Now Melanie is 24. She has been working at IU Health at Goshen Hospital in Goshen, IN for almost two years. And she has been living in an apartment in Elkhart, IN for over a year now. She is still the Public Relations Specialist for Goshen Hospital. On her job she got to meet with a bunch of people involved in making a movie - actors, actresses, directors, etc. They chose Goshen Hospital as the location for a movie about a cancer patient. It is called Nouvelle Vie. And some of the people involved in this movie were also involved in the movie Fireproof (2008). Melanie is also helping a photographer friend of hers at weddings and other events. It is called Welch Foto.
Brian is now a junior at IU. He is still studying something called Informatics. It is a variation of computer science; best I could understand. He gave up being involved in the Marching Hundred because of the time commitment. And that worked out well because he achieved all A's & B's this semester. So, now he is looking into getting an internship and one of the companies that do internships is Raytheon where I work. Brian has a girlfriend who he has been seeing for almost the last two years. Brian also turned 21 in November. Holy cow! He can now drink, legally!
Michael Victor also had a birthday in November and he is now 15. He graduated from 8th grade (Middle School) in May. And he played his last season of little league baseball. One week after school ended, he had to attend Homestead High School Marching Band drumline mini-camp. He has been taking drum lessons at a place called Sweetwater. His instructor is actually very involved in his high school marching band. Just as Brian had, Michael has a goal of playing snare drum on the drumline. But, also just as Brian did, Michael played cymbals on the drumline for his Freshman year. The marching band program is pretty intense. He had band camp that ran from 8 AM to 4 PM everyday for three weeks. When school started, he had practice right after school on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a couple hours. And he had practice on Tuesday & Thursday evenings for a couple more hours. They played at every home football game on Friday nights. And they had band competitions every Saturday from September to mid-November. Continuing the tradition, his high school has now been to 29 straight State Competitions in Indianapolis. This year they came in third. And they also competed in something called Bands of America. They placed 12th out of nearly 100 bands across America. We saw bands from as far away as Alaska and Hawaii. Oh, and Michael now has a girlfriend. And she is a junior!
Wendy is still working as a multimedia marketing consultant for KPC Media. They publish the Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly and Wendy is responsible for selling ads and sponsorships for the newspaper. She is still doing great. She continues to make her goals every month and she earns a commission above & beyond her salary. In fact, she is their number one sales person. In February, Wendy got the opportunity to "skip the line" at the Americas Got Talent auditions in Chicago. After 13 hours of waiting, she finally got to perform. So "skipping the line" really means nothing. 2015 was the year of "weddings" for Wendy. Her brother Johnny got married in September to a beautiful girl named Ashley. Wendy said it was an exquisite event and she got to meet her extended family on her stepmom's side of the family. They were very gracious and friendly to her. Then in October, we all got to go to Holiday Valley in the Southern Tier for her niece Amanda's wedding. In addition to the wedding, there were trips for showers and dress fitting and women fun stuff, oh my! There was a stretch of 4 or 5 months where Wendy was traveling back to Buffalo at least one weekend a month.
I am still working at Raytheon in Fort Wayne, IN. My main job is back on the AFATDS program that I had been working on since 1991. But, work on the current version is finally winding down. And the next version is supposed to be awarded in 2016. The problem is that it is open for bidding by other companies and even if it is awarded to Raytheon, there is going to be some time in early 2016 where we'll have to rely on work from other programs to keep us busy. I have been working on another program to help balance out my time. And I also continue to do the metrics & process type of work similar to what I had been doing when I was in Massachusetts. Other than work, a big focus for Wendy & I is getting back into being band parents. This is our 9th year after having the last two years off before Michael made it to high school. Wendy & I also got to see Jim Kelly & his wife Jill here in Fort Wayne. They were speaking at an event for the Indiana Fellowship of Christian Athletes. And just before Thanksgiving, when I was going to Michael's high school to pick him up, a student backed out of a parking place right into the passenger side of my Chevy Equinox. The insurance company determined that the repairs would have been more than the value of the car, so they totaled it. The rental I got was a Chevy Cruze and I liked it so much that I ended up getting a Chevy Cruze as my new car!
We are thankful for all of our friends and family. We wish we could see you all more often.
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