As one gets older the time seems to fly by even quicker. It seems like 2023 just started a short time ago and here it is, time to write our annual Christmas letter already. I’m using last year’s letter as a reminder of all the topics I covered then – but also as a way to remind myself what things have happened in 2023 and what things from 2022 might make their way into my mind.
Family
Our grandchildren seem to be growing up so quickly!
This fall our oldest, Aryon, went off to college – following in his parent’s
footsteps, he’s a freshman at Taylor University in Indiana. Majoring in Computer
Science – like his dad and myself. This summer he got a job working at
Pinebrook Bible Conference in the Poconos – the place where our family gets
together for a week each year.
Each of our four grandsons from PA got to spend a
month in FL with their cousins this year. Caleb went from mid-April to mid-May
(so that he’d be back home before final exams). Isaiah went from mid-June to
mid-July (coming back when Chris and family came up for our week at Pinebrook).
Ethan then went back with them and in late August we did a swap so Asher was
there until mid-September (doing his first three weeks of school from there).
See below for our annual picture of all 7 grands together – Tiernan is now 6’!
Tiernan is in his junior year and Ilyanna in 8th
grade and continue to be homeschooled. Our four PA grands continue with Liberty
University Online Academy. Ethan (8th grade) works with Kim. His social
studies class this year is Geography and he’s in pre-algebra. I have the other
three boys each day (school hours are 9-11:30 and 2-3:30/4). Isaiah and Caleb
are in 6th (middle school!!) and Asher in 4th. Donna was
going to be doing Bible and Literacy with Asher, but she has a lot on her plate
taking care of her plants (both inside and outside) and other activities so I’ve
ended up overseeing all of Asher’s subjects. See below for what my den looks
like every day!
This fall we were blessed to have two visits from
family members. My brother Edd and his wife Ingrid came back to the US from
their position as missionaries to Thailand. They were with us for a day as they
visited their supporters on the East Coast before officially retiring the end
of January. Then a few weeks later our nephew, Matt VanDeCar and his wife and
children stopped by for a day as they had come to PA for a wedding. We had not
seen them since we went to MI for their wedding several years ago. It’s nice
that we can continue to be in close contact with all of my and Donna’s siblings
and many of their children even though we are scattered all around the US.
Medical/Health
As I noted last year, I had begun the screening
process for a drug-based Alzheimer’s study but was awaiting the administration
of a brain PET scan at the beginning of 2023. The results of that PET scan showed
that I had no amyloid in my brain, so I did not have any incipient Alzheimer’s
and was unlikely to. So I did not qualify for that study, however I continue my
involvement in a number of other studies.
Donna and I are now in our mid-70s but in relatively
good health. The only exception is the continuing problem I’m having with the
wound on the bottom of my right foot. After an operation last year and a long
healing process, I thought that I could finally put that behind me. Then this
fall, for an unknown reason, the wound opened up again. So I’m once again
having to rebandage it every few days, staying off my feet as much as possible,
and going through the healing process. This is now going on six years (!!!) and
it’s a bit frustrating. But if that’s the only physical/mental issue I have to
deal with, then I suppose I should be grateful as many others my age have a lot
more issues.
Genealogy
This past summer was the 100th annual
meeting of the Pierpont Family Association. We met at Mill Plain Church in
Waterbury, the site of our first meetings back in the 1920s. As the
co-historian of the group, I made a couple of presentations. Then this fall the
other co-historian, my 3rd cousin Bob Kraft, passed away at the age
of 89. Since he also lived in PA, I was blessed to be able to attend his
memorial service and spend some time talking to his wife and some of his
children. I’ll miss working with him and we’re still working out the details of
how to continue all the work that he had been responsible for.
I’ve also continued my research into all the members
of our church here in PA – where I’m in distant cousin relationship with about
2/3 of everyone there. It’s something that I enjoy doing and the results are appreciated.
Writing
Following on the heels of my 3-part book series of the
adventures of Fred Forchelli last year, I wrote two more detective stories in
early 2023. Both of them were written by the fictional friend of Fred – Betty Rubble.
They are also available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle versions (see
below).
Otherwise, I also continue posting in my blog. I added
35+ entries this year and am approaching 650 entries since I began my blog
nearly 9 years ago. It’s also
approaching nearly 2000 pages (at 8.5x11 size) – a lot of writing over that
period of time.
Miscellaneous
This spring our local power company began the process
of replacing the power transmission poles behind our house (they were about 50
years old). Doing so required the building of a thick wooden plank road across our
property. So, except for a couple of times in the spring, we’ve been unable to
mow the back yard and we periodically get large trucks or front end loaders
driving down that “road”. The lines are finally complete and we hope to have
the “road” removed in the next week or so (the planks a few properties away
were removed two weeks ago), but we have no idea what the ground will look like
afterwards. But it’s definitely affected any property plans we had for this
year. And I haven’t been able to help anyway due to my foot problems. Next
year?
Concluding Thoughts
I get a little jealous when I see family and friends
around our age who are “retired”, taking extended vacations or cruises, etc. Homeschooling
our grandchildren means those types of activities are not available to us. And
I get tired enough each day that I appreciate being able to take a nap after
lunch before beginning our afternoon session. But the opportunity to have that
kind of relationship with our grandchildren is not something I really want to
trade. I talk to some of our senior friends at church who look after their
grandchildren perhaps one afternoon a week and the typical response is, “I
could never do what you’re doing!” But we do it and in some ways it keeps us
young. So while traveling or cruises are not in our immediate future (it will
be 7 years before the youngest is off to college), we have a good life.
Wishing all our family and friends a very merry
Christmas,
Alan and Donna
[Grandchildren]
[Homeschooling]
[Book]
[Power poles]
[Reason Season]
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