Season’s Greetings from the Kanaks!
We hope that this find you and yours healthy, happy, and anxiously awaiting another fun-filled holiday season. As usual, our family has undergone a great many changes in the past year. Here are some of the highlights:
Geno is now a walking, talking (kind of) 20-month old. His primary hobbies are eating, dancing, and watching TV. His favorite shows include Blue’s Clues, Yo Gabba Gabba, and The Fresh Beat Band. If you haven’t seen one of the Facebook videos of him dancing, do yourself a favor and check it out. I don’t care what kind of day you’re having; watching his moves will be enough to bring a smile to your face. Speaking of smiling, he’ll be doing a great deal more of that soon, as he is preparing to start up at a new preschool. He takes very well to the preschool environment, as he loves being around toys and other kids his age. Unfortunately, we had to pull him out of his previous preschool environment because he kept getting bitten by a teething female. She may actually be a vampire; the authorities are still looking into it; nevertheless, Geno emerged from the situation just fine, and now he’s ready to move on to bigger and brighter things. In between preschool settings, Angie’s good friend Allison cared for Geno during the day. In many ways, Allison’s house was better than preschool! She taught him sign language, fed him nutritious food, and nearly weaned him from his pacifier. We are in a great deal of debt to Allison—literally, we owe her a ton of cash.
The same can be said for Mary Christine, who will also be attending a new school after the New Year. Mary did very well at her Montessori school during the first half of the year. Her teachers said that she was sweet, smart, and a pleasure to have in class. Of course she was; she’s a Kanak! Nevertheless, she was only able to attend that particular school three days per week, and she wants to go all five days like the big kids do. How can you argue with that? Outside of school, Mary’s hobbies are many, but her biggest loves include books, art, dancing, American Girl Dolls, and bowling. She has become quite the little keggler. During the first half of her youth league, she carded 3-4 games over 100, including a personal best of 118. The league didn’t keep track of averages for the bumper bowlers, but it seemed pretty obvious that Mary was the leader of the group. At her current rate of progression, we figure she’ll card her first 300 game by age 6 or 7. Stay tuned.
Speaking of remaining in tune, over the last year, Angie has continued to find her groove in regard to living and working in Texas. She is now halfway through her second year teaching at a prestigious local high school, and, as expected, she has excelled. She has impressed her colleagues and administrators a great deal. However, she is excelling outside the classroom as well. As many of you know, she has been faced with some extremely difficult medical issues. Despite the challenges, she met some extremely difficult health situations with more strength and grace then can scarcely be imagined. The penultimate example was when, less than four months after undergoing major surgery, she walked 60 miles in three days while completing the Susan G. Komen 3-day Breast Cancer Walk in Dallas. Obviously, we were all quite proud of her.
Point of View Change:
Since Gene didn’t feel comfortable writing his own paragraph, I (Angie) will be taking over for the next few sentences. It would be a lie to say that Gene has had an easy year. After being part of a large corporate downsize at USBC in February 2010, Gene was offered a sales job at Strike 10 Entertainment. Though he was still in the sports industry, spending all day on the phone with billiards facility owners asking them what type of food and beverages they serve was not his idea of a career, and it certainly was not reason enough to move his family 900 miles away from all their friends and family. After hopes of moving back to Illinois were squelched by a poor education job market, we all accepted the fact that we needed to stay in Texas until the education system in Illinois financially recovered. Gene was fortunate to find an English teaching position at a magnet high school, Cedar Hill Colligate High School. Though he was told the teaching atmosphere at a colligate high school was intense, the over-testing, constant observation, and endless parent contact are making him realize that this is not the atmosphere for him. However, he is hell-bent on completing the school year with gusto—teaching the best he can in the high-stress situation. Needless to say, he is constantly browsing websites and networking with friends attempting to find different employment for next fall. Though he often talks about opportunities that would bring us back to Illinois, the wonderful people we have met in Texas, make our life here worthwhile and enjoyable—not to mention year-round softball and access to the best bowlers in the world. Despite Gene’s bad luck, he has remained a wonderful father and husband.
Here’s hoping for a great new year!!
The Kanaks (notice that no apostrophe is needed as nothing belongs to us in this context)
No comments:
Post a Comment