Family holiday photographs

Just like last year, I'm posting some holiday photographs to share what I've been doing with my family. We spent over a week at my parent's home in the St. Louis area (from just before Christmas to just after New Year's Day). My sister Jennell and her family were there during the same time, so the house was lively with six adults and four children. The second photographs shows just the Hadley-Ives family.
The third photograph shows a view of East St. Louis from the Gateway Arch. I've visited East St. Louis pretty regularly over the years, and not much has changed.
The fourth photograph shows my Thanksgiving dinner. I did have a little turkey.
The fifth photograph shows our new little niece, Angie. Jennell and Jason adopted her in 2008. She is a lot of fun.

Three Christmas Songs

A few years ago I digitized an old LP recorded by the Zionsville Community Choir and the Eastbrook Elementary Fifth Grade Choir (Eastbrook Elementary of Pike Township, in Indianapolis). This was recorded in late 1978. The three songs I'm posting here are in m4a (AAC) format, so you need a player that can use AAC files such as iTunes to hear these.

The children's choir included myself, as well as several friends with whom I'm still in contact, including Dione Whitehead (Gordon), Andrea Wiley (Oliver), Annette Foti (Childress), Angela McCormick (Brown), Julie Ridenour (Dehner), Andy Hamaker, and others. Our director was James L. Fronczek, and the pianist is Sarah Fronczek. We were extremely fortunate to have Mr. Fronczek as our music teacher. I can remember being a new student in kindergarten, recently arrived in Indiana from my native Southern California, and being happy to have this nice music teacher (that was back in December of 1973(!)

Anyway, here are the songs:

Slumber O Holy Jesu (m4a AAC 2.1 MB), which lasts about 2 minutes.
In the Stable (m4a AAC 2.4 MB), which runs about 2 minutes and 20 seconds.
Away in a Manger (m4a AAC 3.4 MB), which runs about 3 minutes and 25 seconds.

I've got a large collection of Christmas music, and in my opinion, these are a few of the finest children's choir songs in my collection, and I'd say that even if I wasn't one of the kids in the choir.

I hope you enjoy the songs.

Bowling

Ever since we received a Wii last year, we've been playing Wii sports. I have become pretty good at Wii bowling, but this week we finally went to a real bowling alley to check out our skills with real balls and pins. It was a let-down. I started my second game well with a couple strikes in the first two frames, but I never topped 100 points in either of my games, and on the Wii I hardly ever score under 200.

Oh well, at least it was fun, until some guy sitting behind us and waiting to use our lanes started smoking a very stinky cigarette. Yuck.

You can see from these images that our form isn't very good. There was some excitement when Jason bowled three strikes in a row, but that was about as good as it got.

Bowling reminds me of Robert Putnam and his concern that Americans aren't spending enough time socializing or doing group activities. I hope in the new year 2008 we can do more more family activities and have more fun with our friends.

A Walk in the Park

We had a few days in late December where the weather was warm, up around 14 to 18 degrees Celsius, so we went out for some walks. The woods are pretty bare this time of year, although the buds are nice to observe. In St. Louis there are more hills than in central Illinois, which makes a stroll more interesting.

We took a hike at the Laumeier Sculpture Park on the south side of St. Louis County. I remember that Jeri and I went for a walk there within a few weeks of our wedding in 1992, so it was probably one of the first places she went for a walk in the woods in America. It had been several years since we last came here, and many of the sculptures were gone.

We stopped at a toy store on the way to the park, and Arthur and I played catch with an orange ball as we interacted with the installations and sculptures.

Last Week of the Year

This year has not been a good one for our family. I think a highlight was our long visit with relatives in Taiwan. I attended another social work research conference (in San Francisco, in January) and an inspiring conference on social development (in Hong Kong, in July). I turned 40 years-old last week, and that feels good, especially since my dad gave me a call from Florida. Arthur and Sebastian continued to grow and develop. Sadly, my last grandparent died in February. Our third son died before even being born when Jeri miscarried in the 12th week of her pregnancy.

The year is coming to an end as I evaluate essays in a "this I believe" essay contest for Sangamon County and prepare my syllabus for a social work class on social welfare. I'm getting breaks to play with my family here in St. Louis.

In this final week we are spending time with family here in Saint Louis. I'm having a good time.

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning is an exciting time, especially for children. There are so many presents, and the presents are so fun to open. the gifts include good books, toys, games, food, clothing, and tools or gadgets.

I think the images here give a pretty good impression of the mood on Christmas morning.

Christmas Eve

Monday the 24th was a fine day. We took a long walk in my parents' neighborhood, enjoying the warm weather and sunshine. We went to an afternoon church service at Salem United Methodist Church, my parents' church, and the place where they were married. We had delicious turkey for dinner, as you can see in the photograph of my plate before I began eating. The three cousins (our Sebastian and Arthur as well as Jennell and Jason's little Dante) sat together wearing matching sweaters, as you can see. Some of the family decorated cookies. After dinner each child opened one present. You can see a photograph of Arthur looking at his present just after opening it.

Christmas Season

Just as we do at Thanksgiving, our family drove down to St. Louis for Christmas, arriving on Friday evening the 21st. When we arrived there was a halo around the moon, which we took as a good omen.

Nick, my nephew was in town, and we spent some time with him on Saturday and Sunday. He is 15 years old now. He's three years older than Sebastian, almost seven years older than Arthur, and about ten-and-a-half years older than Dante. You can see the four of them lined up in two of the photographs I've uploaded here.

It was good to see Nick again. We last met him in New Jersey in the summer of 2006, just before my brother David moved his family back to California. I always remember Nick when he was only about two months old, and he came to our wedding. As I recall, we stood right in the area where the boys are standing in the pictures here. Nick was the smallest guest.

Christmas Eve Report

Finally after three weeks of freezing weather it started to warm up in Springfield, and it was time for us to drive down to St. Louis for Christmas.

This is the third year in a row that we have come down to St. Louis to have a Christmas with my St. Louis family (my mother and step-father). My sister Jennell brings her family from New York as well.

As a Baha'i Family, we still celebrate Christmas, at least when we are in the United States where it is a traditional family holiday. I think if we were in Taiwan with Jeri's family we wouldn't make so much of it. I remember I didn't make a big deal of it on Christmas 1990 or 1991 when I was in Taiwan.

Saint Louis is a great town to visit. And it's always a pleasure to visit my parents and see my sister and her family. So, I'm feeling pretty good.

I'm spending much of my time working on a calendar project for some friends or reading about human nature.