Underwood Family 2012

Merry Christmas One and All from our new house in Yellow Springs!

This has been quite a year, and the process of moving house has been a big part of that. We had about a bazillion showing from the time we listed our house in September of last year until May, when we finally received an offer. I lost count early on, but I know that we had at least one showing nearly very week the house was on the market, and one memorable week with nine showings! Being out of the house that much is a disruption I don't miss one bit. We found a nice old house in Yellow Springs that was built in the 40s. The July day the movers came was the hottest of the summer, no joke! We have put some not-fun work into the house -- updating the electric and plumbing, for example -- and we're just starting the fun part of painting walls and renovating our small kitchen.

The other big change is that the weather the weekend of the Cityfolk Festival was miserably hot and stormy, and the resulting financial loss led to my hours being cut way back, and working from home. I have since picked up work from Culture Works and the bluegrass band Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers, as well as a little transcription. Working from home is proving to be a harder adjustment than I expected, but it's a change for the best.

Tom is still at Dayton Metro Library. A levy was just passed in November which will lead to his branch and two others merging into a new building in the region. It will take a couple of years for that to come to fruition. At home, Tom is stretching his handyman skills to fix up the new house, including building a decent coat closet, which is the first stage of the kitchen reno. (Come visit, you'll understand when you see the layout!)

Zach is now five fun years old. His birthday is three weeks too late to make the cut off for kindergarten this year, so he's in preschool here in Yellow Springs. Most days I can take him to school by bike, which is a treat! The school is right across the street from Glen Helen and the bike path, and I taks advantage of running there around those pick ups and drop offs when weather allows. Zach  loves Legos--especially Ninjago--drawing, playing dress up, playing outside on the climbing tower Tom built, and being read to. His teacher predicts that he'll be reading on his own by the end of the school year, which is exciting! We're teaching him to ride a bike without training wheels; riding to the library, park and ice cream shop under his own power are great incentives. Back in September, he started taking piano lessons and is doing great. He and Daddy have played some duets on piano and fiddle (Twinkle Twinkle, Up on the Housetop), which is cool! He likes to sing in general, and to make up new words to songs, which is great entertainment in the car. Zach still loves to help and is good at playing by himself, which has made the whole process of moving out and settling easier. Listening to his solo play is delightful.

After a very hectic summer, we are enjoying staying home a lot, making this new house our own, hiking in Glen Helen and doing all sorts of cool stuff in our new home town. The path to get here wasn't terribly fun, but all the change was worth getting to where we are now.

May you know peace, joy, love and laughter in the coming year!

Holly, Tom and Zach

320 West Davis Street

Yellow Springs, OH  45387

937-767-0193

hollybu@gmail.com

Photos are at https://picasaweb.google.com/hollybu. I'll post more of the house changes soon!

Ellen and Steve Wicinski Family

We have had a season of changes with the Wicinski family over the last two years. From new jobs to weddings and a grandchild, Steve and I have been very busy.

I (Ellen) have been spending my weekends helping Dad get things moved around in the house and make it more of a bachelor pad for him. During the week I work at G&K Services in Fairborn and enjoy taking care of our two dogs, Taco and Martini. Whenever I get a chance I take time to work in my flower beds and do a little scrapbooking.

Steve is now working at LexisNexis as a Technical Communications Consultant. On the weekends he is in the process of creating a new trio with some friends. They play classic rock and some new popular songs. He still subs as a bass player in the band Flashback. When not working or playing in the band, he takes the dogs for a stroll in Tipp City Park.

Brandon and his wife Brandy were married in June 2010 and had a beautiful baby girl, Lily Christina.

Lily is full of energy and has mastered walking and has been learning several words in sign language from her mom who studied that in school. 

Brandon joined the army in 2011 and is working as a Cav Scout stationed in Kuwait. He should be coming home in July. Brandy and Lily are currently living in Ft. Hood, Texas where Brandon is typically stationed. 

We all enjoy catching up on the events of the week through Skype, emails and telephone calls.

It’s been great catching up.

Ellen

The Ward Family and Anita Schnabel

Nathan is graduating on May 5 from Missouri University Science and Technology with a BS in Nuclear Engineering, cum laude. He will also recieve a minor in Math and Psychology in Leadership. He will start working this summer for Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL) in Saratogo Springs, New York after spending 6 months training in Charleston, South Carolina. Nathan will be going into the Nuclear Operations Program. We will soon have a new place to visit so our next couple of months will be different and busy.

