Another year has come to a close. We finished off the year with an eventful December. The kids played piano Christmas carols for the Salvation Army bell ringing Christmas collection. They all participated in the school Christmas play. Tim ran a half marathon and we enjoyed a date night at the company holiday party. We finished the month with a Russin Christmas reunion on Tucson. Unfortunately, our visit was punctuated with a periodic stomach bug illness that passed between the 6 of us over the course of the week. That put a big damper on the family interactions, but we still got to visit some and check out Mimi and Papa’s new house.
Cordelia has had lots of accomplishments this year. She turned 10 this year. At the beginning of the year, she was in 4th grade and participated in her first school debate competition. Her writing has really improved over the year. She is now comfortable writing 5 paragraph papers and knows how to include a thesis statement in her writing. She wrote a fun fictional booklet about life as a Pilgrim for Thanksgiving. She continues to excel in her school abilities as we prepare for the transition to 6th grade. Cordelia has also improved in her emotional growth over the year. She’s becoming more proactive about stepping away from difficult situations and letting herself reset. She’s finding positive outlets through her art and crafting. She continues to be eager to help others and is a very thoughtful friend. Her piano skills have improved and she’s now playing longer and more intricate pieces, likes Canon in D. In ice skating, Cordelia started in Basic 5 at the beginning of the year. Now at the end of the year, she has completed the academy level class and will be transitioning to the specialty classes for Spins and Jumps. We’re starting with Spins for the winter session. She also competed in her first 2 solo skating competitions and improved a lot between the two competitions. She also joined the synchronized skating team for the fall session and will be performing in their first competition in January. During the summer she went on her first backpacking trip and stayed two nights in the backcountry hiking and fishing. At church, Cordelia continues to enjoy her teacher and has a few friends. She completed her second year of T&T and is going through her third year. She has a good friend group there too. We’re starting to engage her in critical thinking and exploring the bible at a deeper level than just filling in the blanks to get the answer.
Anthony has been making big improvements this year. At the beginning of the year, he was in 2nd grade. He was figuring out how to handle properly participating in the classroom environment and navigating social dynamics. Now he is in 3rd grade and has a good relationship with his teachers. He works well through his subjects and has gained confidence in writing. He now comfortably writes 2-3 paragraphs. For Thanksgiving he made a comic book style fictional booklet about the Pilgrims’ journey to the New World. Anthony had some good emotional growth this year. He’s learning to walk away from difficult situations and not get pulled into doing things he’s not comfortable with. He’s learning to have better self-control and handle competitive situations in a positive way. We’re continuing to work on good sportsmanship whether winning or losing. Anthony has a natural talent for music and is doing very well in his piano progression. Anthony was still swimming at the beginning of the year, but finished all the levels in the Spring. He then switched his focus more to soccer. Anthony had just moved up to Skills 3 at the beginning of the year. He’s still in Skills 3 at the end of the year, since it’s basically the top level, but his skills have improved a lot over the year. He joined his first soccer league in the Spring. For next year he’s joining the invitational Super league. He also joined the soccer park’s Club and he gets extra camps/clinics that have been refining his skills. Over the summer he did his second year of archery camps and continued to enjoy that. At church Anthoy’s been in a bit of a transition for the end of the year. 3rd grade is a bit of an awkward year between the younger elementary classes and the upper elementary classes. He’s also tried going to the “adult” church too with varying levels of interest based on the preacher’s engagement level. Anthony completed Sparks at the end of 2nd grade. He started his first year of T&T. He’s not quite ready to start engaging at a deeper level through the questions but we’re trying to encourage a bible study type discussion.
Lydia had a big transition year in 2024. She started in Kindergarten and now she’s in 1st grade. At the Montessori she graduated out of the Primary program and is now in Elementary with several of her friends. Homework is new for her in 1st grade. At first she seemed to be doing ok with it but she’s starting to struggle with finishing her work. Lydia is going through the emotional development stage of exploring boundaries and finding the cause-and-effect for various actions. She has a good heart, but sometimes her actions can be very challenging to handle. Lydia is slowly working through her piano books. She’s gaining more confidence and now plays with hands together. For sports activities, Lydia switched from ice skating to soccer over the summer to tumble class at the start of the school year. She has a fun time with her classmate at tumble class. In swimming she’s now at level 8. Her freestyle and backstroke are pretty strong. She’s working on breaststroke and has started to learn the kick for butterfly. At church Lydia enjoys her class and her teachers say she has a great foundational knowledge of the bible. She’s in her second year of Sparks and is working on memorizing her extra credit packet.
