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Dear Friends and Family
We are so late getting
this written! It will be a New Year's letter by the time it reaches all of
you. Bob and I have been flat out since late August when my new teaching position
began. Anyone who thinks that teachers have a cushy time of it is WRONG! I am
now teaching 6th - 8th grade choral music at Thomas Jefferson Middle School
in Arlington, VA.
I get to school at 6:45 a.m. and leave anywhere from 3:30 to 5:30 most days.
The first month was the
most difficult. I now feel that I've gotten the swing of things. We have now finished our first major performance and things went
well, so it's onwards
and upwards from here (we pray). I've done some performing this fall, although
not as much as I would like. I have not yet written any new music since the summer
as all my creative energies have been directed towards the new school job.
One of the pieces I wrote last winter, Come Into the Quiet, is being
requested for use in several places. It's a great introit or opening for
meditation, easily sung.
Meagan and Edvin are
doing very well. They are quite happy together, and both are working very
hard. Meagan will graduate this summer from UDC with her bachelors degree in
Sociology. Edvin works as a sous-chef in a large Georgetown law
firm, plus
some evenings at a new Legal
Seafood.
Colin has moved home with
us for the next 8 months while he saves up money for University. He has
decided to take the plunge and work on a degree. He's not sure what he will
focus on although music will be a big part of it. He has really missed
performing during these past 3 years. Meagan & I went to hear him perform
a wonderful Handel's Messiah at Metropolitan AME church
in DC.
Bob's new role as a team
leader at ICF Consulting is such a wonderful challenge. His principal role within
I.T. Consulting Services is developing new customers of their geospatial and
collaborative services. Examples of great projects
that his
team is working on include: long-term stewardship of former nuclear waste
sites, mapping gof reenhouse gas emissions inventory for Mexican forestry,
corridor analysis tools for "smart growth" in South Los Angeles, the
spatial
management system for elimination of invasive pest species for the US
Department of Agriculture, and impact of sea-level rise on the east coast of
the U.S.A.
At our Grace Episcopal
Church physical changes are now happening all around. The Georgetown Ministry Center is
expanding into new spaces by reclaiming underused basement and garage space.
Across the street a massive project rises from the former city Incinerator, being
now turned into a Ritz-Carlton hotel, thirteen-screen movie complex, condominiums
and street-level nightclubs. This construction project is paying for lighting of our church
yard, new walkways, a larger patio area plus handicap-access ramps onto the
property from Wisconsin and South Streets.
In the Foxhall Community
Citizens Association, Bob has completed his three-year term as the FCCA
President, and now just writes a weekly column in the "Georgetown
Current" (click on Neighborhood Notes in the upper right of www.foxhall.org).
Occasionally he provides input on D.C. traffic mitigation or
Comprehensive
Planning issues, but leaves day-to-day local community issues to his successor.
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