The Newsletter that caused my insanity is here!

Dear Readers,

Thank you for your requests that I publish it here. Hope you enjoy!

Love,

Lauren

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                                                     Merry Christmas from the Kuckelman’s

As I sit down to write this holiday letter, I have to say, ‘I’m so proud of the four of us!”. This is our 2nd Christmas in Wisconsin. We picked up and moved 1800 miles away from family and friends to a “frozen tundra” where we knew not a single soul. So much has changed in one year.

Ian turned 16 in May and got his driver’s license in July! He is driving Tim’s old Honda Civic and he loves his independence.  Mom doesn’t have to drive him around anymore :(  He spent summer with his friends boating on the lake and working!  Ian got his first job! He’s a line-server at Q’doba, a Mexican fast food restaurant where he combines his love of money and available food. He spends his money on nutritional supplements, guitar strings and on his girlfriend. Ian became both a high school junior and a college freshman! He is enrolled at Carroll University taking Calculus 3 with mostly college sophomores and juniors. It’s his favorite class, and his “easiest”. Go figure. He’s still working out at the gym and has joined the weightlifting team at school. He had his first competition this week and placed 3rd overall out of 15 weightlifters in his division!! He can also bounce his pecs up and down and make us all laugh. Ian’s just a great kid and a complete joy to be around.

His little sister Jennifer is a 7th grader this year and turning into quite a lovely young lady. She is self-assured and happy, and is quite a social butterfly. She and her “posse” of girlfriends have sleepovers and make horrendous messes in the kitchen they call “baking”. They are an adorable group of friends and they are all so fun to be around. Jennifer is taking guitar as well. Three guitarists now in the family! She loves music and she has tried to teach me to “Dougie”  to the new Dubstep music trend. It’s not pretty. She’s attending school dances and loves her school. She likes how they all have lockers and the kids decorate them for each other’s birthdays. Jennifer still rides her beloved Poetry, who’s boarded about a mile away. She’s very much interested in fashion and design and she makes clothes by hand for her Barbies. Jennifer herself looks more beautiful than any model the way she tastefully wears her make-up and clothes, and all her friends let her do make-overs on them! She is a happy-go-lucky girl, a free-spirit and she is absolutely a joy to be around.

Tim has been Vice President of E-Commerce at Kohl’s now for one year, and we are so proud of him. We also love all the sales at Kohl’s and make sure we support him by shopping there as often as possible. He travels a lot to his warehouses during the week but we almost always have him home on weekends. Tim’s favorite things to do are making big breakfasts for the kids and their friends on Saturdays. We celebrated our 20th year since we met and our 18th wedding anniversary in April. We are still crazy about each other and love being home with the kids. For fun, we are in a band together--Tim rocks the guitar and sings, and I sing, and we love performing with our band, Rok Kandi. It’s something fun we get to do together; practicing and learning new songs. We also try to play tennis together on Sundays.

Like Ian, I got a job too! I started working in March as a part-time bartender at the gym we go to. It was my saving grace, as I finally started to make friends. I love my job as I get paid to talk to people. Perfect, huh?! I love weightlifting almost as much as Ian and I also started tennis lessons in summer. I have become addicted and play in a women’s league. I’ve been taking private vocal lessons for a year now, and my vocal coach has become a dear friend as well.  I’m also still the nutty animal girl who loves to feed the squirrels and chipmunks and cardinals. Tim calls their food “bait” for the cats.

We have adjusted to the weird weather here--summer is warm but not hot like Reedley was (much to Ian’s dismay) and there are a lot of thunderstorms. We like those. We all got to experience our very first blizzard in February and the kids got a snow day off from school--their very first! Wisconsin has become home for us now, especially since some very special family and friends have come to visit us--Randy, Inka and her twin daughters; and Tim’s mom Carolyn has come twice and she and Don are planning a trip soon. We love being near them and family in Kansas and have made the 10-hour drive twice.  It was great seeing everyone at Don’s 80th birthday party in August! Next--make a trip to Texas to see new grand-nephew baby Graham! With Ian driving now, Tim and I like to sit in the back seat. We have a beautiful guest room -we will spoil you rotten--just ask Inka- so please come see us!! We flew back to California last December to see my family and our friends. We miss so many dear friends and family in California and Kansas. We wish you all a happy healthy holiday season. We feel very blessed and are very grateful to have each and every one of you who is holding this newsletter in our lives.  

Love always and God bless, 

The Kuckelman’s

P.S. We are all on Facebook! If we are not already “friends” please add us so we can better keep in touch!