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This has been quite a year. We have had some of the highest highs and the lowest lows we could have imagined this year. That is my excuse for not posting (or even writing) this “Christmas” news until New Years Day. Starting this fall, Jeanie and I have a quiet home. Kat’s in college! Some would say we are “empty nesters”, but somehow the bills remind us that it is not quite a reality yet. But we are definitely enjoying the quiet.

We participated in a Marriage Conference led by Gary Chapman, author of The Five Love Languages books. And we had a visit from Flat Stanley. Flat Stanley was a school project from a friend in Summerville, SC. He is a “boy” made of paper who came in an envelope and who we showed around Charlotte. Fun stuff!

This fall at the last minute, we decided to visit my (Jim’s) grandmother in West Virginia. She is staying in an assisted living home in Scott Depot. I remembered to write her on Tuesday of that week. So Wednesday morning, I hurried to the post office to mail a quick note telling her we’d be there. She didn’t get my note until Friday morning. When I arrived on Friday afternoon and poked my head in the door, she smiled and said, “you stinker!” She is 94 years old and in relatively good health.

Danae had knee surgery this fall, which was inconvenient for her and apparently for the Navy as well. They gave Mark time off to help her get to the surgery, but not to see her through the recovery. Not to worry, Jim’s employer, Wachovia is generous with granting time off to help family members with medical issues. So Jim was able to bring her to Charlotte to recover and then get her back to Atlanta for the follow-up visit and trip back to Kingsland. It was great having special time with her.

Thanksgiving was an interesting event. We had Jeanie’s mom and three of our girls (Mark and Danae couldn’t make it) here. Jeanie had to work since she is the newbie at the hospital. Of course someone has to run the place. Jeanie had prepared almost all of the food beforehand so we just cooked the turkey and heated up the rest to have it ready for a late night Thanksgiving feast. We have a lot to be thankful for this year!

Since Christmas has come and gone, I can tell a bit about it this year. We had a super busy time hosting all four girls, Mark and his brother, Jake, and both of our moms. Jeanie’s working made her visiting time shorter and more precious. The grandma’s and Kat played about a million games of scrabble. Mark and Jake seemed to enjoy their time together and there were more toys and great food than we deserve. It was a wonderful holiday.

Melody Grace

Last spring break, Melody took a trip to San Diego and met Jim’s cousin Harry’s family. She is the first one of us to meet Dawn and the kids. The rest of us are jealous. She went with Harry on his rounds at the hospital. (Harry is an MD), which fascinated her. Melody has plans to enter a medical scientist training program after which she will have earned a PhD and an MD! Go Mel!

When we asked her where she wanted to go for her birthday this year, she said that she wanted the family to visit Latta Plantation, which is a park near our home. So we had all four sisters, mom and dad on a family outing. It was a so fun just hanging out together like old times. Several of the photos in the collage including those with the chick (named Peep) were from this day.

Melody has picked up the guitar and is taking classes. She is quite good for someone who has been at it only a few short months. (I am jealous!) She got a new guitar for Christmas and enjoys playing for learning and for relaxation. It is a great way to deal with the stress of life.

Speaking of classes, Melody finished with a 4.0 for the fall semester! Incredible! She wrote a theoretical paper on Music and Language Processing in the Brain to be published in the university’s Journal of Psychology’s (UJOP) spring issue. She is looking forward to a year of organic and biochemistry and expects to start research on vascular and immune responses to metastatic cancer of epithelial origin in mice. (I’m not jealous of that… it makes my brain hurt).

Leah Kathryn

Kathryn’s senior year of high school couldn’t end quick enough for her. She helped produce the morning TV news show at Vance High school. Every day, she demonstrated her technical wizardry as she recorded, mixed and turned knobs to make things happen on TV’s across the school. Jim had a treat one morning when he stopped by on his way in to work to observe her at work. Kat graduated from high-school this year. With no tears whatsoever, she said goodbye to dear old Vance High. Just a few months later, she said hello to Western Carolina University. She started with plans of a major in Communications, but one semester was enough to convince her that this was not the right choice for her. What path she will take is a mystery at this point, but an eighteen year old shouldn’t have to know all the answers. We look forward to great things this year!

Jeanie and Kat took their mother/daughter graduation trip to Florida this past summer. They stopped along the way to visit Petey the dog and his “mother” Danae. Of course Danae is Kat’s sister, but she plays second fiddle to the dog. They then took in Universal Studios and Disneyworld and had a great time together.

Kat switched to playing bass guitar. She has a new “batmo-bass” which is a bass guitar that looks like the batmobile and an acoustic bass. We are frequently serenaded with sounds of Metallica. Kat has three piercings and two tattoos much to her parents chagrin.

Melissa Erin

Erin is still at NCSU… still double majoring in engineering… still has a 4.0!… still in love with Justin…

Erin left the country this summer to study abroad in Vienna, Austria. In the six weeks she was gone, she traveled to Munich, Salzburg, Innsbruck and Prague. Her favorite place was Innsbruck where she got to visit the Alps.

She left the dorm to experience apartment living this past Fall and she’s now using a bicycle to get around campus and travel from her apartment. She loves having a kitchen to cook for herself, but it’s too small!

Ever the actress, Erin played the part of the gossipy and flamboyant Mrs. Candour in the play “The School for Scandal” Check out her picture (the old lady at the top right in the collage)… What you can’t see in the picture are her 4 inch stiletto heels!

Shaw Industries surprised Erin with a huge scholarship award this fall. They invited Jeanie and me up for a nice lunch and told us all about their company, which is a flooring manufacturer in Dalton, GA. They plan to fly her out there this spring to tour their facility. In the meantime, she is planning to keep busy with the Underwater Robotics Club and lots of studying.

