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.
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
90th 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
Debbie
