December 17, 2013

Dear Friends and Family, each year I think I'm getting later and later
with holiday arrangements, and this year, I know it's true. Last
year's letter was dated December 16th. We hedged our bets and got New
Year's cards to be safe this year.

We are often asked how we are doing, and the answer this year's reply
has always been, "Everything is great, but we are exhausted!" This
year's adventures included a trip to Germany (and Denmark), the ocean,
Shenandoah National Park, as well as visits from Donna's cousin
Missie, the Ohtanis, the Stamps, John and Noro, and of course visits
from the Robinsons, the Karps (Michael's sister and family), and
Donna's mom, who went along on the Germany trip. We also traveled to
see many of these same people.  So, we spend quite a bit of time on
the I-95.

One noteable achivement was that Zachary taught himself to swim in the
deep end one day. Donna told him he couldn't go to the "big pool"
until he could swim 10 laps of the "small pool" without holding on so
he just willed himself to do it. That was such a delightful surprise
after years of trying to urge him to swim. Zachary is in Spanish
immersion kindergarten, which he loves!

This year, Donna was shocked to recieve a Jack Child Teaching with
Technology award, which is a big deal at American University.  She was
shocked mainly because she hadn't been using any technology in her
classes, to her knowledge. You can read about that on her Apps
page. She and Michael have also started using videos on Youtube and
Panopto to help their students supplement their study.  Both Michael
and Donna are starting to really settle into their new positions at
American University and are enjoying working with the very responsive
and appreciative students there.

The two hardest aspects of this year, however, were probably the
bookwriting and the illnesses. Michael has been writing a book,
"Topological Signal Processing", in earnest since last January,
although he had started the preparation last year. The book is finally
in to Springer (the publisher), and our activity level is slowly
getting back to normal, whatever that is. The illnesses are still
ongoing but have reduced to manageable background noise. Starting
around Halloween of 2012, Theodore started getting repeated ear
infections and was on antibiotics about a third of the time, up until
May 2013. He finally got tubes put in his ears which immediately
improved his balance, as he was just learning to walk. We also
discovered that the kids and even Michael were passing strep throat
around to each other, with Edwin and Zachary being asymptomatic and
Edwin's case not responding to amoxycillin, which was hard to detect
since he was asymptomatic.  Everyone except Donna ended up on
antibiotics simultaneously. After this big round for everyone, things
mostly cleared up, except that Edwin now has this strange case of
hives (which his doctor orginally thought was lyme) that is only going
away very slowly. We have been assured that hives is nearly always
strange and that we will be lucky if we ever can figure out what's
causing it. So, we are hoping that the hives disappear as quickly as
they came.

Edwin is impressing us with his reading skills, and he is doing better
behaviorally in second grade than he did in first grade, which
was somewhat better than he did in Kindergarten. However, there is
still a gap between what we wish he would do and what he does. We were
proud that he was able to participate as a villager in "Eek! The
musical" at church, which is a 15 minute Christmas production
including about 3 or 4 songs in which the children's choir alternately
sings and sits on the sides waiting while some adults so additional
singing.  Zachary also performed in this production, dressed as a
mouse.

As Donna is drafting this letter, all the kids are in their respective
schools, hopefully behaving, and Michael is downstairs happily working
on an experimental clock mechanism.  He has been itching to tinker all
year, but the book-writing has prevented it.

We wish you all a very wonderful holiday season, and please do keep in
touch!

Michael, Donna, Edwin, Zachary, and Theodore




 Last Year's Pages: