Melanie is now 14 and she's a freshman in High School. She went out for color guard in the high school band and she made the team. She worked so hard and had so much fun. Homestead H.S. came in 2nd at the State Finals. They've been in the top ten for the past 20 years. She also went to the December semi-formal.
Brian is now in the fifth grade and he just turned 11 in November. Last winter he played basketball and he's doing that again this winter. He played soccer over the summer. And he's currently in a flag football league. He & I attended residence camp over the summer for Cub Scouts. He'll be crossing over to Boy Scouts in February.
Michael Victor also had a birthday in November and he just turned 5. He's in pre-K four days a week, he continues as a peer buddy at Brian's school, and we send him to the YMCA on Fridays. He attends most events with Brian and me at Cub Scouts including overnight camping at the May Family Campout and in the outfield after the Fort Wayne Wizards baseball game. He also just got glasses.
Wendy has had quite a year. She's probably experienced more in the past year than most people experience in a lifetime. Back in February, she lost her Aunt Nancy who died while recovering in the hospital from having her lower leg amputated due to complications from diabetes. Aunt Nancy was living here in Fort Wayne and she helped a lot with Michael and Wendy helped her a lot. Then on March 1st, we got the worst news possible. Her biopsy came back positive for breast cancer. After four months of chemo-therapy, losing all her hair, surgery, and 6 weeks of radiation, she is cancer-free. One side-effect is that it seems to have put her MS into remission. Currently she does not take any drugs to combat the MS and the symptoms have not come back. Another result is that she has come closer to God. She has given it all to Him. Her attitude is amazing and I think it has contributed to her recovery. She'll need that good attitude for the next couple of months. Just this past Thursday, she slipped on our carpeted stairs and fell right on her back. She has a compression fracture of her 12th vertebrae and a hip contusion causing extreme pain due to a pinched sciatic nerve.
I continue as Committee Chairman for our Cub Scout Pack and I still maintain the web site for the Pack. At work, I volunteered for a transfer to the department that I helped last year with getting our CMMI Level 3. I am now responsible for helping all programs at our site become compliant with common processes used across all Raytheon sites for software processes. And just so our life does not get boring, Wendy & I decided to build a new house that should be ready for us to move in around March 1st next year.
We are thankful for all of our friends and family. We wish we could see you all more often.
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