December 2006

Greetings Friends and Family,

We hope you and your family are healthy and enjoying the holiday season once again. This has been a mostly quiet year for us as, so you’d think we would get this letter out on time... The kids are all settled into school routines while Jim and Elizabeth continue to work on business ventures. We count our blessings and enjoy living here among our wonderful friends. We’re now up to 2 1/2 years in Groton and thoroughly enjoying it.

We started the year with Ciara joining the Groton softball league. She was one of the older girls on her team and did very well. She also enjoys basketball and recently took up gymnastics. We plan on exposing her to skiing, if only it would snow! Ciara is also doing very well academically in 3rd grade and is learning important social skills. She completed a month-long independent project on the subject of Newgrange. It is an ancient burial ground that we visited in Ireland that is older than the Egyptian pyramids! We recently had Ciara’s birthday party (she turns 9 on Dec 28th) with an American Girl Samantha Mystery party, which was a great hit.

Brendan is now 6 and is enjoying 1st grade with his best friend William (our neighbour). Math is his best subject. He tried his “foot” at soccer again this year and although he played well, he has decided that his passion really is for kickball, which he plays fanatically at school and at home with Mum. When he has free time he still loves to draw roads and cities on our long driveway with chalk. He continues to build things with whatever he can find, with Legos still a big favourite. Another passion is writing books which he makes by stapling multiple pages together. Paper airplanes are also big lately but we make him use recycled notes from school so no more trees are harmed!

Enya is a changed woman these days. Not only is she almost 5, but she is sporting a new “Dorothy Hamill” hairdo that she got from Brendan. She requested it and he obliged, to the later surprise of her parents. It is very cute and reminiscent of Ciara at that age. Enya is at pre-school 3 days a week and has really “grown up” this year. She took up ballet and gymnastics and loves both. Enya is an excellent writer and was chosen to write sections of her school calendar. She loves to play with her two neighborhood friends, Anna and Chloe. All three girls are at school together and have formed a wonderful bond.

Last week we attended a beautiful Holiday concert at one of the local churches built in 1826. Mum and the girls also attended a Nutcracker dance recital by Enya’s dance school. She, like Ciara, has stage fright so she chose not to participate.

Our big news this year is that we took a long awaited trip to Ireland. It was our first family vacation in many years and one that the kids will remember. We had a lovely time visiting Elizabeth’s family and the kids got to meet aunts and uncles and 15 of their 19 European first cousins. After a few days Brendan asked me if everyone in the country was a cousin? Granddad Noel was thrilled to see us all again and the kids loved seeing where Mum grew up and where she played. We visited castles, ruins, graveyards, beaches and even drove to Belfast for a day. We saw the shipyards where the Titanic was built and spent the day at a fabulous children’s science museum in the same wharf area. With “The Troubles” mostly over, Belfast is a city rebuilding. The highlight for the kids was riding the double-decker buses and trains. The trip occurred over July 4th so we missed our American July 4th celebration.

Elizabeth continued to work on her businesses this year. She added more clients and kept in touch with former ones. Her work is very satisfying especially when she hears stories of how she changes lives, or saves them as was the case with one client. On Thanksgiving eve, we received a call from a former client (now retired in Florida), who called to say that thanks to Elizabeth’s advice, she had just saved her family and condo from a house fire! When faced with a stove fire the client automatically reached for the baking soda which had been placed according to Elizabeth’s instructions!

Elizabeth was also featured in newspaper articles, and she put together a presentation on organizing garages for a local car club. Sixty six members attended and really enjoyed her informative and witty presentation style. Another neat accomplishment this year was her volunteer work at the kid’s school. The principal and staff were thrilled when she took on the dreaded Lost & Found area. Elizabeth designed shelving and hanging storage units for an alcove in the school just outside the cafeteria. She then convinced a local company to build her design free of charge, saving the school $2,000. The new Lost & Found has met with excellent success.

For fun, Elizabeth is spending more time with the kids and organizing fun things for the neighborhood Moms to do. In early December she organized a progressive dinner for 16 Moms. Everyone agreed that the nicest part of the evening was being able to finish one’s conversation, as they usually cannot do so with children around. In January, she will accompany Jim to see the dance show “Lord of the Dance” and they hope to get to the new indoor Skydiving place that just opened near our home. She also wants to try rock climbing, and if we ever get snow, will try out her new cross-country skis.

For Jim, 2006 saw a modest 4 distant trips with 6 destinations – Minneapolis (1st time), Kansas City, Washington D.C., Phoenix (1st time), and Portland/Seattle. All of these with the exception of KC were for Porsche Club of America. Jim completed a major project for them last February, and participated in their annual convention. He expects 2007 to be a quieter year on that front thankfully, since flying is such a nuisance of late. Jim still plays with PCA too, instructing at several high-speed track events in the Northeast this year, and enjoying time with long-time fellow PCA friends and making new ones.

Around town, Jim is getting a bit more involved in Groton town government where he continues volunteering for the Web Committee, which is soon to be merged into a town-wide information technology function and the probable hiring of an I. T. Director, the small town’s first.

On the business front, Jim has spent considerable time continuing the construction of his web site service using a new (to him) technology. It’s coming along very well after an initial learning curve. There are many details in creating a high-quality site and they take a fair amount of time. Here’s hoping that early 2007 brings the launch of this exciting venture. Jim is enjoying the programming and problem solving that merge together to form a viable online business.

This has also been a sad time for us with the loss of Jim’s Aunt Myrtle to cancer. Of all his aunts and uncles, Jim knew Myrtle the best since she lived near him during his early years, sharing holidays and birthdays, while the others were mostly in the Midwest. Her passing has served to remind us of how fragile life can be and how we should cherish every moment with those who are dear to us.

In closing, we wish you & your family a Happy New Year in 2007. As always, keep up with what we’re doing via our website at http://jimseld.com – maybe we’ll do a better job of posting pictures next year!