Mom is with us until the end of May. Mom is doing fine. She is enjoying traveling between Kitti's and Jeani's house.

Sarah is keeping up with her studies and is planning a trip to Germany in May. Next spring she hopes to study abroad. She is working on a Civil Engineering degree.


Missy, our dog, keeps Bruce busy. They are pals. She is nice to have around. Mom likes her too.

Love The Wards

Bergman Girls Get Together

The Bergman girls got together for the first ever Bergman Girls Get Together organized and hosted by Patty Bond at the Olive Garden in Dayton, Ohio. The food, drinks and conversation were very enjoyable.

Ellen Wicinski updated us on the happenings of her family, especially how Lily is doing. Sarai Nauroth and I talked about school and what we plan on doing over the summer. Annette Sheppard and her daughter Alex briefed us on the joy of first year college and buying books.

Patty Bond told of any news in her family while reminiscing about a previously lived in home with Joan Bergman and Marsha Branham.

Daun Bishop and her daughters Molly Bergman and Beth Lesher enjoyed catching up with an old friend who just so happened to be our bartender. Jennifer Henderson and Kristi Bond told stories about Gabby growing up so fast.

Overall, we had a great time and can't wait to have the next Bergman Girls Get Together. Thanks so much Patty!

Collins Bold Family and Fred Bergman

Hello everyone; hope you are all doing well.

The year 2011 was a bittersweet year for us at best.  The bitter part was, as you all know, we lost our dear sister Linda and our beloved mother, Phyllis.  We miss them so much and hold them dear in our hearts.  Dad misses Mom so much after 56 years of marriage, but is holding up pretty well and adjusting to living alone.  There are so many little reminders of Mom; every time you hear an old song it reminds you of something from our childhood and our life with Mom.  The same goes for Linda.  We will always love them dearly!

I (Debbie) had a bout with breast cancer which resulted in some surgeries and some radiation.  But I had my year checkup last month and everything looked good, thank goodness.

On a happier note, two sweet things happened in 2011.  First was my long awaited retirement which occurred on Jan. 31, 2011.  With that, we were finally able to make the big move to our retirement home in Florida, something we’ve been working toward for a long time.   Doug and Christy bought the house we were renting in Columbus; they and our landlord worked out a great deal.  So they sold their house and moved from Westerville to Gahanna.  And we moved down south.  (Our address is:

Debbie Collins & Frank Bold

14339 Yacht Club Blvd.

Seminole, FL  33776

– if anyone is ever in the area, look us up!).  Frank is still working virtually and I assist him with consult and research.  We brought Rudi down with us a few times and he liked Florida so much, he kind of adopted us full time.  Living in Florida is great.  It is warm and sunny most days, with palm trees swaying in the warm gulf breeze and lovely sunsets.  We live in Imperial Point association, a deed restricted community which includes a pool and a clubhouse.  We haven’t been to Vegas for 18 months – which is unheard of for us – and we are having major withdrawal:) lol.  But hopefully we can remedy that this summer or fall.

The second sweet thing was the birth of our grandson, Lucas Stanley Collins, Doug and Christy’s second.  He was born on October 14, 2011 and what a sweetie.  His older brother Benjamin was tickled to be a big brother.  

Last month, Doug, Christy, Benjamin and Lucas visited us for a week here in Florida.  We had a wonderful time.  Benjamin had so much fun – going to the beach and playing in the sand, going to the pool, fishing, playing putt-putt.  We ordered him a kid’s fish meal, but he had more fun eating Grandpa’s stone crab claws.  He tried shrimp too.  And we even went to a spring training baseball game in Bradenton between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Baltimore Orioles. 

Doug works at Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), an on-line charter school based out of Columbus, OH; he enjoys his production job in the audio-visual department, making learning and informational videos.  Christy is working as a senior researcher at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, under the umbrella of Ohio State University.  She received a free ride to OSU to obtain her doctorate degree, while maintaining a full time work status.  Needless to say, Doug and Christy stay QUITE busy balancing their jobs, school and a family.  Benjamin attends preschool at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Lucas attends day-care there as well.  Benjamin will start T-ball in April and he is very excited about it.  He has such a broad vocabulary you have to stop and remember you are talking to a 3 year old J  Some of the things he enjoys are reading, playing baseball and watching sports.   Lucas smiles and is trying to talk, making sounds.  He discovered his hands and is ready to turn over anyday.  He’s in the 90^th percentile for heighth and weight.  Another little Dougie – lol.

