The Hiner Annual Newsletter

And now, the news…

Lawrence, Nichol, & Kaleb

This time last year, the young folks were excitedly moving into their own place. We will always fondly recall the 18 months that they spent with us in transition to school and stable employment. Having Kaleb around 24x7 was especially joyous.

The owners of their new residence.– a house that is owned by a friend’s father, which had been rented out for a few years – are in Arizona, and needed someone that they could trust to take care of (and even improve) the property. The previous renters obviously had little interest in maintaining anything, but after a new coat of interior paint, some plumbing, and new carpet the house appeared livable. Larry & fam helped with the repairs and cleaned up the outside. They had to deal with some previously-unidentified uglies like a faulty HVAC system and toxic mold, but they are now working with the landlord on improvements and making it their own. Larry has been in retail technical customer service at Verizon, and Nikki at Treehouse Learning Center as a preschool teacher – and the interest rates are low enough here – that they’re talking about home ownership sometime soon.

Larry is finishing his Digital Media Communications degree at Sac State this spring. He looks to do an internship producing a companion CD for a text that is being authored by PSP faculty and doctoral students (see my entry, below), which could result in publication credits and minor royalties. Nikki continues to pick up credits towards her undergrad degree in psych, aiming for a profession in Interpersonal Relationship or Marriage & Family Psychology. She’s certainly getting a load of intensive experience with her munchkin charges all day, every day!

“K” will be 4 in May (believe it?), and enjoys going to preschool with Mommy. Now that we see him routinely once or twice a week, I can really see the incremental changes in his maturation. He’s a petitely enigmatic bundle – boisterous yet well-behaved, intelligent and articulate while enjoying infinite silliness; self aware and thoughtfully gracious. He certainly teaches me a lot! This grand parenting gig is wondrous.

Christian & Colleen: internationalization

‘Twas a year rife with change for these two and all who love them. Graduation from Sonoma State was high on the priority list early in the year. Finishing courses, planning parties, arranging for farewells to comrades gained over these collegiate years – where some of the most accelerated growth into adulthood ensued. Goodbye to a way of life. Wonder at the future.

Fortunately, a summer of organic gardening in our back yard brought time for reflection… and planning. With the harvest, attention turned to preparation for the Peace Corps – acceptance, placement, realizing it was going to actually happen, and planning. And more planning. Did I mention planning? I know that preparing for 2½ years of living out of essentially two large backpacks’ worth of home is involved – but I don’t think that the Normandy Invasion was plotted with such intensity.

It apparently worked. They made it to Tanzania, completed their preliminary training in Arusha, were sworn in to the Corps in Dar el Salaam in November, and are now living in the shadow of Mt. Hanang in northern Tanzania. Here’s a picture… actually, it’s cropped down to focus on their faces, but the full picture shows the low scrub vegetation on the foothills that lead to Kilimanjaro. Actually, I think they’re really living outside of San Diego – it looks strikingly similar.

The village where they live and work has no running water or electricity. The closest telephone is in the next town, which is 45 minutes’ bike ride plus another 45 minutes’ bus ride away. Needless to say, we don’t hear from them very frequently. They do have a cell phone (but presently no way to recharge it) and coverage happens with certain weather patterns and requires a procedure involving chicken entrails. It’s actually quite remarkable – the technical leapfrogging results in wildly juxtaposed capabilities – no latrine but you can talk halfway around the world from your mud brick domicile. Amazing.

Kyle: exploration

The wanderlust gene is strongly expressed in this one, too. Having first conquered Aerospace Engineering (he was ranked third in his class – as a Sophomore – at Cal Poly Pomona) before switching majors to Physics (accent on Astro – no, not the Jetson’s dog, silly – Astrophysics), he arranged for a year of study at the prestigious University of Wales in Swansea. The merits of space exploration in the midst of war and unemployment is debatable; but if W’s plan to establish a colony on the moon and explore Mars comes to be, I’m sure Kyle’s designs will be there. He has not expressed an interest in actually traveling that far from home, but he’d like to be part of the process.

Kyle was able to vacation for a week with us on the eastern slope of the Sierras. In these pics, he is contemplating Mono Lake (above) and prepping for rescuing his father (left) from one of the Twin Lakes when he fell in a few moments after this shot was snapped. But for the remainder of the summer, he picked up a few more credits at Pomona.

Then, it was off to Wales, where he’s been incorporating Welsh and more than a few UKisms into his vocabulary. The process of college education is a bit different between the US and Europe, and Kyle has been adjusting to these new ways while immersing himself in the material. He spent Christmas break with some new friends in London and Cardiff, and plans for more travel over weekends in the spring. He’s already taken some local jaunts to nearby castles and pubs (not in that order, or frequency).

