Kyle and Kristen Shipp

6368 McKenzie Dr.

Flint, MI 48507

810.496.3322

[email protected] (Kyle)

[email protected] (Kristen)

 

Kyle and Kristen – September 10

Kyle – February 8

Kristen – March 1

 

 

 

Spring/Summer 2007

 

Hello!

 

We’re back in Massachusetts again for the summer.  This year we found a little house to rent in a small town.  It’s very old and quite charming!  But the best part is a little more space than an apartment and a yard!  We got connected with an animal rescue group and we are fostering two boxers until they can be adopted by a good family.  We have Apollo and Dixie, who are not siblings but have been together since they were very young.  They are wonderful dogs and have become a great addition to our family.  We love coming home to them and taking them out for adventures. You can check out the pictures on the website.

 

Kyle is busy working at Bose.  This summer he will be working on his thesis for Kettering University.  We are relieved because his topic has officially been approved by both Bose and Kettering.  He is scheduled to graduate next spring!  He’s also got a new hobby of building/refinishing furniture.  So far he has done a dining room table, a bureau turned entertainment center, a headboard, and a coffee table.  It’s all added a lot of warmth to our home and it feels more established with real furniture!

 

I’ve been working for a company called Comfort Keepers.  I do non-medical care for elderly people – generally companionship, some housekeeping, and helping with appointments and errands.  Unfortunately they couldn’t offer me enough hours to work full time, so I am starting to work for a summer camp.  It’s a YMCA day camp on over 100 acres of land, including a ropes course, beach, and lake.  I’ll be running the arts and crafts program.  There are about 600 campers each day!

 

We have a few trips planned for the summer… a weekend at the lake with my family, a couple camping trips, a mystery anniversary trip, and a week with Steve, Becky, Stacey, and Rich in Virginia.  It will surely go by quickly!

 

We wish you all well and will be praying for you.  Enjoy the summer!

 

Kristen & Kyle Shipp

 

P.S. It’s not us.

 

 

Fall/Winter 2006

 

Kyle and I have had an exciting summer and fall.  We finished our time in New England at the end of September.  It was a great summer there and we enjoyed the Cape as often as possible.  It might be one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.  My parents came to visit in July.  Steve and Becky came for a visit in time to help us move back to Michigan, which was a huge blessing to us and probably a bummer of a vacation for them.  So we’re settled back in Flint.

 

We spent the first few weeks home preparing for Stacey and Richard’s wedding.  It was a tremendous success – the hotel was beautiful, the bride gorgeous, the food was delicious, and of course, now they’re happily married!  Stacey did an incredible job planning and decorating for the wedding.  She should really be a wedding planner!  The only unfortunate part of the deal is that now they live in Florida, which is too far away in my opinion.

 

Big news for Kyle and I!  We had our offer accepted on a house last week!  It’s downtown Flint, about half a block from Kettering University, where Kyle goes to school.  It needs a LOT of love, but it has great potential!  We still have to go through the inspections and appraisals, but if there aren’t any major problems we are scheduled to close on Dec. 15.  After a lot of removing, replacing, and painting, we will have our first home!

 

Kristen and Kyle Shipp

 

 

Spring/Summer 2006

 

I've found the website is really useful to find out what you were up to the last time the newsletter came out. It appears that I was in school and Kristen was working at Best Buy. Well, after that I went to school for another three months and Kristen stopped working at Best Buy. They really liked her and she thought it was an okay job but she needed two weeks off at Christmas for all of our travels and they weren't too excited about that. It worked out good though as she was able to find another job as a nanny for a baby and a five year old. She really enjoyed the baby but the five year old was kind of a struggle. Thankfully, she only had to deal with him a few hours per week after school. It was also nice because they were only looking for someone for a short time and it was about the time I had left at school for this rotation.

 

I also started skiing this winter with Kristen's family and really enjoyed it. I bought skis soon after my first time skiing, which proved to be a good lesson in asking your wife before you make big purchases. I thought I would be nice and get her some at the same time, which proved to be a good lesson in having your wife help pick out big purchases that are for her. So we are learning a lot but we also went skiing a couple times before the snow melted and had fun.

