| FAMILY NEWSLETTER - JANUARY 2004 Dear friends and family, After Thanksgiving last year, Jenny and I were thinking about sending out Christmas cards, and I thought it would be neat to start and include a �family� newsletter. With the Christmas rush, we didn�t have time for cards. So we decided to write one for our web site. After writing the first draft, I thought it would be wonderful to produce one this time every year. I really wanted to write, especially because I feel like I have been out of touch with my relatives who live distantly. Some of you we saw at our wedding a little over a year ago, but we didn�t have time to talk. As a result, I apologize for the length of our first edition. Future newsletters should be shorter! 2003 seemed to come and go in the blink of an eye. Although it was a year for establishment and growth in Jenny and I, there were no significant changes in store for us this year. Since we were married in September of 2002, this year�s holidays were not our �firsts�, but we had a nice Christmas nonetheless. Jenny really surprised me by giving me a few major components and some money towards building a computer for editing video. On Black Friday we both went out for a few items for my system. Hopefully our insane amount of rebates comes in soon to replenish my savings account for the computer. My hope is to eventually have my own business and be able to work at home full-time. But I know I have to be careful and take it a step at a time. Work for both Jenny and I is often frustrating, so I�ll try not to get into too much detail. Jenny works 12-hour shifts, 3-4 days a week as a nurse at Kennedy in Washington Township a few miles away. Jen�s hospital can�t seem to hire and keep enough staff! There just isn�t anybody new to hire. (There is a national nursing shortage.) They�ve had numerous nurse managers for her floor in the 2-3 years she�s worked there. To know more about what makes her job tough, just turn on the news. It often seems that the whole health care system is going to collapse! I�ve worked 2 full years now in my second warehouse job. I drive a cherry-picker forklift in between racks and I go up in the air with the pallet behind me to collect orders for various computer things: monitors, printers, software, accessories. I love the work but hate the management and the hours. I work M-F with a middle-day shift with a weekly average of 2-4 hours overtime. I usually don�t get home until 8-9 PM. I feel stuck there because they pay well for a non-night shift. At least I don�t have to work weekends. Before my current job, I briefly held a position as a manager�s assistant in a Philadelphia video production company. (The manager couldn�t be bothered to teach me what he does in order to help him.) After that disaster, it took about a year and a half of thinking and reflecting in deciding to go independent in my career. I feel God has been leading me in that direction throughout my life. Besides, there are hardly any video jobs around Philly, and we both don�t want to move away right now. You have to know somebody to get an unadvertised job, and when a job is advertised, a hundred people apply. I�m kind of in career limbo. Maybe a video job will open up in the future, but I�m hoping my future business will take off. Enough about work! Let me write about some of the fun that we had this year! Last New Year�s Jen had to work New Year�s Day, so we had a quiet eve and toasted a glass of champagne by ourselves. Early January Jen took me up to Houghton College in New York state, above the Pennsylvania border. Jen started her college career at Houghton, and although she didn�t graduate there (she later transferred to Widener U. in PA and changed her major to nursing), she made a few close friends. One, her roommate Dawn, lives about an hour south in PA. The area is beautiful, extremely rural, and somewhat mountainous. We stayed at Dawn�s house for a long weekend. They had plenty of snow, and a couple of their friends came and brought their snowmobiles! Another first for us! Jen almost crashed into a hill because she couldn�t see through the mist of the snowmobile we were following. I was way too amazed by the stopping power (they really dig into the snow to stop). I�d never be able to go fast on rough terrain because you�ve got to use your knees as shock absorbers, and mine aren�t in the best shape! The brief tour we took of her school was exciting for me to see where she lived while we were first getting to know each other through e-mail. She has many fond memories of Houghton, and touring the campus was my tiny way of sharing her experiences. We went away Valentine�s Day weekend to a fabulous Bed and Breakfast near Lancaster. We had very friendly hosts and superb breakfasts at our first B&B. Unfortunately we spent that Sunday driving home VERY SLOWLY in the Blizzard of �03. Luckily we anticipated the possibility of snow (BUT NOT THAT MUCH!) and took Jen�s Blazer instead of my Grand Am. How surreal it was to drive over the Delaware River on a completely deserted, snow-covered Commodore-Barry (a pretty long bridge), possibly a once-in-a-lifetime experience! The first half of the summer it rained almost every weekend. Going to the shore was out, but we did get some stuff done around the house, from cleaning out some of the attic and basement (We bought Jen�s parents� house � 20+ years of belongings!) to cleaning up our property. We ripped out a few of our smaller set of 8 trillion trees in our yard and moved around some railroad ties that were surrounding old gardens to line our driveway with. We also moved a lot of stuff around to improve the function and looks of our rooms. Our middle room is a guest bedroom / future baby bedroom (NO NOT YET! GIVE US SOME TIME!). Our back room is now our computer / future video editing office. And our finished bedroom in the basement has become a small video game / family room. We are also proud of our kitchen! Jen�s dad is almost done remodeling it for us and it looks great! In April we played paintball with two of our church groups. It was the first time we played on a field you pay to play on, plus our first �speedball� field (small, with inflatable bunkers to duck behind). With so many players on a little field, it�s a free-for-all with paintballs constantly flying! Jen and I both agree that we like much better the �hunt� of playing in woods with only a few people. It�s a lot more affordable too! In early August we took a long weekend and went to Dorney Park / Wildwater Kingdom in Allentown PA. I was only a kid when I last went, and was surprised to discover I think I enjoyed the rollercoasters more than the waterslides, which was quite the opposite when I was younger! We stayed in a great room with a fantastic corner whirlpool tub! On the way home we paid our first visit to an Ikea store in Conshohocken. It�s amazing! They place their furniture and products in numerous settings that resemble real rooms in a house or apartment. It�s like walking around and playing with other people�s living arrangements! You can easily spend many hours there. We had a lot of fun discussing possibilities for our house. September was a busy month for us. Early in the month, we celebrated our first anniversary and took a vacation in Ocean City, NJ. It was a nice week because it was after Labor Day and not nearly as crowded. We also got a great price on the house we rented. The wind was strong and the surf was too rough to bodyboard, but it was a very relaxing week. Later in the month we went up to Philly to see my brother Chad graduate from the Art Institute of Philadelphia. He kinda followed in my footsteps and got interested in video production. The year after I started attending vocational school for video, our high school started offering classes for it. We feel Chad was robbed in that he didn�t receive any awards during the ceremony, but then again, he received a full scholarship there in the first place (worth around 30,000 dollars)! Chad is now working more hours at Acme by working nights, and is now open during the day for anything in the future that may pop up. Whatever happens, I�m sure we�ll eventually work together somehow. This year we attended many weddings! Two of those weddings were for friends from Jen�s work whom we�re really getting to know and spend more time with. Another couple from church invited us to their wedding, and in July Jen went up to Houghton College again for a wedding. Allison, another roommate of Jenny�s who became a close friend, decided to have her wedding in a nearby town church. I wasn�t able to go because I couldn�t get enough time off. And finally, a friend of my mom (Lynn) from where she used to work is into video production and does weddings on the side. She invited us and asked me to videotape their wedding. So I think that makes five weddings we went to in one year! I think this upcoming year may be a little quieter. We want to continue fixing up our house and yard, and at the same time, work to reduce some of our college debt. We�ll see how it goes. By the way, be sure to check out our pictures! We have a few pictures up of 2003 and before and after pictures of our kitchen! Love, Jenny and Matt |