Danae and Mark Ogren

by Danae…

Once again, another eventful year has passed us by. Technically we aren’t newlyweds anymore since we celebrated our 2nd anniversary this past July. It still feels like yesterday we were walking down the aisle!

Still no children, yet… A few family members are getting a little anxious for little ones to start arriving! Instead of kids we’re happily filling our house with other critters. Early this year we went to the local humane society and got a “pet” for Petey. Lucy is supposed to be a leopard hound mix, however most people think she resembles a Dingo. They’re a pretty good source of cheap entertainment. The favorite game of choice is to chase each other at full speed in the backyard and then tackle right before hitting the fence. One thing’s for sure, they keep us on our toes!

There isn’t any exciting news to report as far as military life. It will still be a little while before we are transferred to another location. We have a couple of places in mind, but we’ll just have to wait a little longer to find out where they want us. We’ve had a real treat as far as Mark staying in port for a while. That won’t last of course. They haven’t been going on deployments, rather doing some overhauling, repair work on the submarine.

For most of the year, I’ve been working at a bakery. Within a few weeks I learned how to decorate cakes, bake bread, and make cookies all at the same time! I had to be put on leave-of-absence in September due to knee pain. Just before we got married I had knee surgery on my left knee. Well, I had the same problem in my right, however this new possible meniscus tear was causing a cyst. So we went to Atlanta, GA to have the procedure done. It turns out there was no tear this time so all the surgeon had to do was remove the unwanted cyst. Although Mark had to return home shortly after the procedure I had to stay for two weeks until my post-ops. It gave me a chance to spend some quality time with my grandmother in Atlanta and my parents who brought me back to Charlotte for a week.

This past summer we had the opportunity to see both families. My youngest sister graduated high school, much to the delight of my mother, and afterwards we saw Mark’s family in Atlanta for his cousin’s wedding. It was wonderful to get to spend time with everyone. We only wish the visits could have been longer. This holiday we met Mark’s brother Jake at my family’s house in Charlotte, NC. We spent about a week there and then had to come home to Mark’s old familiar, busy military schedule. For those friends and family we did not get to see, we were with you in spirit!

Jeanie

After many months of study, practice and perseverance, Jeanie finally finished her nursing refresher course and has been crowned, Jeanie Anderson, RN. It is so cool to see her do so well. She is a totally different nurse than she was when she was younger. She was a good nurse then. She is a great nurse now!

She quickly found a position in Obstetrics at the CMC University Hospital. In just a couple of months working in OB, many couples have given her so many encouraging words. They mention her fondly (by name) in their evaluations. One new dad told her that the nursing profession is lucky to have her back. We are so proud of her and the positive impact she is making in this world.

What a year! 2004 has presented some huge events in my life. Before this year, I had never been to NYC and now I have made two business trips to the Big Apple. I had never been overseas before and now I am reminiscing about a life changing two week musical tour of Southern France!

Near the end of 2003, I spent some time with my buddy, Curt, who looked me in the eye and told me, “You are a leader!” He said, “You have been fighting it as long as I have known you, and I don’t know why. But you are a leader!” Those words rang in my head as I drove home to Charlotte. I began to ask myself what leadership looks like for me. This year has been a year for growing in a lot of ways, trying on different styles of leadership, learning who I am and what fits me.

During the spring, I invested time in mentoring a young man in a program called Faith Hope and Love. This first grader was a real joy to me. I loved spending time with him every week. I wasn’t able to continue when they moved my office from uptown to the university area. As much as I hated it, it was just too difficult to get there each week.

I joined the LaClef team (http://laclef.org) for a musical mission trip to Southern France. We left mid July and were there for two weeks playing 6 big concerts plus some small street performances to promote the evening events. God knit my heart with some incredible people from Charlotte and from Montreal, Quebec. I will never forget them, nor will I ever be the same. God took some basic truths and drove them deep into my heart during that time. He performed some real spiritual-heart surgery on me. If you want to know more, let me know and I’ll share some of my writing about it with you.

Last winter, I told two of my buddies that I wanted to overcome my fear of heights, and they took me at my word. In early April, we headed to Crowder’s Mountain for an adventure in repelling! They literally dangled me off the side of a mountain! It was so frightening and so exhilarating. When I got to the bottom, I wanted to do it again immediately, but suddenly one of the guys said he was going to be late for something and we had to quickly pack up and leave. So we raced down the mountain, packed up and zoomed back to Charlotte. I was a little bewildered because there was no mention of a schedule when we left, but I was cooperative. It turns out the event that he was in such an all-fired hurry to get back for was MY surprise birthday party! I was totally blown away. I had so many friends and family there that I just almost cried. Jeanie finally completely surprised me! What an awesome day that was for me!

After more years than either of us want to admit to, my college roommate and I got reacquainted this year. He lives near Jeanie’s mom, which makes it somewhat easier for us to get together than we knew. Jim was also able to spend some time in Boone this summer with another old chum. We took in a P.D.Q. Bach show and had a great time catching up.

I inherited the leadership role of small group of men in my church this year. We have had some incredibly rich times together including two great campouts in addition to all the great discussions in our group. There is a core group of folks at church who challenge me to grow in ways that I had never before thought possible. Life is richer as I lean on them to help me through the rough times. Their friendship and encouragement has taught me things that I should have known already at 46 years old. I guess it is better to learn them now than never! As my buddy used to tell me, “We really do need each other!”

Thanks, God for the lovely family you have loaned us… May we be the people you want us to be.