It’s been exactly one year since I wrote our last Christmas letter, so I’m right on schedule once again. But that’s not as a result of planning on my part, it’s just that this is a weekend day and I have a little free time for a change.
Family
Despite the impact of the COVID-19 virus, we were able to do some of our typical extended family activities. This year, instead of having one of our FL grandchildren come up here to spend a month, we went the other way and took Ethan down to FL to spend time there. On 6/22, the day after Father’s Day, he and I flew to FL – his first flight ever. (He enjoyed everything about the flight except when the plane banked to line up with the runway for landing.) I stayed until the end of the week so I could have some time with all of them, then flew back on Friday. Ethan stayed until 7/17. Then the entire FL crew flew up here so we could all spend our normal week together at Pinebrook. This was the first one in a few years that Chris could join us as he had been in the middle east with the Army in 2018 and at the Boy Scout Jamboree in 2019. We all had a good time together.
Chris gives us a video call almost every week so we can talk to him and see the rest of the family on a regular basis. We really appreciate having this sort of involvement.
Unless things get much worse in the next few weeks with COVID restrictions, all of us here in PA will be flying down to FL for the week after Christmas. Pam’s parents gifted us with their accumulated points from the time-share they have used for many years as they have decided to give it up. So Kim, Matthew, and the boys will stay there while Donna and I stay with Chris and Pam (about ½ hour away unless it’s rush hour then much longer). And we’ll all get to enjoy the amenities of the resort (heated pool!). All of us are looking forward to it – especially as the three younger boys and Matthew have never flown before.
Schooling Changes
Back in January, I had a difficult decision to make. The Board of Elders at our church was losing several members (two had sons who had recently committed suicide and they took an extended leave from the board, one was retiring, one was moving to Germany to become a houseparent at a missionary school). I had gone on extended leave six years ago to give a chance for some of the younger members to develop their leadership abilities, but decided that I needed to reactivate and help fill in the holes being left by so many stepping down at once. But the Elders met the same day as the Board of Trustees for the Charter School that our grandsons were attending and I couldn’t attend both. So, I reluctantly resigned from the Board of Trustees.
I had been the biggest supporter of the school administration and within two weeks of when I resigned, some of the other board members – who wanted to have a bigger say in how the school was run – fired the CEO/Principal and the business manager. Kim then felt that she was being discriminated against as a parent who felt as I did. Since the school only goes through 5th grade, we were going to have to make a decision shortly anyway about where to send the boys, and this became one of the factors to consider.
Shortly after making this decision, COVID hit! So, for the remainder of the school year the boys were all at home getting some level of virtual learning, but all ungraded. Kim was then working from home since her workplace closed down for in-person work, and she was fine with that as she would no longer have to commute 80 minutes each way. But with her shut up in her bedroom with a computer, that meant that Donna and I had primary responsibility for the boys’ schooling.
Over the summer, Kim made the decision to move the boys from the charter school to a small Christian school nearby. So they started the school year wearing uniforms, going to school five days a week (which none of the local public schools were doing), and using the packet system. That meant that Donna and I were free during the day. I won’t go into a lot of details, but by the middle of October, we realized it wasn’t working out and so another change was in order. After some checking around, the boys were disenrolled from there and were enrolled in Liberty University Online Academy (LUOA). While LUOA provides all the curriculum, and all the course work is completed online, the state of PA does not recognize any online schools except ones located in PA and so from their perspective the boys are being homeschooled. Donna and I are now back to supervising their learning and we spend most of our days across the street!
Donna works nearly full-time with Asher since he is in 1st grade and still a beginning reader. I work mostly with Caleb and Isaiah who are both in 3rd grade (one of the advantages of this latest change is that LUOA was willing to give Caleb a readiness test and admit him to 3rd grade, so he has skipped a year). I also assist Ethan in 5th grade, but he is much more independent in getting things done. Kim helps out by assisting with things like science projects which can be done in the evenings. It’s definitely a time commitment, and we’ve had to drop a lot of other things that we had hoped to get done this year.
To get the boys a bit more socialization, we also put them in our church’s after-school program – 4 days a week from 2:15-5:00 – the church offers that to students primarily from the two schools just a block or two from the church. But that has also now ended for the time being due to the schools moving to all virtual learning because of COVID. These are challenging times!
Health Updates
While we’ve all managed to stay relatively healthy as we have kept quite isolated because of COVID, there have been an assortment of challenges due to our getting older. I had my second Shingles vaccine and had every single side effect listed. It was a rough 36 hours. As I write this, Donna had her Shingles shots this year as well – the first was uneventful, but she’s having a few side effects from the second one.
On the recommendation of my cardiologist, I had a sleep study (done at home due to COVID) and am now using a CPAP machine – which has eliminated any remaining sleep apnea. A side effect is that since I am using a connection that only uses my nostrils, I have a chin strap that keeps my mouth from falling open at night as I was formerly a mouth breather. But in so doing, it has improved my oral health as well (I used to take nightly tablets to stop my mouth from drying out which impacted my gums).
I also now have mostly implants instead of natural teeth – a full set on the top and all the molars on the bottom. This has been a multi-year process, removing bad teeth as needed and replacing them – but I now have the best smile and tooth alignment that I’ve ever had and my dentist (who we’ve had for 40 years) is very pleased.
I’m also continuing my involvement in a couple of Alzheimer’s studies – and I’m happy to report that I haven’t lost all my marbles yet! When I do the 3-times-a-year analysis for the one study it continues to show no decline in mental ability. So I’m no more crazy than I ever was :D.
Miscellaneous
This Christmas letter will be entry 495 in my blog – it seems crazy that I’ve written that many. But in checking, I’ve written 53 in the past 12 months, just about once a week. The largest number are historical or genealogical in nature, some are reminiscing about my growing up, and some are about current events. So if you want to understand me – just read my blog.
Meanwhile, Donna and I are looking forward to celebrating our 50th anniversary this coming year. It doesn’t seem possible that five decades have gone by. Our major gift will be a gazebo (placed in the front yard of Kim’s house as we will eventually make that our home as well with a garage conversion). For many years we bought a glass bell on our anniversary – so fittingly, this gazebo has a bell-shaped roof. We’ve already purchased it from a local dealer but we’ll be preparing a place for it and take delivery in the spring.
So as you prepare to celebrate the holidays, and perhaps you feel a little different this year because of the impact of the pandemic, remember that God is ALWAYS in control. We don’t know what’s going to happen next – to the world or to ourselves – but He does. And if we acknowledge Him and accept the sacrifice that was made with His son, Jesus Christ, then we can have the assurance that He has promised.
We love you all!
Alan & Donna
[Start of Schooling – wearing school uniforms]
[Online schooling]
[Thanksgiving – yumm!]
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