 

Right now we are living out in Ashland, Massachusetts and maintaining our ratio of jobs. Actually, the engineer in me is reminding me that 0:1 probably isn't a ratio but 1:2 is. Kristen is working at an inn/conference center at the front desk and also as a substitute teacher at a daycare. She really likes the daycare but the commute is kind of tough. It only 18 miles away but in usually takes her about an hour. In contrast, the inn is about a mile down the road our apartment is on which has very little traffic. She enjoys both jobs though and gets good hours between the two.

 

I am back working at Bose until the end of September and it is going well as usual. I am working in the same group I did last summer making prototype speakers so I was able to get rolling a lot more quickly this summer. I think my boss picked up on that as I have many projects going on but it's exciting and keeps me busy. He keeps signing the purchase req's when I ask for money for projects so I can't complain. Actually, next week I will be traveling to our two plants in Mexico for a project I'm working on so that will be good. I haven't seen the Mexico plants yet so it will be a good experience. And just to clarify, I still think it would be a good experience even if I wasn't staying in a hotel right on the Pacific Beach in San Diego for half the week. Just had to throw that in for my wife who is a little jealous of what she calls my "work" trip.

 

I think that is all the news from out here. We are having fun and seem to be adjusting well to married life.   Looking forward to hearing from all of you.

 

Kyle and Kristen

 

 

Fall/Winter 2005

 

 

The last few months have been a whirlwind!  We were married on September 10th, which turned out to be a beautiful occasion.  The ceremony was held at Resurrection Reformed Church, the church in which my father pastored as I grew up.   We had an outdoor reception, right on the lawn of the church.  Not only did we profess our love for each other before God, but, we were also able to share it with many friends and family members.

 

We’re now living in Flint, at Kyle’s grandparents house.  They are snowbirds and graciously allow us to live in their home while they are in Florida.  Kyle’s school schedule keeps us moving between Flint and Boston every 6 months.  He’s back to studying industrial engineering at Kettering (in Flint) and working for Bose (in Boston) now that he’s home from the Middle East.

 

I’ve been keeping busy with a new job.  I was hired for seasonal help at Best Buy.  It’s a really fun job with some great perks (like a new TV that we were able to purchase as our Christmas gift to each other!).  It doesn’t have the long lasting emotional rewards of being a nanny, but it does pay much better!  Speaking of which, Anna, the little girl that I used to nanny for, came for a visit a few weeks ago.  She was our first overnight guest.  She is 18 months old now and quite a flurry of activity.  We were really enjoying having a little tyke around until she woke up at 5:30am the next morning.  That brought us to the abrupt decision that we will be waiting several years before having any kids!  Next we thought we’d try a dog.  We both really love dogs, but we’ll be living in an apartment during our stays in Boston so we’re not sure that it’s a good time to get one.  But we borrowed a golden retriever from some friends for a week while they were gone just to see.  I secretly think Kyle was hoping it would convince me that we shouldn’t get one now.  However, it backfired on him because it was a wonderful week!  So if you know anyone getting rid of an older, well behaved dog, let me know…

 

On a more serious note, my grandfather died recently.  It was a tremendous blessing because he’s been very sick for a long time and it’s been a burden on my grandmother and my parents.  But it’s still hard to say goodbye.  He pretended to be a tough guy, but he had a very gentle heart.  I’ll never forget how he used to “supervise” us.  Since he’s been sick (10+ years) he’s been unable to do yard work, but he still wanted it to be perfect.  So he would wheel out to the driveway and bark instructions at the rest of us.  No matter how hard I worked he would still insist that it was “his way or the high way.”  However, when a project was finished he would brag for months about what a nice job we did.  I’ll really miss taking orders from such a great man.

 

Well, I hope this finds you healthy and happy.  May the Lord bless you and keep you over the holiday season.

