December 2005

Dear Friends and Family,

We’ve had a great year since last Christmas. Here’s what we’ve been up to.  After Christmas, Terri’s parents came to visit. We all had a good time playing games, shopping, and baking Portuguese sweet bread (a family tradition).  On New Year’s Eve, the kids stayed up ‘til midnight for the first time ever to watch the ball drop in Times Square. The weather was pretty mild, as it was all winter in Dallas.

This has been a year of some changes for Trey. He turned 12 in March, and celebrated with a party at an indoor rock-climbing gym. During the spring, he attended confirmation classes and was confirmed in our church in May. This automatically made him eligible for the youth choir and the youth fellowship (UMYF).  Over the summer he attended Boy Scout camp for a week and worked on several merit badges.  Also he traveled with the youth choir (some 44 people) on a concert tour of west Texas and New Mexico.  The trip included white water rafting down the Colorado River.  In Scouts, Trey attained the rank of 1^st Class.  Trey entered 7^th grade at a new school, Dallas Academy, for kids with learning differences. He’s in a class of 7 students and has really grown to love school, even the 2-3 hours of homework per night.  His last big change this year was having braces put on his teeth in October.

Kelsey is now 9½ years old and in 3^rd grade.  She has grown 2 inches taller since last year and her hair is several inches longer.  A new neighbor close in age moved onto our street, so the 2 girls have been at times inseparable. Kelsey is still active in Upward cheerleading, and in Brownies, again selling the most Girl Scout cookies in her troop. This year she also has joined the drama club at school and the Marathon Kids running program, and was elected to the Student Council. Over the year she had been plagued with many stomach aches and nausea and a specialist discovered (by endoscopy) that she had a very inflamed esophagus. Kelsey was prescribed Prevacid^® and has been doing fabulously ever since.

Terri’s year has been busy with a variety of activities. At work, she was given more responsibilities with a small promotion and raise to match. Girl Scouts remains a big passion with her.  In addition to being a troop leader, she agreed to be school liaison to our service unit (geographic area) which entails recruitment and supervising other troop leaders. This fall she took some troop camping training and plans to take the girls camping this spring. She was room mother for Trey’s 6^th grade class and helped organize the end-of-year pool party, and this year she is assistant room mom for Kelsey’s 3^rd grade class. To stay well rounded, Terri (40 this year) continues to ring and teach handbells at church, serves on a Site Based Decision Making (SBDM) committee at the elementary school, exercises fanatically, and overextends herself with commitments frequently.

Allen (45 this year) is still a Boy Scout asst. leader and loves going camping with his and Trey’s troop.  Our local scout council asked him to install wireless access points in all the council’s campgrounds, thus giving them a wireless internet network and distribution system. Allen has worked on this since June on weekends as time permits.  As Senior Director of Technology in SMU’s business school, he was asked to oversee all aspects of technology in a new building that went up on campus this year. The resulting Collins Executive Center is full of state-of-the-art equipment.  Finally, Allen continues to serve on the board of our neighborhood association and attends SBDM meetings with Terri.

The summer’s hurricane season touched us personally when some Katrina survivors moved into temporary housing across the street from us. We made good friends with this family and felt their pain as we heard their story. They’ve moved on to Houston to rebuild their lives.  We wish them the best.

Kelsey’s cousin Wesleigh spent a week here over the summer, visiting from Georgia. The next week, our good friends, the Wilens, were in town and we got to spend some time with them.  We repaid the visiting duties in November with a trip to Washington DC/Maryland for a b’nai mitzvah of two of their kids.  Allen and Trey spent a week there and saw many of the sights.

We pray for peace around the world, thank God for our good health, and wish all of you the most joyous of holiday seasons.

Fondly,

Allen, Terri, Trey and Kelsey Gwinn