It's been a busy pair of years. Last year, we were so busy, we didn't get to a review of the year. In some cases, we didn't even make it to sending you holiday cards. (Oops! Sorry!)
Among other things we've fallen behind on, Cassandra's webpage is almost two years out of date, which is a real shame, because she still loves being in photos. We'll try to remedy that some time soon.
Early in 2006, Frances started a new job as a Project Analyst, focusing on lending and loan servicing, at MidAmerica Bank, at a location significantly closer to home than her old job with Allstate Insurance.
In August 2006, we finally sold the house in Wheaton and moved into a
larger house in Warrenville, taking us off a five lane street in favor
of a two lane residential street, immediately across from a park.
Frances's commuting distance remained the same, but Eric had to start
driving to work. (It should come as no surprise that we're still
unpacking.) The house came with a built-in Christmas tree in the back yard.
Shortly before we moved, a new cat, Missy, joined our family. It took her
a while to warm up to us, especially with two other cats, but she's quite
friendly once you get to know her.
In November 2006, Frances's boss left the company and her department merged with Information Systems, making for a slightly longer commute. Her job title shifted to Systems Analyst, and her job focus expanded to include retail banking. It's been a very educational year and a half.
Also in November, Frances's sister, Hilda, and her two children, Jesi
and Alex, moved in with us. Jesi home-schooled for eighth grade to make
the transition from Guatemala's school schedule to ours, and started as
a freshman at Wheaton Warrenville South in August. As of this December, Eric
and Frances are legal guardians to Frances's niece, Jesi. She'll continue
living with us and presumably those disgustingly good grades.
In more disappointing news, at the beginning of May, Frances's work announced a merger with National City. The merger was official at the beginning of September; system conversion and her end date at the company are scheduled for next February. That said, she has interviewed for a position within the company, which could actually be closer to home... and if that doesn't pan out, they've hired an expensive outplacement agency to help everybody find jobs.
Based on Frances's anticipated unemployment date, we're (again) planning our (much postponed) trip to England and Scotland for early to mid-March. We hope to visit several cities, including London, Ipswich, Edinburgh and Glasgow, to try and see many of Frances's family and friends.
We unfortunately lost several loved ones during the last year, including
our cat, Rumpelteazer. We promised we would spread his ashes on a rose
garden (due to his tendency to eat roses), so we have a bit of
landscaping to do since the new house didn't come with any rose bushes.
That's certainly not the most elaborate of our landscaping plans - the
convoy escorting our new shed (on a trailer, being pulled by a John
Deere tractor) from Eric's parents house tops anything we've done so
far, and anything planned for the near future!
At the end of June, Cassandra flew for the first time to attend a wedding in Connecticut. At the end of July, she flew for the second time to attend her grandfather's 80th birthday party in Guatemala. She had a fabulous time on both trips, and was particularly fond of the three hours or so swimming in the Aguas Calientes (hot springs) outside San Lorenzo El Tejar.
In August, Cassandra, Jesi and Frances drove down to Indianapolis to attend GenCon for a day. This was the first GenCon for both Jesi and Cassandra; Jesi ditched Cassandra and Frances the first chance she got and spent most of the day playing demo games in the exhibit hall, including acquiring an addiction to Zombie Fluxx.
Cassandra celebrated Halloween as both a ladybug and a dragon; the
former at a Halloween party for Hilda's work and the latter (warmer)
costume for trick-or-treating. Cassandra then wore her dragon costume
a couple weeks later for
Furfest, when Alex wore his new cat costume.
To celebrate Winter Solstice, each of the children selected an animal to adopt from the World Wildlife Fund adoption catalog. On the Solstice, they'll each receive an adoption certificate and matching plush. We selected more traditional gifts for Christmas, but since Jesi will probably read this, we can't tell you what they are.
We hope you all have a fabulous holiday season without too much snow shoveling.
Due to computer crashes and replacement, we do not have e-mail addresses for everybody that is reachable online. If you're receiving a printed copy of this, we don't have an e-mail address in the database for you. You can reach us online at our comcast.net e-mail address: CtrlAltTabby for Frances or Cotzbalam for Eric. For those of you without an online presence, we're still reachable at 28W420 Forest View Ave S, Warrenville, IL 60555. We also have a lovely answering machine at (630)393-1780.