Dad is keeping pretty busy.  Fred takes him to lunch at Fricker’s every Monday and takes him on trips like to Hollywood Casino, Atlantic City and Laughlin, NV.  In fact, March 26 was his birthday; much of the family helped him celebrate with a cookout and the visit to Frickers on Monday (March 26) resulted in a free meal for his birthday.  Ellen takes him to the grocery store every Sunday and checks in on him frequently, bringing him dinner or taking him out.  Dad came down to Florida for a week in October and is coming back down in a few weeks to spend some time with Frank and I.  We already have lots of fishing planned!  lol

Well, that’s all for now. Everyone take care and have a good year!

Debbie

Welcome to our New Home!

Hello there Bergmans!

Welcome to the new home of the Bergman Family Newsletter. I will be transferring all of our posts here in the next few weeks, so that we can discontinue using tomandholly.net. Though the cost for that site isn't great, we're not doing enough with it anymore for me to keep spending the money. (Didn't she just switch everything around? you may be thinking. Yes I did. I don't look forward to doing it again. But I do look forward to saving some money.

Once the transfer is at least mostly complete, I'll contact everyone and give you the chance to send me something for this year. Another change is that I'm going to contact everyone at the same time rather than splitting the family into three groups. I think this will be less work for me.

Thanks for your patience, and for continuing to contribute to the Family Newsletter!

Holly

Jenny and Justin Henderson Family

Hello Family,

The Henderson household has been pretty busy! Over the past year Gabrielle has grown so much. It is hard to believe that this coming August she will be 2! She is now talking up a storm. Some we can understand and some we are still trying to figure out. She is now taking swim lessons at our local YMCA, this is her second year and every Saturday morning she wakes up and asks me to put her swimsuit on her. I think this year on the lake will be very easy with her love for the water! Let’s just hope we can get her out at times. I have a feeling we will be spending a lot of time this summer at Auntie Granny and UJ’s (Patty and John) in their swimming pool. She also loves going to the park, going for wagon rides and having a dance party with Mommy every morning in the kitchen! She is a very busy little girl. 


We did spend a week at Children’s Hospital with her in September. We took her in for a high fever and when the staff could not figure out what was causing the high fever they ran some tests and found that she was very dehydrated. They admitted her that evening to keep her on an IV and rehydrate her so she would drink on her own, but we ended up staying 4 nights because she refused to drink on her own. We think she liked the attention she was getting. Turns out the high fever was from Roseolla. Once the rash hit a day later she was drinking much better and we were able to go home. It was a long 4 nights there! We were so very thankful we were there for those reasons instead of something more serious.

We did not do too much traveling last year. We went to the lake a lot though! Justin organized our yearly Crownline rally last year in June with another friend, so we went to Lake Cumberland for 5 days to take part in the event. Gabrielle stayed with Auntie Granny and UJ for the week, and Justin and I enjoyed some “us” time. By day 2 I was missing Gabby! We also took 5 days and went to Lake Cumberland for our houseboat timeshare. This was a lot of fun, but the weather did not cooperate for us too well. Gabby loved being on the boat though! We also all went to Laurel Lake over July 4^th and Norris Lake over Labor Day. These trips were a blast! Gabby had a lot of fun playing with all of our friend’s kids on these trips. This year we are headed to the lake a couple of times for our timeshare and rally and then we are going to Disney World in October with another family. We are really looking forward to Disney. Then we have a cruise lined up next February! We are making up for the travel time we missed last year, I guess.

Justin is still working for GE in the TSG group. He just finished a large assignment that required a lot of travel to South Carolina, so we are glad that is over, but I am sure more will be coming. I am still with M & R Technologies and loving every minute of it. I am still full time, but I do not go in until 10:30am every day so I have more time with Gabrielle in the morning. Dad and Janet are still watching her 3 days a week and the other 2 days she goes to Aunt Chris’s. So glad to know she is with family every day!

Well, I think that just about sums it up! I hope everyone is doing well! Take care and hopefully we will see you all soon!

Love,
Jenny, Justin and Gabrielle