Dear Family and Friends,

Well, here we are in 2001 ready to share the good news of our life as the real first year of the millennium winds down. We spent last Christmas in Dallas and enjoyed a very quiet, uneventful New Year’s Eve.

Kelsey is 5 years old and still at SMU Preschool since her late September birthday was past our state’s cutoff date for Kindergarten. She is an active kid who’s fond of coloring, singing, and anything having to do with dolls, especially Barbies.She took swimming lessons over the summer and absolutely loved it. Kelsey has grown 4 inches in the past year and eats everything in sight. Four girlfriends came for her birthday celebration -- a tea party at our home, complete with dress-up clothes, finger sandwiches, high-heeled shoes, and a Barbie cake. Kelsey dressed as a Barbie cheerleader for Halloween. Also, she plans to take dance lessons next year.

Trey is now an 8 1/2-year-old fantastic student who is into Battle Bots, riding his bike, and computers. Second grade ended well with Trey earning perfect attendance, honor roll, and good citizenship awards at school. He attended a science day camp and golf day camp over the summer, and also took swim lessons and karate lessons. He no longer requires ear plugs in his ears so this was the first year that swimming became a possibility for him. We joined a neighborhood pool over the summer so that both kids could practice their swim skills. Trey’s eyes became slightly nearsighted this year and he got glasses recently. Indian Guides ended for Trey after second grade and now his main activities are children’s choir at church and Cub Scouts. With the latter, he has already camped, done community service work, and sold a whole lot of Scout popcorn.

Terri got involved in PTA this year (she knew they’d get to her sooner or later). She worked several weeks on the directory of students, is a room mother for Trey’s class, and helped at the PTA Halloween carnival, which raised over $10,000. Her fall was busy with 3 conferences put on by the SMU Maguire Center for Ethics.She has read the entire “Left Behind” book series and plans to read the next installment over Christmas break. Terri continues to ring in her church handbell choir, serves on her church board of trustees, works out daily with Denise Austin on TV, and does some needlepoint and sewing when time permits. Terri also participates in an online support group for Mothers of Omphaloceles.

Allen’s buzz words for the year are “net activism.” Besides keeping cyber-tabs on our school district and a Dallas neighborhood famous for zoning violations, Allen ran an accountability site about our local mayor, who’s just resigned in order to run for the U.S. Senate. We have a favorite candidate who’s running in the special mayoral election, and both of us plan to work on her campaign. As before, he’s in the Dads’ Club at Trey's school, continues driving the McKinney Avenue Trolley, teaches at Networld+InterOp, runs the sound equipment at his church each Sunday, and has been very active in Indian Guides and now Cub Scouts with Trey After a small scare with two suspicious tumors, which were removed, we are thankful that both were benign. In his spare time, Allen enjoys playing golf.

We took two vacations to Colorado this year and one trip to Nashville. In March, we all skied at Breckenridge. Allen almost wasn’t able to ski because of a broken toe. It was Terri and Kelsey’s first time skiing. Trey is a natural--fearless and daring on skis. In July we went to Vail and enjoyed the summer respite in the mountains, watching fireworks and, of course, the annual 4th of July parade. Our trip to Nashville in June provided a great opportunity to catch up with Terri’s family and allow all the cousins to play together.

Terri’s grandfather died at age 98 on Christmas Day, and our family cat Mitzi died a couple of weeks prior to Christmas. Mitzi never quite recovered after removal of a tumor last year. In addition to the loss of Terri’s grandfather as well as her Uncle Don, Allen’s Uncle Harvey died. You may recall that, using the Internet, Allen had located Harvey (his mom’s biological half-brother) just three years ago. During these uncertain times, we’ve come to appreciate friends and family more than ever. Happy Holidays to you and your family. Please keep in touch.

With love,

Terri, Allen, Trey and Kelsey Gwinn