| 2001 The Year in Review |
| This comes to you with wishes for many blessings and a joyful holiday season. We live in a different world now, and it is essential to stop and appreciate the really important things in our lives. For Jim and I, we don't need to look far to the three little faces that bless our lives every day, Garrison, 6, Grant, 4 and Griffin, 2. Of course, many times a day they challenge us, also, but when we tuck them in at night, we are truly grateful. 2001 brought some welcome changes to our lives. In May we moved again!!! This time it was into a lovely 4-bedroom house with a basement and a fenced in back yard! It is a block from a park and on cull-de-sack, so it is a safe area for the kids to play outside. Grant just learned to ride a two wheeler a couple of weeks ago with the help of a neighbor, so he is out riding bikes all of the time! He goes to pre-school 4 days a week in the mornings. He is the most popular kid in his class. Very social! Everyone loves him. He is very full of energy, so we're glad to let him put it some where else on those 4 mornings! Garrison is close to getting his training wheels off his bike, too, he just needs an afternoon with daddy outside rather than inside playing computer games, which is his favorite past time. We are so proud of our Kindergartner! He is really doing great! The kids do a lot more work than we ever did in Kindergarten! Garrison writes all of his letters and is emerging as a reader, sounding out words and recognizing sight words. He can count to 100 with a little help on all of the decades. He got glasses last February for farsightedness. He is really good about wearing them at school and when reading, but he is so active, they usually come off as soon as he steps off of the bus. He is in a class with 23 other students and goes 5 mornings a week. He still gets a little extra help from the special-ed. team, but for the most part, he is keeping up and enjoying school. He lost his two bottom teeth and they came in already, but we're still waiting for those two front teeth he lost 3 years ago! Griffin loves to follow his big brothers around. He is always a few steps behind them and very much a monkey trying to do everything he sees. The loves Blues Clues and drawing in his handy dandy notebook. He also loves the characters from Toy Story. We dressed him as "Woody "for Halloween, and he has been a sheriff nearly everyday since. You can see from the picture that he'll put the vest, holster and cowboy hat on with anything. He sleeps with them on his pillow. Griffin hasn't truly gotten over his "Power Ranger" phase, because he still has to wear his "morpher," a plastic watch, all the time except in the bathtub. Jim started working the off hours shift for Oracle last April. We really like it! He works from home 4 nights a week from 8pm to 7am. The differential he gets paid has helped us a lot and we really like having him home all of the time. One of the goals he had several years ago was to be working from home and being able to take Garrison to his first day of Kindergarten; he did that this fall! Jim is still building rockets and flying them. He loves the workbench and storage area in our finished garage! He is still a huge Star Wars fan and is eagerly anticipating Episode 2, only 148 days away at this printing! I have had the opportunity to return to one of my dearest passions this year, getting back on stage as an actress. I have done 3 shows this year. Night Must Fall with the Star Bar Players, a thriller/drama in which I played "Mrs. Bramson" an elderly "invalid" who got murdered onstage. Tomato Plant Girl with the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center's Play Factory. It was a touring children's show that we took to 23 of the parks in the city this summer. Currently, since September 28th, I am playing a cockney housekeeper in the murder mystery farce, The Murder Room, at the Encore! Dinner Theatre in Manitou Springs. It has been great! We only do shows on Friday and Saturday nights and I have been waiting tables before the show, so it has become a great part-time job. And technically I am a professional actress again! I plan to continue working there even though I am not in the next show. I really fits into our lifestyle, so I can be a mom full-time and do that part-time! I still enjoy attending MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) twice a month, scrapbooking, and I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan! So, I hope this finds you well, and you now know what we have been up to. You can always check out our family web page at Try and keep in touch and may you and yours have a very blessed and joyful 2002! Love, Danine, Jim, Garrison, Grant and Griffin |
| Emails: Danine Schell Jim Moncher |
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