December 2008
Dear Family & Friends,
Probably the most important news of this year is that Teresa and Mark made an addition to their family… no, not a baby! In September, we rescued another Aussie Shepherd, Scout. So now, Darcy has a sister. Scout was 6-7 months old when we got her in September. Most likely, she was from a puppy mill. She’s a blue merle but has brown eyes, not blue. See the attached pictures for some beautiful pictures of her and Darcy. While Scout has a lot of puppy in her, she is better than Darcy in the car. She just sits there. It’s awesome. She’s very energetic but is getting calmer. She and Darcy play all of the time, which was one of the main reasons we got her. We wanted Darcy to have a friend and companion. J
Additional highlights of this year included a trip to Long Island, New York in June for Katie Clancy and Sean LaVine’s wedding, a week-long visit from Teresa’s sister and the rest of the Vilimek clan in June, the birth of and visit to Teresa’s new niece Maggie in Houston (in August and September), and weekend visits to D.C. by Mark’s sister Erin and Mark’s parents. We also managed to get away to see the Pirates play the Cardinals in Pittsburgh, and we were drenched in the “home” games when STL played D.C. We don’t think we’ve ever seen so much rain in a series. In October, we decided to take a three-day weekend hiking with Scout and Darcy at a friend’s house in Pennsylvania since we didn’t get a real vacation over the summer. We tried hard to get some fun in despite really crazy work schedules.
After teaching full-time English at Elizabeth Seton High School for the first part of the year, Teresa decided to take a position working in campus ministry again. Now she is the retreat coordinator and is now and only teaching three classes—two sections of Honors English I and one section of Newspaper. She loves her new campus ministry office and is realizing she really missed not doing the campus ministry part of her job. She worked hard all summer, teaching an English prep class for low-level incoming freshmen and had many freshman retreat team meetings. In November, she had a free trip home to take three newspaper students to St. Louis for the national high school journalism convention. Mark’s parents let her and the students stay with them, saving them hundreds dollars. In December, she is leading the second Encounter retreat for juniors and seniors. (It’s a lot like Kairos.) She loves where she teaches and has great principals and co-workers. She’s been challenged with many leadership opportunities like planning and teaching part of new-teacher orientation, and she was chosen to be the faculty representative for an important presentation with some local schools this coming spring. All in all, her work life has been fulfilling and is continually presenting new challenges.
Mark has had a really busy year on the work front. His training shop won awards during the base inspection, he flew to Denver and Minneapolis to support the Democratic and Republican conventions, and he has visited all sorts of fun places like Camp David and The White House. He’s worked many hours at the first helicopter squadron alert facility, which means about a week to a week and half away from home each month. Sadly, he won’t be flying as much next year, as he is taking a new job as the executive officer to the wing commander. Basically, he’s a lot like the character of Charlie for those of you who have watched West Wing. Instead of manning the president’s schedule and paperwork, though, he’s doing it for the Andrews AFB commander. He’ll get to fly once or twice a week still, and the good part of this new position is that he has a full-bird colonel recommending him for major next summer. J Mark also won Officer of the Quarter twice for his squadron, so the important folks at his job did recognize his hard work. And DRUM ROLL: Mark is going to get his master’s degree in military history from Norwich starting in 2009. It’s in the Christmas Letter, so it must really be happening finally!
We are looking forward to our trip home to St. Louis for Christmas. We’ll be in town from December 21-27. For those of you we can’t see in St. Louis, remember that the Jackson Bed and Breakfast is always open, so if you are stopping through or want to visit, just let us know. We love having house guests! Just beware: you may have to deal with furry foot warmers at the end of your bed. We have started keeping a website for those of you who do not get to see all of our photo albums on Facebook. The website is www.theplaidjacksons.blogspot.com. So feel free to check in with what is going on in our lives throughout the year!
Merry Christmas! Love,
Teresa and Mark
