Matthew has now finished his freshman year at S.U.N.Y.Maritime College in ThroggsNeck, NY., where he is officially a Third Class Cadet and has made the Dean's List for both semesters in his Freshman year! He is taller than John and Claire!!!! ! He towers over Katie, (but then so do most people) and has become quite a young man this year! Being involved in Boy Scouts, Matt completed work on his Eagle Scout project: bat nursery houses for the Hunterdon County Park system in August '04. He passed his Board of Review and will had his Eagle Court of Honor in January 2005. He returned to college for the Spring semester to play baseball for the schools's team, playing the position of pitcher! This was a transition year for the team, so losing was what they did most. This was tough for Matt, since he has always loved to play baseball. May will see the end of Spring semester and the beginning of a huge adventure, as Matt leaves for the school's Spring Sea Term: a cruise on the College's ship, the Empire State. They will be going to Belgium, Turkey & Portugul this year. What an adventure!! All of the students work the ship on the cruise, so being that Matt is studying engineering, he will be working on the engines and attending classes aboard ship for 6 college credits! This should be the experience of a lifetime!
Doug continues to grow and do well. He is now finishing his Freshman year at Hunterdon Central High School and a proud member of the Marching Red Devils Band and the Boys Volleyball Team. Boy Scouts continues to be a big part of Doug's life, too. He is now a Life Scout and is thinking about what to do for his Eagle Scout project. He has 25+ merit badges! Summer Camp is in the plans again this year! His hamster, Einstein died suddenly this past Fall and he decided to wait before adopting anymore rodent pets (Mom is happy about this one!!), and the fish are doing well, with a few new additons.
Katie & Mark are doing well. They are actually bought a house and after significant work and rennovations, moved into it in February. The nice thing about the house is that it was Mark's Grandmother's house, so there is some sentimental attachment that goes along with it. Needless to say, they are finding out what a "money -pit" a house can be! Katie's recent back injury has put the breaks on som eprojects, but they are getting things done.
John is still looking for a new job and working very hard at trying to make the business QOLRI get funded and started. Check out www.yourqualitylife.com Little by little, the house projects are moving forward, although more slowly now, because he has started to substitute teach at the High School - Doug isn't sure how he likes this, although Dad hasn't had any of his classes yet! Then there is the "Band", currently called The BassBoards ( www.bassboardsband.com ). The band is a group of friends & family who like to playing the Blues and they get together whenever they can to practice. They auditioned in Jan. at Orphan Annie's in Stirling, NJ. and have played regular "gigs" there a couple of times. ?...stay tuned for the success stories!!
Claire has worked as the Pharmacist-in-charge for the Hunterdon Regional Pharmacy, a small retail store set up in the lobby area of the Hunterdon Medical Center for a 2 years now. The hours are good and the business has grown incredibly! A well-deserved vacation with John to Hawaii in January. She spends lots of time with Boy Scouts as a merit badge counselor and Troop Committee member and a Unit Commissioner for the Council. Of course Boy Scout Camp is on the schedule for this summer, as usual. Gardening & crafts manage to sneak in ocassionally.. She is on a 'sabatical' from teaching CCD since Doug made his Confirmation. (6 years of teaching deserves a break!) Still active on the Alumni Council for the School of Pharmacy at Rutgers, she is looking forward to the 25th Reunion of her college class this coming November.
The family has a fish tank also. We have been successful in adding quite a variety of fish and enjoy watching them swim around. Our dog, Barak gets jealous of new pets, but he's still the "top dog" and favorite of us all. At age 8, he still acts like a puppy!
We love where we live, barring some minor problems we continue to deal with in our neighborhood. The rural area, not too far from big civilization is surrounded by many acres of preserved farmlands, so we get the feeling of being "out in the country". What a view! (In the Spring though, What a smell!!) We are excited that we now actually have some new stores in the area, so we don't have to travel as far to get things!
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Len's Wedding
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UNDER CONSTRUCTION
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John & Claire
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