it yet), and hopefully Mom and I can coordinate and start getting the Hollopeter and McEowen slides into some sort of viewable and distributable media.

This month my mother-in-law will be 76, and I will celebrate my 38th birthday - exactly half her age! In February, my mom will be 59, and in March my dad will be 61 (he has also done a great job losing weight - about 40 pounds). Jim turns 39 in April, the last hurrah before forty. :) In June we are planning to visit Southern California as a family - to include Disneyland, SeaWorld and the Wild Animal Park at a bare minimum - and Jim and I will celebrate our sixteenth wedding anniversary. Aidan will be eleven in July, and Esme will be eight in August. When the kids start school in the fall, Aidan will be heading to sixth grade, and Esme to third (the beginning of letter grades on the report card!) The children are already looking forward to putting up the Christmas tree on December 1, since we took it down today.

We all wish you the merriest of 2011s!

The children and I attended the Member Holiday Party at Frederik Meijer Gardens on 20 December. Unfortunately, Jim was on business in Chicago and couldn't go with us, but it was a fun time anyway! The children were given "passports" to have stamped at various exhibits, and received a cute little coloring book at the end of the evening. I took their picture in the Railway Garden...

 They each made a poinsettia magnet for the fridge...

They wanted to be sure we took a picture of the Australia tree so Danielle could see it...

And this one was a pretty photo-op as well.

Christmas morning both children were up at 5:30 but sweetly let Mom and Dad sleep until 7 a.m. By the time we finally got around to stockings, they were delirious with excitement.

Later in the day, they were thoroughly engrossed in their gifts - here Aidan is building his new Lego White House set, and Esme is playing her new DS game - Tinkerbell and the Great Fairy Rescue.

At Mom and Dad's on Boxing Day, we had a terrific time doing the Christmas thing with Mom & Dad, Scott, Cathy, Megan & Emily, and Michael, Laura, Andrew & Ada. From left: Megan (4), Emily (1), Ada (2), Esme (7), Aidan (10), and Andrew (3).

Playing Host to Flat Stanley Thompson

As we get older, time sure flies right by, doesn't it? I used to feel like the months went by slowly, but the days went by quickly. Now it all just streaks right by in a blaze of activity. Does that mean we're too busy?



November was busy.



One Sunday morning we woke up late and decided to skip church. Jim offered to fix breakfast while I worked out, and did a terrific job as always of providing fried cornbread for all. However, I guess he had to search a minute or two too long to find our nonstick griddle! By the end of the day he had wrestled us all through a complete reorganization of our kitchen, a kitchen-wide examination of things we didn't need or use anymore, and two trips to Bed, Bath & Beyond to buy new things to both organize and stock our kitchen. An entire new set of pots and pans (Calphalon) was the main new acquisition. They hang from the ceiling over the island now, MUCH more accessible, if he does say so himself. :)






I sorted through and typed up a bunch of my Grandma McEowen's recipe collection over the last couple of months, and I've been trying some of the recipes now that they are more accessible. This was HER mother's Sausage, Sweet Potato & Apple Casserole, which was delicious indeed.

I found a good recipe for pie crust that apparently even I can handle in the November issue of Better Homes and Gardens, which made it slightly more likely that I might succeed at pie. So I tried it, with Lavon Olinger's old-fashioned cream pie recipe, and it was a success qualified only by the fact that I still can't make a nice crimped edge. I later tried my Grandma Hollopeter's cream pie recipe with the same crust, and found that it was even more delicious.

This is from a recipe from one of my grandma's purchased cookbooks, Best of Country Cooking. It's called Posse Stew, and it called for hamburger, but naturally I used ground buffalo meat instead. Very good.

We had a complete shutout of large family Thanksgiving celebrations this year, having not been invited to the Buche/Lowry feast held at Knight's, and having had a deer-Mini crash on our way to the McEowen feast in Indiana. But we did have Thanksgiving dinner at home, just the four of us, followed by a leisurely afternoon at the movie theatre, seeing Tangled. Turkey with raspberry sauce, green beans, peas and carrots, honey sunflower bread, fruit with brie and pecans, sparkling juice, and cream pie for dessert.

