by Dear Family and Friends:
2018 has gone by in a blur and as I sit outside on a beautiful 75-degree day in Texas, I find it difficult to pull the threads together into a coherent tapestry of the year.
Here’s a pic of us on at the Queen’s Ball in Bryan on New Year’s Eve to get things started:
Monica and I continue to live on the Iola ranchito and spend most of our days and nights there in the calming company of man’s best friends, our Mini Aussies Tucker and Dagny.
I say most because we have teamed up with David to rent a 2-bedroom apartment in College Station and spend 2 nights a week there. This acts as a base for us as 50-year-old party animals and as a way to make Smonday a little less painful by cutting down on the drive in from the country.
As you might surmise, our quest to move back to Bryan has been put on hold, mostly due to my wishy-washiness vis-a-vis the commitment to the financial obligation, the needs of the aforementioned dogs to roam, dig, and bark, and our rather deeply embedded dislike of neighbors. There is nothing like 500+ feet between you and the next house! In the end, the combination of these factors made it impossible to settle on a property in town, at least for this year.
On the job front, we both continue in our same positions, me as the manager of a software dev. team at the Texas A&M System and Monica as a test designer for the engineering extension’s emergency services training group. This year was a lot of chaos for us as my team was heavily involved in an implementation of Workday, a cloud HR/payroll system and Monica with her multiple assessment creation projects. Plenty of extra hours to go around for both of us, alas.
I spent the bulk of my personal time continuing my progress toward a master’s degree in computer science. I hope to close that endeavor out in 2018 and restore my life to a rational state in which I *only* have to work a challenging day job.
For the past few months Dave has worked full time in the deli at the local HEB grocery, thus experiencing the glories of the 40-hour work week, the experience in a corporate machine, and the incumbent loss of personal freedom. He is currently contemplating a HVAC course at Blinn College as his next step, so stay tuned on that.
Jake finished up his bachelor’s degree in May and is into his second year as a police officer and is finding the work to have its rewards. We need more young men like him on the streets and that is a fact. He and Amberly bought a home in Bryan and live there in style with their 2 dogs and a pair of cats. Amberly continues to work in the special education field, which may be even more challenging than Jake’s work. It is, as a wise man once said, even worse than it appears.
Mitch continues in his role as a medic in the Army. He and BethAnne are expecting grandson number 2 and are doing an amazing job raising Oren, aka MD8, who is just now beginning to walk in earnest. They drove all the way here in December to pay us a visit and everyone enjoyed seeing them.
With all of the above it was a slow year for travel and excitement, but Monica and I did squeeze in a couple of short trips to see Mitch, BethAnne, and Oren. On one of these I took a detour to Indiana for a couple of days to see dad, Sharon, mom and Tom. It’s always fun to visit the old stomping groups, but it makes melancholy to think that it has been 35 years since I was a young man there. I still feel like the same person I was then, at least until I try to run a race!
We also got to Austin twice and dropped in on the Moores there.
Merry Christmas and God Bless!
Marc and Monica Moore