Natalie has changed and grown a lot over the year. At the beginning of the year, we were trying to potty train her with minimal success. She finally figured that out over the Spring and now she’s a fully potty trained 3 yr old at the end of the year. She was in pre-primary at the beginning of the year and now she’s in the Primary class with the same teacher that Anthony and Lydia had. She’s learned colors and now can recognize some letters and numbers. Natalie is developing her three-year-old social and emotional experiences and expressions. Overall, she’s not a very difficult child, but she still needs to be taught to listen, obey, and cooperate well with others. Fortunately, she’s very verbal and we can have short conversations about her actions and expectations. She has several good friends at school and is very socially and emotionally stable. Natalie started in soccer class in the fall. She’s been in classes for four months now and is always excited for “soccer day”. Natalie started her first year of AWANA in Cubbies. She does a great job memorizing her verse each week. She also prayed with Tim to say yes to Jesus.
Alicia’s life is busy as usual. She started off the year at work with some on-going casual projects. At the end of the year she was able to formally close out one of those projects. Going into 2025, she’ll be doing the phase 2 and phase 3 improvements for that project. She got to make her first official project schedule and take a project from kick-off to release. She was also able to get a portion of another project over a milestone event. She continues to keep a maintenance role for her program and there always seems to be something popping up that needs to be taken care of. Her co-worker who has been taking on more of the “front face” for the group is getting pulled to support a different program, so it will be interesting to see how things change in 2025. At home, Alicia is trying to maintain the law and order. Entropy is real and it takes regular effort to keep the house from dissolving into chaos. Alicia is working with the kids to instill some responsibility and self-discipline for taking care of their things. Alicia also enjoys taking them to their extra-curricular activities and seeing them grow in their various skills. AWANA continues to be time-consuming and rewarding. It is encouraging to see the spiritual growth in the Sparks and high school leaders over the years and also to hear how they are continuing to grow after they leave Sparks and graduate into the higher grades. The new commanders are now in their 3rd year and it has been great to grow a nice friendship with them. Thanks to Tim’s support on the home-front Alicia has been able to go out to the late dinners after club and connect with the commanders and other leaders.
Tim’s work started off the year with ups and downs of business and slowness. But starting around July things ramped up to busy or extra busy through the end of the year. The projects themselves go through various phases of success and issues but things remain active. It’s uncertain going into 2025 if things are going to stay very busy or it will slow down a bit. Either way, Tim continues to be regarded as a top performer in his group and is always highly sought after and well respected for his technical expertise. On the home front Tim did several projects this year. He took down the small raised beds and put grape vines in their place. He made some improvements to his garage shop layout and capabilities. We rearranged our downstairs to put the rooms back to their original configurations but with an update to our TV and media area. Tim started the rearranging for the laundry room/pantry by stacking the washer and dryer and making a new cabinet. He’s in the process of finishing the remaining walls and shelves for the pantry update to make it an open pantry. Tim enjoys watching the kids’ sports activities when he’s able. He also enjoys hanging around in the backyard with them, playing or teaching them how to use the various tools he’s working with on his current project. Tim’s been engaging with the kids and helping the older two through some deeper studying of the bible. Tim switched from serving at church to serving at AWANA with Alicia. He’s been doing the lessons and is very engaging for the kids.
Tim and Alicia celebrated 13 yrs of marriage this year. We’ve been in the same house for almost 7 years. We have grown in many ways as individuals, a couple, and a family. For 2024 Spring break we took the kids to Hawaii for the first time and had a fun and memorable family trip. We look forward to many more family trips over the years as the kids are old enough to start exploring and take longer trips. We’re also anticipating a larger home upgrade with a bathroom addition and remodel for the kids’ bathroom in the new year. We’re also anticipating a big change to the kids’ school for next school year. We don’t know what direction God will lead us in but we know when the time comes it will be clear which path we should take. Wishing you all a wonderful 2025, Happy New Year!