In keeping with tradition I decorated our house for Christmas on December 1, and the tree looks lovely. :)

The stockings are hung by the chimney with care...

Various creches and other decorations on the coffee table...

And my Lego village has taken on a new element this year...the bakery has joined the toy shop.

Having missed everyone in Indiana, the next day we took a quick trip to Mom and Dad's to see them and Ryan and Melissa, who were also there for the day. Photo op in hollow tree!

Dad took Esme to her piano lesson one afternoon, and as they were running quite early, they stopped off for a hot drink at Biggby.

Another day Esme had completely off from school, even though Aidan had to go (a district juggling of hours-type day off), and Daddy took her bowling.

This is Flat Stanley Thompson, a young friend of ours visiting from California. He has come to learn all he can about life in Byron Center with the Lowry family, and we're doing our best to show him a good time. When he returns to California, he will share everything he has learned with Joe and his third-grade class in Glendora.

First we showed Stanley around our town - the giant cement chicken.

Welcome to Byron Center, Stanley!

We took Stanley to Marge's Donut Den, where he was treated like royalty.

We showed Stanley the lighthouse at Holland and the Lake Michigan shore.

We gave Stanley a tour of Grand Rapids, our "big city".

We had lunch at Rose's on Reeds Lake, a delicious enterprise.

Jim took Stanley on a business trip to Chicago, where he got to see the other end of Route 66...

...and the Sears Tower...

...and stayed at the Parker House Hotel, all decked out for Christmas.

They also had sushi for dinner with Melissa and Ryan, who happened to be in town visiting Ryan's grandma for Thanksgiving.

A nutritious breakfast in the executive lounge is part of any successful business trip.

Back at home again, Stanley joined us for Thanksgiving dinner.

We also went to see Tangled on Thanksgiving!

Stanley shared some popcorn with Esme and was careful to be quiet during the movie.

We took Stanley to visit the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, which he thought was all that.

We know the Thompsons like MINIs so we made sure to take photos of Stanley with our MINI Cooper Clubman.

Above the car is an ArtPrize exhibit entitled "Steam Pig".

On our way to Indiana (we were less than 10 miles from home, actually), we hit a deer. I was driving, there were two deer in the road and nowhere to go to avoid them. I managed to slow down from about 74 mph to about 35-40 mph, so it could perhaps be called a "gentle" collision. One of the deer made it, running, completely off the road, so it was no longer an issue. The other one hit the windshield with its head, swung around and hit the back driver's side window, and then fell in the road with a broken back leg. It GOT UP, and was hit AGAIN by another car before getting off the road, where it had to be stabbed three times and shot at point-blank range in the head TWICE before dying.

We got the car off on the shoulder. After checking to be sure everyone was basically okay, Jim got out to help the other driver deal with the deer, and I took stock of the car and children. The kids were fine. Esme started screaming when she realized she was covered with broken glass, but was quickly calmed. Aidan didn't really react at all. We got out of the car and away from the road, where I quickly realized Aidan didn't even really know what had happened. Explanations all around and we waited for the Allegan County Sheriff's Department. A Wildlife Management officer also came, to help deal with the whole killing-the-deer part of the accident. We were only outside in the cold for about 45 minutes all told, and for a few minutes the sheriff let the kids get in his car to warm up. We drove back home in our broken car.

Stanley thought the whole thing was so exciting, viewed from under a pile of books and musical instruments in our cargo area. :)

On Sunday we went to Mom and Dad's to visit, and Stanley got a thorough lesson in logging and lumbering.

And of course Esme gave him a complete woods tour, including a stopover in the hollow tree.

Back on the road for business again, Jim and Stanley took a whirlwind tour of New York City, including Times Square...

...Rockefeller Center...

...Radio City Music Hall...

...The Shake Shack in Madison Square Garden...

...The Plaza Hotel, where Eloise of juvenile fiction fame lives...

...and Central Park...

...and of course, the Empire State Building!

On the way home, the boys took advantage of a stopover in Cleveland to at least think about visiting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Thanks for visiting us, Stanley! We have had such a wonderful time showing you around!