2023 Christmas Letter

Dear friends - As 2023 draws to a close and Christmas nears, we wanted to reach out and send you our best greetings! We have been blessed and challenged in many ways this year, but we pray and hope you are all well and enjoying time with family, reflecting on the gift of the birth of Jesus. Being retired, but seeing the economy struggle, David decided to do some subbing last school year. He subbed a total of about 50 days over the school year. He also was offered a dream job as a guest teacher for Colorado Donor Alliance, going into middle and high school classes to teach about organ and tissue donation, and the hope that can be offered to others during a very dark point in their own own lives. This rewarding job payed better than subbing, but unfortunately didn’t offer frequent or consistent enough working days to bring in anything more than play money. He did get to visit about a dozen schools across Colorado during that semester, however. This past year saw us traveling once again. We drove to California to spend several days of our “Spring Break” with family and friends. We were able to spend a couple days with Becky, Don and Linda, friends Eric and Robin, and visit Lori’s Uncle Fred and Aunt Martha. Shortly after returning from that trip, David turned around to fly to Moab in order to help Anna drive to her new home and job outside Portland, Oregon. The weather tried to challenge this trip, but they made the trip easily in 2 ½ days, pulling the Uhaul trailer and fighting rain, wind, and snow along the way. He stayed with her 2 nights, and then flew home. In April, David attended the International Space Symposium at the Broadmoor as a Teacher Liaison, something he has had the opportunity to do for the last 15 years. A highlight this year’s symposium was meeting Eileen Collins, Space Shuttle astronaut and author of Through the Glass Ceiling and Beyond. It was the second time David has met her, and, needless to say he was impressed and “geeked out” all week. Throughout the spring, David continued to sub a bit, support the Cheyenne Creek Conservation Club he started, and was able to join them for third year of releasing trout they raised into the wild. In May, we finally found the perfect nearly new car for Lori. We bought her a silver 2020 CRV with extremely low miles from an estate sale, thanks to our friends the Seays, who helped us make the connection to purchase. In June, we pulled our camper out to Oregon. We were faced with strong headwinds all the way there, which ended up making it an expensive trip, but had a good time. Despite a tire mishap the first day in Wyoming, which delayed us by 8 hours, we covered a lot miles and arrived at the state park in Oregon right on schedule. We visited Anna in her new place and got to spend a few days camping and touring in Oregon, including walking on Cannon Beach, the Tillamook Forest visitors center, and touring the Tillamook Cheese Factory. On the way home, we were able to stop through Troy, ID and visit with Lori’s childhood friends from her church in Anaheim, Dan and Julie. We had a wonderful two days there, and David was ready to call Troy a potential new home. Except when he considered the winters…so on home across Montana and Wyoming we went. in Wyoming we were able to almost “meet” our friends the Stevens, who were going north as we were headed south. Our meeting consisted of texting as we passed each other, but they were also able to get a great action shot of us in our rig driving past them! The next month we took Lori’s new car and headed to Milwaukee to visit her brother Loren and his family in their new home. They had moved there from the Dallas area in February for a job. We had a wonderful time with them and loved the area they are in, north of the actual city. We got to visit the “beach” on Lake Michigan and helped them with a few summer home improvement projects. On the return from that trip, we stopped and visited our friends the Westphals in southern Wisconsin, the Vigils in southern Illinois, and the Bleaus near Nashville. Then we stopped and spent a day with David’s uncle Lee in Oklahoma. It was a wonderful two week trip. In August we went camping again, this time with teacher friends in Colorado. During that trip, David was called and offered a full time job back at Cheyenne Mountain Junior High. After what seemed like a dozen phone calls and some negotiation he wasn’t well prepared for, he accepted a part time position teaching Science. So, after a little thought and prayer, he returned to work in August, with 3 days notice before the school year began. What he didn’t really take into account was that they had adopted new curriculum since he’d left a year before. It has been a steep learning curve for him this year, even if he only teaches classes in the mornings. Needless to say, David is almost working full time, mentally, at least. In October our son Wes left his job as Kitchen Manager at Panino’s to become the maintenance person for his apartment complex. He has been learning a lot and enjoying the challenges of that job, and the perks that come with it. Thanksgiving was spent with Wes and his girlfriend Eryn, and the Hoffmanns at the Abdos’ place. We had a wonderful meal and time visiting with the cousins and getting to know Erynn even better. We are expecting Anna home for Christmas. Before moving to Oregon, Anna traded her car for our roomy 2005 Pilot, which we had put 150k miles on in 18 years of family trips. We are hopeful it will last her another 100k and many more trips. She has been road-tripping her way here in December, since she is off work until early January, visiting friends across the southwest along the way. Wonder where she learned that habit? Lori continues to teach ELL (English Language Learners), split between two schools, teaching kids grades k-8. She teaches and supports students from a number of languages and countries, including Afghanistan and Ukraine. She also continues teaching younger kids in Sunday School at our church, serving as a deacon, and coleading our GriefShare and adult Sunday school class with David. David continues to volunteer once a week with our church’s junior high ministry, and serves on the Trustee team. He is back to leading the Cheyenne Creek Conservation Club after school, as well.

Becky is due here next week for a Christmas visit, as she does each year. We are looking forward to this special time of year with family. May God bless you and yours as we begin another year in January. Please know our door is open to visits anytime! Merry Christmas & Blessed New Year, David & Lori Eick

#52 Ancestors - Week 5 - Oops!

In my now 30 year journey in amatuer sloothing, aka genealogy, I have ceertainly made a few oops, chasing after ancestors by the wrong name or in wrong locations. More importantly, I have learned many inspiring life stories that included some signifiant "oops" moments. i decided that the 52 Weeks project is nit soemthing i have time to continue for now.