It’s hard to believe a year ago, Saige was just starting to walk, Charles was debating whether to officially pursue a manager job, Cindy was working an early morning job at UPS, and Aynslee couldn’t fathom riding her bike without training wheels. Yet here a year later it’s hard to believe it’s ONLY been a year since then, and that it’s been over five years since we moved from Denver to Sacramento.
Gratefully, the job Cindy held in the predawn hours at UPS ended the week of Christmas last year. While it helped pay some bills then, it was clear those hours are difficult ones to keep! Since then, Cindy began teaching Stroller Strides classes once a week, and more recently she began teaching twice a week in the parent participation preschool that Aynslee attended. Most people who know Cindy taught in Denver are surprised when they learn she taught high school, and wonder how in the world she’s jumped from there to pre-k. In response, she often remarks that a wise person once told her that whatever disciplinary issues she doesn’t figure out with her preschooler she’ll have another opportunity in adolescence to do so. If you get the chance and are curious, Cindy would gladly wax philosophically about the parallels between the two, but we won’t bore the rest of you with the details. Cindy also continues to enjoy her involvement with Community Bible Study in Sacramento. She found this year’s study of Matthew brought new insight into a few areas, including Christmas traditions we explored this year as a family.
Saige’s fiery personality remains as evident as ever. While she’s mostly a tremendously delightful and curious little girl, we are often amazed at her ability to remain focused on and determined to get what she wants. We keep reminding ourselves that it will serve her well someday! She loves playing and trying to keep up with her big sister. If you ask her how old she is BEFORE Aynslee, she’ll say two and a half; however if Aynslee’s asked her age first, then Saige will respond, five too just like her big sister. Aynslee adores her most of the time. This year at our Thanksgiving eve dinner, we shared what we were MOST thankful for this year. Aynslee shared first. She was most thankful for her sis-sis. Then she leaned over and whispered something in Saige’s ear. When she sat back up in her chair, she grinned from ear to ear, and asked, do you want to know what I just whispered to her? We said, sure. She said, “I whispered, she’s my best friend!” Of course, that melted our hearts. Saige vacillates between wanting to be a big girl in all her independent glory, and wanting to remain momma’s baby. When she does something, like go potty in the toilet, and we remark, wow, what a big girl, she’ll retort, “No I’m little momma, not big!” ☺ Just this evening as we drove home, she made up a song about her little belly button, her favorite comfort item! Yes, you read that right, a sure fire sign that Saige is tired is she’ll be sipping on her cup and rubbing her belly button. She’s done it for as long as we can remember, and we just wonder when or if she’ll break the habit!
Aynslee never ceases to surprise us with the things she’s learning in kindergarten and how she drills us with the curious questions she has. Just a few weeks ago, while shopping in Costco, she asked Cindy what twelve plus twelve equalled. Cindy told Aynslee to give her a minute as Cindy was in the middle of texting Charles back about his forgotten sweatshirt. Before Cindy could finish, and respond to Aynslee, she blurted out, “It’s twenty-four!” “Wow,” Cindy said, “how did you figure that one out?” It turns out they’ve been learning to count by tens in school, so she knew ten plus ten was twenty. She also knew one plus one equals two, so she figured out eleven plus eleven equalled twenty-two, and that twelve plus twelve equalled twenty-four. Cindy was a proud mama!! Of course, when Charles heard how she figured it out, he responded, “That’s my girl!”
Of the numerous other things Aynslee has learned this year, here are some of our recent favorites: First, she loves to cut out paper snowflakes, and tape them all over the house. Secondly, she belts out the words to Silent Night anytime it comes on the radio or iPod. Saige is quickly learning the song too as it’s always monkey see, monkey do! Ah, which brings us to the third of Aynslee’s *absolute* favorites this year, the MONKEY BARS!! She can skip the first and last one. She can turn around and go back on them. She has the blisters and callouss to prove it! Fourth, she loves to zip around on her bike without her training wheels now. She rode with them on almost daily in a park with Cindy this summer, and toward the end of the summer, she was ready to ditch them, and there’s been no turning back. Before Cindy use to have to encourage and cajole her to keep up if they were running and biking together (respectively), but now Cindy has to sprint to keep up or scream “STOP!” out every half of a block or so, to have Aynslee wait up for her. Someone wisely remarked, “Yeah, and that’s how it’s going to be for the rest of your life!”
