Our year had many highlights, and we were very blessed in so many ways again this year. One definite highlight for our whole family was a trip to California in August to visit Grandma and Grandpa Yamane, Aunties, Uncles, and Cousins.
You can see more photos from our trip to California and other exploits this year on the Picasa website.
Consider making a contribution to one of the many good charitable organization working to make the world a better place.
We like World Neighbors and Cross International Catholic Outreach.
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This year has been a pretty good year for me. Softball, softball, and more softball. I go to Thomas Jefferson Middle School. I am in seventh grade on the Trailblazers team. I take orchestra; I play the viola with one of my very best friends, June Garver. She is the best violest at our school. I saw "New Moon" in the theatre with my friend Mikki Whittington, but my favorite movie is "The Proposal" that I also saw with her. My best friend in the whole wide world since second grade, Emily Scott, moved on December 19. It has had a pretty hard inpact on me. I've gotten over it a little bit. To sum this year up it has been exciting, heart breaking, and like no other. ♥ |
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I had a good year. Each part of the year I do something different. I played baseball again in the spring. I played for the Dodgers in the minors. In the summer I was on the Polo Park swim and dive team again, and swam alot at our neighborhood pool. I play tennis, too, when I can. In the winter, like right now, I play basketball at Polo Park. I really like to spend time with our close neighbors the Currans. I like to watch professional wrestling with them. My favorite wrestler is John Cena, but I was Jeff Hardy for Halloween. I am in the 4th grade at Jefferson Elementary School. My teacher's name is Mrs. Menzel and my favorite subject is math. Since I was born in Indiana, I still love the snow. When it snowed last week I was so excited. My mom made an awesome snow dog as you can see. |
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Even though my parents make me go to school, my life now is all about tennis. I even played in a tournament in Santa Cruz when we went to California to visit Grandma and Grandpa Yamane -- and won it! Even though I don't age out of the B14s until the spring, I started playing in the B16s in September and have had some success so far. I won 2 singles and 3 doubles tournaments. My year end ranking in North Carolina in the 14s is 25 and in the 16s is 56. My goals for 2010 are to rank in the top 20 in NC, to improve my Southern Section ranking to the top 200, and to play in the USTA Zonal competition over the summer. This fall I have been training at Murray's Match Tough Tennis Academy. I also spend alot of my free time stringing tennis rackets, to help pay for my tennis and to get stuff I want like an iPod Touch. I finally graduated from Hanes Middle School and started at Mt. Tabor High School this fall. I switched from Latin to Spanish, which is going well. In my core courses I am taking Honors Algebra II, Seminar English I, Honors Biology, and Seminar World History. For favorite class right now I am torn between PE and lunch. I am looking forward to playing for the Mt. Tabor tennis team in the spring. |
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Where did another year go? I finally got Paul graduated from middle school and got him started at high school, and continue to stay on top of Hannah's middle school and Mark's elementary school work. Plus making sure that Dave doesn't die. That alone is a full time job, but I still managed in the spring to teach in the 4 year old classroom at Mt. Tabor United Methodist Church Preschool. This fall I am teaching in the 3 year old classroom. 3 going on 4 is much wilder than 4 going on 5, but I am learning alot about child psychology for my eventual doctoral dissertation project! Despite everything else I was doing, I was able to get my "Art for Kids" classes going again. In June and July I did "Travel with Art" summer camps for 4-7 year olds. In December, I created a new camp called "Holiday Gift Camp" and had a fun group of 3-8 year olds. I'm looking forward to creating new camps and offering them more regularly in 2010! |
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| If I had to describe this year in three words they would be: busy, busy, busy. On January 1st, I took over as chair of the sociology department at Wake Forest. Nothing I learned in graduate school prepared me for the challenges of managing time, resources, and people that this job requires. I also oversaw the transition of the journal I edit, Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review, to a new publisher, Oxford University Press Journals. The tennis business I run with the able assistance of Paul, Big Time! Tennis, had a good year stringing for the Wake Forest Men's Tennis Team and other customers. We strung over 700 rackets in 2009! Despite these other responsibilities, I tried to continue my own research. I was able to travel to Atlanta and Seattle in the spring to do some early research for my next project, "Faith, Reason, and Beer Pong," on the relationship between religion, academics, and social life among college students. The highlight of my year, though, came in December when I attended an international conference in Assisi, Italy, and stayed on an extra 4 days to tour Rome. Busy, busy, busy, but also fortunate, fortunate, fortunate. No complaints! |
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BEST WISHES FOR 2010!!!! Stay in touch:
1020 Glousman Road
Winston-Salem, NC 27104
Megan
David
Paul
Hannah
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