Just a few highlights to catch up on. First and foremost, congratulations to daughter Emily who graduated from the University of Washington with a bachelor's degree in French language. We are so proud of her hard work and tenacity.
We (Louise, Tim, Gina, Kaley, and Shannon) attended the commencement to celebrate along with Emily and Colin. Never has the Seattle sun shone more intensely as a record number of graduates walked across the stadium at Husky Field.
Andrew had a banner year as well. We are exceedingly proud of him for completing his associates degree at Metropolitan Community
College in Elkhorn Nebraska. He is currently working full time in the meat department at Bag & Save and has moved, along with the love of his life, the lovely and vivacious Cameo and their beloved kitty Dakota, into an apartment close-by. He has plans to continue his education at U.N.O.
Gina is excelling in her first year of Junior High as a 6th grader at Russell Middle School. She is loving math, art, Spanish, German, and French. She plays first chair flute and recently performed a spectacular concert with the school band. She continues to study
piano with her new teacher, Doris Kirke, as her former teacher Debbie Rhoades has retired.
Kaley is in the middle of her 5th and final year at Rohwer Elementary. She is also serving her third consecutive term as student body president. She is an accomplished musician, excelling in piano, violin and clarinet. She is currently studying piano with Galina Shatskaya who is one of the premier music teachers in the greater Omaha Metropolitan area. She enjoyed being the only girl on the baseball team this spring. Kaley is an avid reader and devours books faster than a swarm of army ants can devour a leaf.
Shannon is the youngest but by no means the least of our little Wilcox clan. She is an excellent student, musician, and writer. She is also studying piano with Doris Kirke who is an amazing teacher and motivator. Shannon loves her animals, lavishing attention on Clifford, our golden retriever, and her new pet Hamster Duke.
Tim has completed his bachelor's degree online at Bellevue University, with the exception of 2 hours of electives, and looks forward to being free at last. The railroad recently recognized his accomplishments with a promotion to Director of Network Operations, which he absolutely loves. There has been plenty of stress accompanying his new responsibilities which were in addition to his working to complete his schooling. We managed to balance all the hard work with plenty of fun activities throughout the year.
Running the Colorado River with our 3 youngest in the Spring was just one of our many amazing adventures: our recent trip to Vegas to stay at the Paris and take in Le Reve and every Buffet along the way with Colin, Emily, and parent in-law Larry Bush not-withstanding. Earlier in the year we treated the little girls to an airplane trip to Vegas to see Lion King at the Mandalay Bay and then on via rental car to Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, Disneyland, and a wonderful visit to Santa Barbara with their uncles Wil and Robert and cousins Brandon, Steven, and Gavin who live in Fair Oaks Ranch CA. There really are too many fun things to mention them all, suffice it to say that there were very few dull moments along our path to perfection.
Grandma is still very much along for the ride although she is not quite as mobile and independent as she would like to be. Getting around nowadays requires the services of personal assistants, Tim or Louise, along with her entourage of loving grandkids. While she needs help remembering the little minutiae of day to day living, her memories of her personal legacy of family and friends resonates within her heart and mind. Her love of family sustains her as she struggles at times with the ever advancing march of time. At 90 years old she has nearly a century of memories at her disposal, most if not all of them worth the pain they took to create. We are blessed that her health remains good and her spirits are better.
Louise is the center of our home keeping us all straight and narrow as we go about our multitudinous activities. She took a sabbatical from nursing to raise three precious girls and her life will never be the same. We appreciate her for sacrificing a career in nursing to provide the glue that keeps us all together as a family. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, chauffeuring, finding that perpetually lost hearing aid, managing medicines, and myriad trips to doctors for both young and old. We find ourselves in the Oreo generation sandwiched by kid folk and old and all of them needing something and usually all at the same time. Louise finds joy in a morning run with her best pal Clifford along the winding path's of Lake Zorinsky, putting a puzzle together, enjoying sci-fi or fantasy reading when she can eke out a few moments of time for herself. A special joy is when all the laundry baskets are simultaneously empty and not because the clothes are still on the floor. Thankfully, we have 5 weeks of vacation and plenty of days off so we can sneak off to our favorite Sushi restaurant or Sea Food haunt.