Charles enjoys his job as a manager, and it feels like a drastically different place than it did a year ago. While the long hours remain much the same, he’s been promoted, and is often called *the* man for the work he and his team pulls together in the eleventh hour. He’s recently started taking classes at the UC Davis extension campus here in town working toward his project management certificate. Outside of work and school, he delights in the hour he gets to spend with the girls at the end of their day as they get ready for bed. It involves reading countless picture books, bedtime prayers and usually their favorite bedtime song. He longs for more hours in the day to sleep, to get more fresh air, and to enjoy more down time at home, but we have yet to figure out how to alter the space-time continuum.
We have a few ongoing home improvement projects underway that fills Charles’s weekends from time to time, but we’ve learned fast and furious is not the Albrecht way. So we slowly and methodically finish them days, weeks, and most times months after we’ve begun them, but are happy with the results nonetheless. Our recent projects, some of which involved hired help, are: one, ripping out all of the ivy in our yard, and replacing the rotting fence that was held up by the ivy. Two, Charles replaced the old carpet in the bedroom half of our house with bamboo wood floor. Three, we finally figured out when and how much to trim back our generous (read high-maintenance) landscape. Cindy misses, along with the snow, the dormant period of growth that comes with Colorado winters. Here in Sacramento, we’re lucky if that period is six weeks long. However we were delighted to see FIVE birds of paradise (not planted by us) recently bloom yield five flowers this year after a serious pruning last spring verses our usual two! Anyway, all this to say, in the four years of owning our home here we’ve learned a lot, and if (hopefully when) given the opportunity to move again, we know a lot more of the questions we want to ask, and a few things that will be deal breakers for us, i.e. mint and any sort of ivy!! ;-)
The other additional highlights to our year include our road trip to Seattle, WA, and Cindy’s opportunity to participate in Medtronic’s Global Hero program at the Twin Cities Ten Miler in October. While Seattle, was our *main* destination to our summer trip, we enjoyed several other spots along the way. We drove up the I-5 corridor and stopped in Grant’s Pass, Eugene and Portland, Oregon. We spent just enough time in the first two to get some sleep and explore the University of Oregon respectively, but took a few days in Portland. We fell in love with that city!! We stayed on the river, and thoroughly enjoyed being able to easily bike and/or get around on the free transit system. The girls keep asking when we can go back to “the city we biked all around, and had the bridges that go up, and down.” After just two days there, Aynslee asked if we couldn’t move back to Colorado, if we could move there! We hope to get back there to spend more time exploring the city as well as venturing out to the coast. Once in Seattle, we enjoyed staying with friends, and see others from Colorado that we had not seen in some time. Cindy also participated in the Danskin Triathlon in Seattle. She found the course much more interesting than the desolate one she did here back in 2005. She also improved her time significantly, and set a new PR! On the way back, our other highlights include Moscow, Idaho, Bend and Crater National Park in Oregon. We thoroughly enjoyed time spent with friends on this trip, and also discovered that Oregon is an incredibly beautiful state worthy of more exploration!
In October, Cindy met her sister, Julie, in Minnesota to participate in the Medtronic Global Heros program (http://www.medtronic.com/2008globalheroes/). Medtronic sponsors both the Twin Cities Marathon and Ten Miler. As part of their company’s vision, they established this program three years ago in order to “celebrate the passions and accomplishments of runners who benefit from medical technology,” like Cindy’s insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor system. As one of their heroes, Cindy was awarded her (and a running buddy’s) entrance fees to the Twin Cities Ten Miler, an all expenses paid trip, VIP treatment throughout the weekend, and a $1,000 grant to an associated charity organization of her choice. Cindy recently received the DVD recap of the race and related events and looks forward to viewing it soon!
Finally, we’d like to resurrect an old tradition of Cindy’s and end our letter with this year’s book recommendation. This book, A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss by Jerry Sittser, is an incredibly insightful book in dealing with the personal issues of loss and grief. These last few years we’ve known, seen, and heard of several difficult and heart breaking circumstances in the lives of many of you and/or your loved ones. We felt it worthwhile to mention this book in hopes it might encourage you or those you love during difficult times.
At this point, we have little room to say much else besides we miss many of you dearly, and consider you all dear to our hearts. We hope you found the time to read this several snapshots of our life here in Sacramento. We’d love to see and hear snapshots of what’s going on in you and yours lives when time allows.
Gratefully His,
Charles, Cindy, Aynslee, Saige and Bella (our seldom mentioned, but not forgotten cat!)
(Cindy’s on Facebook and Charles is on Twitter)
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