 

Sincerely,

Kristen and Kyle Shipp

 

 

Spring/Summer 2005

 

I have been very busy in the last 3-4 months. One of the biggest events obviously was I came back from the Middle East. We got back at the end of February and spent about a week at Ft. McCoy, WI demobilizing. We made the trip from Wisconsin back to Michigan by bus and were greeted with a hero’s welcome from local law enforcement and parents. I kind of relaxed but also stayed busy for the next two months. I traveled to Iowa, Kentucky, and Chicago with Kristen at various times to visit with family. I was also working on wedding plans and getting ready to move again at the end of April. Currently, I am living in Ashland, MA and working at Bose Corporation again as part of my co-op experience at Kettering University. I’m going to be out here until the middle of August then I’ll come back home to finish preparing for the wedding.

It is definitely good to be home but I have managed to stay really busy since I have been home. As most of you are reading this on the internet I’m sure you can tell the newsletter is online now. The pictures section is a little thin right now so if you have any pictures you would like to see on the website you can email them to [email protected] and I’ll put them up. Also if you have any ‘Updates between the updates’ you can email those to [email protected] and I’ll put them up on the main page. And we’ll pretend for now that people will actually check the website in between updates.

 

Kyle

 

 

Fall/Winter 2004

 

I think this might be the first time I have got an extension on an assignment and it wasn't because of my procrastination so take note. I spent the last week on a mission to Iraq. If any of you have a better reason for not getting the updates in on time I'd be interested in hearing it. :) You likely heard about the British troops moving north to free up US troops to retake Fallujah. Well, I was part of the group that took them up there. It was an interesting trip but we all returned safely so it was good. There are more details and pictures on my website at kyleshipp.com.

The conditions at our camp have improved quite a bit since the last newsletter and there is also a lot fewer people here now. There was much talk of us possibly going home early and being home by Christmas. That is not the case however and we have been reassigned to another camp. Our new mission is providing security on buses that take soldiers from the airport in Kuwait City to the main processing camp in Kuwait. This would be soldiers going home on R and R leave or soldiers just arriving or leaving the theatre. We should be home sometime around next March.

Probably the biggest news since the last update is I got engaged to Kristen Pratt. I had my R and R leave for 15 days around the beginning of September and I asked my high school sweetheart to marry me. She said yes and is busily planning a wedding for 10 Sep 2005. Right now she is working as a nanny for a 6-month-old girl so that also keeps her very busy. Grandma Shipp, Listers, and Batteys all came to Michigan while I was home so it was good to see all of them. I put more frequent updates on my website so you can check that for many more details. I also send the updates via email so if you would like to be added to the list just let me know.

Kyle

 

 

Spring/Summer 2004

 

I am writing via email from Kuwait. I was deployed here with the Army Reserves at the beginning of March. I am at the largest port in Kuwait where we load equipment on the ships and unload it from the ships. I drive everything from Humvees to semi-trucks to tanks. And then tanks are a lot of fun. We are scheduled to be here until about next March which will make year in country. As far as I know we will be here the whole time but things change every day. It got up to 106 today and it is only the 7th of March. I can hardly wait for the middle of August. We are living in a tent with about 50 guys but we have showers and a gym so life is not too bad. It is amazing how much we can live without and still get by fine.

About a year ago, April 22, I was at the recruiter's office signing up for the Army reserves. I enlisted as a Private (E-1) and wasn't really sure where my service would take me. They told me I could drive a truck and serve my country so that sounded good to me. Now a year later I have been to two drill weekends, a Christmas party, and been on active duty for almost 9 months. It's not what I planned on really but I wouldn't ask for anything different. I love being here and being able to serve and have meet some wonderful people. I'm not saying this as a commercial for the Army. No one in the Army really understands the slogan "An Army of One" except for the advertising company that got paid millions to come up with it. But all too often I think the whiners are the ones who get the most publicity. The fact is we all volunteered for this. Some did it for family, some did it for country, and some did it at a judge’s suggestion but we all signed the line. It's all about attitude and I choose to enjoy my time serving.

Be proud to be an American,

Kyle

 

P.S. My address here is:

SPC Shipp

251 TC, 1st PLT

Camp Spearhead

APO AE 09305

 

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