We plan to visit him for two weeks in March and April, and hope to see Paris and Dublin as well as London and Swansea.

Travis: investigation

Travis is a study in contrasts: sweetness and contrariness, gregarious generosity and single-minded determination. In other words, he’s almost 18. He’s finishing high school at Christian Brothers, where there have been a number of tragedies affecting this year’s Senior class; so it is with a bittersweet joy that he will don the cap and gown in May.

He’s been accepted by Hofstra in Long Island (or is it on Long Island?) as well as Southern Oregon and San Francisco State. In technical theater, his intended major area of study, these schools represent proximity to NYC’s Broadway, Ashland’s Shakespearean Theater, and SF’s theater district. He has also expressed interest in UC Santa Cruz and SUNY Purchase. Depending on scholarship offerings, he has some serious decision-making to face this winter.

Travis is the last and latest kid to get his driver’s license. I think that maybe he’s just enjoyed being ferried without so much as a toll to pay, but he’s now on track to take his driver’s test sometime in the next month or so. One of the stipulations in this household is that you have to have some form of income to pay for your own insurance (though you just have to pay for the gas you use in one of the family vehicles); so, getting a job will be part of this process, too. To this point, Trav’s involvement in theater and videography has usurped his free time; something he’ll need to learn to compromise. In other words, he’s almost 18.

Chérie: formalization

This is the year. Really. This is the year that it all comes together at work for Chérie. She has spent the past 13 years helping Sutter build the infrastructure in which 11+ multidisciplinary pediatric clinics function. Dozens of specialists and sub-specialists provide coordinated services to children who have chronic and complex illnesses. Chérie’s been functioning on multiple levels simultaneously to lead this effort. Now it appears that the organizational hierarchy that needs to be in place to sustain this effort is evolving. This will hopefully result in Chérie’s ability to focus on further program development and sustainability. In other words – to enjoy taking it to the next level. The Master Plan calls for building and renovating structures for a new Women’s and Children’s Hospital as well as physical expansion into new space for the Pediatric Outpatient Services. These are exciting times, as we work to improve specialty healthcare at Sutter from ‘good’ to ‘great.’ As indicated by her promotion to Director this year, Chérie has been and continues to play a major role in this - certainly a source of pride (with all due humility) for the Hiner family.

Chérie and I are also walking together through the transitions of mid-life. In the summer of 2004, when Kyle returns to school at Pomona and Travis makes his way to his first year away (wherever that will be), we will have a truly empty nest. We plan to stay here in suburban Sacramento for some time, since retirement is still several years to the horizon. After our trips to visit faraway kids in Europe and Africa, we’ll focus our energies on possible retirement venues. A modest log cabin amid dark green pines framed against deep blue skies is part of our mutual dream. The rest, we’ll just have to fill in.

Meanwhile, it’s the challenge of work and the joys of parenting and being Mimére that keep Chérie very busy.

Larry: elucidation

Shedding light on all areas of my life has themed this year for me. I am grooving to the work merging my education and experience in technology, consulting, and (now) healthcare. Telemedicine, as a part of the whole ‘eHealth’ scene, can be an enabler for improving quality and reducing costs associated with ever-rising costs for ever-more sophisticated expectations of our healthcare system. It is fun playing a part in that.

Spiritually, I’ve been growing in my own communion with God and my interpretation of how God wants me to serve others. I know it’s kinda deep for a newsletter, but it is real for me and I would share my experience with you. The process of applying for the Permanent Diaconate (I’ve been asked by the Diocese to apply again in 4 to 8 years, when the next two classes are scheduled to begin and I may have cleared my final occupational and educational hurdles), learning through classes, prayer, and spiritual direction have all contributed to my sense of knowing that I am on a journey, that the destination is not to be reached in this lifetime, and that God and I are both OK with that.

Academically, I’ve committed to actually finishing a doctorate. You may remember that I ended up ABD (all but dissertation) for my Ed.D. in Educational Technology from Johns Hopkins. As it turns out, I will be able to apply some of that coursework along with some additional classes and a dissertation from the Professional School of Psychology here in Sacramento to accomplish a Psy.D. in Organizational Psychology. So far (and reportedly, historically), the courses are superb, the lecturers are nationally-renowned, and the opportunities for publication and creative enterprise are seemingly limitless. The plan calls for 2 years’ effort.

Well, that’s about all that will fit for this year. We certainly want to share with all of you as it happens. At age 50, time seems to continue accelerating and it is all happening all that much faster all the time.

We will be praying that God continues to reveal the unknowns of the universe to you in easy yet meaningful doses…

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