The three most dominant features over the past year for us were Curt’s project at work, our investigation into our health, and Taekwondo. The first of these stressed all of us by placing huge demands on Curt’s time--taking him to Austin, Texas on four occasions and causing us to cancel both our planned family vacation to Baltimore/New York City and a beach vacation with Missy’s brothers and their families. The health investigation more than compensated for any problems that may have resulted from work stress and raised our awareness of health (how to measure, improve, and more likely ensure it) in ways that we believe will have lifelong benefits. Missy and Eric have invested much of themselves in Taekwondo and it has provided them with many physical and mental health benefits.
Eric is now eight years old. He continues to prosper within our unstructured homeschooling. With his parents as mentors, Eric is learning a variety of important skills. For example, this year he developed, with help from his dad, four power point presentations (on hernias, Pokémon, Taekwondo, and Baron von Richtohofen). He has given these on numerous occasions to homeschooling groups, family and friends. In addition to helping him learn about these subjects, these exercises help him learn how to create presentations, use computer software, conduct research, find the most important information from a sea of data, distinguish fact from opinion, and structure information in a readily understandable form. They also improve his reading, writing, critical thinking, public speaking, and interpersonal skills. As part of his homeschooling group, Eric is taking a drama class and will be part of a play in January 2001. This year, Eric won two ribbons in horseback riding and four trophies for his Taekwondo skills. He also won the White Tigers’ prestigious Student of the Month award in April in only his fourth month in Taekwondo (the school has over a thousand students including dozens of black belts). The school’s founders, Masters Chung and Rondy, have called Eric an "incredible martial artist." Eric enjoys physical play--usually. He didn’t like it when he landed his backflip in our neighborhood pool, face first on the diving board. (A picture of the bloody results can be found on our wowsite).
Missy is in her third year as a La Leche League District Advisor supporting NC League Leaders and seventh year as a League Leader supporting NC moms. Missy attends Taekwondo classes with Eric and she has won three trophies and the Yellow Belt Student of the Month award for June. (Curt thinks she is the best female athlete in the school, though not the best in Taekwondo--yet.) Missy’s soccer team won the women’s North Carolina State Championship as awarded by the Capital Area Soccer League--they easily beat the only other women’s team in the tournament. Her craft handiwork this year has extended into memory albums, smocking, and crocheting. Missy’s non-family time is typically spent in crafts and reading or with one of her many circles of friends. These include people in her LLL, soccer, Taekwondo, book club, homeschooling and bunko groups. This year Missy visited an old circle of friends when she attended her 20th year high school class reunion in Saline, Michigan.
Curt experienced a stress-filled year at work. In his first full year at IBM Tivoli, Curt was a test team lead on a $100 million software project; a project on which Tivoli is largely banking its future. The team Curt was given struggled over the first half of the year; they lacked the skills (and ability to gain them) needed to meet their responsibilities. Halfway through the year Curt’s upper management agreed with his assessment of the team and they transferred his manager and two thirds of the team onto other projects. Curt re-staffed the team and the new team produced spectacular results, earning acclaim from the project’s technical folks and management. During the year, time demands at work were always great as under-qualified people made inefficient use of time and the qualified people assumed a project that was months behind. Curt won a few awards at work; a leather (ugh!) notebook for a high score in bowling (177) during a team building exercise, a $400 palm pilot for winning a word game, and $185 in awards from his peers on the project. When he carved out time for himself, Curt spent much of it on building and maintaining the family’s wowsite at www.geocities.com/Heartland/Lane/7250. It is loaded with news, stories, photos, diaries, and thoughts.
Though we traveled and vacationed less this year as a family, we still
got around a little. We made three short trips to visit Missy’s brother
Jeff and his family who have recently moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina,
in August we traveled to Pennsylvania and Delaware for nine days visiting
Curt’s family, in November we celebrated Thanksgiving, birthdays, and Christmas
in Michigan with Missy’s family, and in December we’ll again be in Pennsylvania
for skiing and visiting family and friends. Next year we plan to make up
for this year’s lack of getaway vacations. We had visitors from afar this
year. Kyuong Ho Lee and Jang-bum Lee, two members of Korea’s national Taekwondo
demonstration team, the Korean Tigers, stayed with us for five days. It
was a fascinating cultural exchange and we look forward to hosting two
Tigers again next year.
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