December 12, 2012
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
It is our hope that 2012 has been a good year for you and your family. With Thanksgiving behind us, it is time to start preparing and decorating for Christmas. Usually we have all been together to get the tree, but due to travel and school schedules this year, only LeAnn, Mariah and Hailey were available to go out for our annual Christmas tree hunt. We only have three full time members of the household now with Mariah and Kara away at college.
Mariah (21) is a senior at the University of Denver. She has decided to stay for a fifth
year to obtain a Masters in Accounting.
This summer she traveled to Dallas, TX, Chicago, IL, and Hollywood, CA
for leadership conferences put on by the Big 4 accounting firms as part of the
recruiting process for an internship next summer and potentially full time
employment. She decided to take an
internship with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Denver next summer. She stayed in Denver this summer and worked
as a member of the new student orientation team to welcome new students to DU.
She explored the city and even climbed her first two 14er’s (14,000 ft. mountains). She has started a wine blog to explore a
passion developed in Argentina. She has
also been keeping up with her Spanish by volunteering at Museo de las Americas,
a Latino arts and culture museum in Denver.
She also made her first trip to the annual Las Vegas get together with
her cousins this summer.
Kara (18) graduated from Eagan High School last spring. She was a member of the Eagan High School
golf team which came in second in both the conference and in regions, thanks in
part to a nice 25’ putt she made on the final hole of district playoffs. We had a fun open house for her in June to celebrate
her accomplishment, and got to visit with a lot of friends and relatives. We took her down to Drake University in Des
Moines, IA this fall where she started her freshman year. She went through sorority recruitment and
joined Kappa Kappa Gamma. She stays busy
with various social events (such as western themed and formal dances),
philanthropic events, classes and homework.
She plans to major in advertising and marketing. Kara worked as a playground assistant for the
city of Bloomington over the summer.
Hailey (16) is a junior at Eagan High School. Last spring she became a licensed
driver, making it easier to get to and from school, friends’ houses and other
events. Last spring she was member of
the track team and specialized in the long jump. She is always on the run with
her friends, and we enjoy having a house full of girls working on homework, or,
better yet, whipping up yummy treats that we can all enjoy. We did college visits to the University of
Minnesota Duluth, Carleton College, and St. Olaf this fall. So far she is not sure where she wants to go,
or what she wants to do after high school.
Ray continues to get some golf in when he can, trying to stay even
with Kara. He made a lot of
pens, bottle stoppers and ornaments on his wood lathe during the MN indoor
season (aka winter). He still does
relatively simple items and is in awe of the fine detail and thin walls that
expert turners are capable of doing. He
is also closing in on finding his 1000th geocache, and has found
geocaches in 28 US states and 12 countries so far. Ray is still working at Advantek and
has spent a lot of time traveling the second half of the year as part of a new
equipment installation project.
LeAnn has been doing a lot of home decorating projects based on ideas
she sees on Pinterest - an internet website that is full of fun project ideas. She regularly goes to yoga classes and keeps
active with long distance walking, bike riding and golf. She has also started a new job with Right at
Home, providing in-home cleaning, support and companionship to elderly and
disabled clients. She has really enjoyed
meeting and helping support many fascinating people through this new job. She continues to work as a preschool teacher
for the City of Eagan.
In March, we took a spring break trip to Gulf Shores, AL. Mariah was not able join us since her spring
break schedule did not match up with the other girls, but Kara and Hailey both
brought along a friend for the trip, making for a van full on the way down and
back. Driving down gave us opportunities
to stop along the way. We stopped at the
Gateway Arch in St. Louis and Graceland (Elvis Presley’s mansion) in Memphis on
the way down.
The white sand beaches of the Gulf Shores area are beautiful. We spent a lot of time enjoying the beach and
surf, toured around the area, visited an alligator farm, went on a dolphin
watching cruise in the bay, and went over to Pensacola to the Navy base to
watch the Blue Angels aerobatic fighter demonstration. It is incredible how fast they fly and how
close together they come during the show.
On the way back to Minnesota, we stopped at Opryland in Nashville,
Churchill Downs, and the Louisville Slugger baseball bat museum and factory in
Louisville.
Ray and LeAnn took a couple of fun local trips during the year,
including a kayaking trip down the Cannon River south of the Twin Cities. The
river was crowded with a lot of tubers, but we went further upstream and were
on a quieter part of the river. In the
early fall, we went down along the Mississippi River and toured three different
wineries. At the last winery, we ate
lunch on a large deck overlooking the vineyard.
Although the wineries in Minnesota are relatively few and far between,
it made for an enjoyable getaway, and is interesting to learn about how the
wineries deal with the local weather compared to the wineries in true wine
country.
Both Ray and LeAnn’s moms are doing well. Karren still is living
at her home in Burnsville, and stays busy with cards, church, and her many
friendships. Lois is still spending the
winters down in Apache Junction, AZ, where she continues to golf, play cards
and participate in many activities within her mobile park.
We had all the girls home for Thanksgiving, and had both sides of
the family over for dinner. We got our first big snowfall this weekend – around
10 inches. Hopefully now we will have a
white Christmas this year. We look
forward to having everyone home again and celebrating the season together.
Have a great year,
LeAnn, Ray
Mariah,
Kara, and Hailey
Email: bloom2511@hotmail.com
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