Warm Winter Wishes, Family and Friends!
You're probably thinking, "What is this? No card? No Rosa family picture for the fridge or dartboard?" and you'd be right. While we love you as much if not more than we love hugging trees, we thought it would be more convenient for you (as well as for our friends the trees) if we went as paper-free as possible this holiday season. Welcome to the first annual Rosa family online holiday newsletter!
The nice thing about connecting with you this way is that you can see more photos, and also videos, as well as other posts/entries about our life during this past year. You can even write comments (at the bottom of this entry) and start an online conversation with us, as well as with other family and friends who've commented.
Now, the great thing about being a procrastinator is that I've already had the chance to read a good number of your holiday newsletters, and am quite impressed by the amount of activity you people can shoehorn into a single year. It's just plum amazing, and I wouldn't mind some tips on how you've managed to do it all.
We had a few plums of our own in 2006. Most notably, Craig and The Tech Museum ended their twelve-year work relationship this summer. It was a welcome move, and our local public media station KQED was clever enough to snap Craig right up. He is now an Interactive Producer on their upcoming Quest project--launching in February--and comes home every day chirping about going on trips to tag sea otters or how he's been ordered to learn integrated geotagging. He just may have the coolest job in the world, even with the longer media industry hours.
I've (Shannon) spent another year hoping that no one asks me what, as a SAHM (Stay at Home Mom), I do all day, because I'd be justified in ripping out that person's gizzard. I could do with less chauffeuring, but in general our never-boring children and lives keep me beyond busy, and I am okay with being the captain at our family's logistical helm. I have also been putting in many hours as the point person for our theoretical new home, which we should get to start building sometime in the new year. And in the interests of avoiding complete brain rot (herding children is fulfilling, but it is not everything, at least not to me) I attended a nice soothing writing conference this summer.
Zelly is getting a real kick out of third grade in her new school, North Star.
It is a public 3rd - 8th grade geek magnet school that not only allows but encourages her to wallow in her beloved science and literature--I think her heart goes pit-a-pat each time she walks through the doors. She is constantly coming up with new experiments and
inventions, and drives her parents beyond the limits of patience with her incessant though innovative questions. She will be eight next month, and desperately wants to have a maypole at her birthday party.
Leo started kindergarten this year, in our school district's brand new autism kindergarten program. He is thriving there, and even more so in his home therapy program. While he still has behavioral and conceptual challenges, he is for the first time truly starting to participate in our family life,
specifically in playing with his sisters. Though full-out shenanigans are still not their most common form of interaction (right now we are trying to help Leo understand that there are ways other than full-body tackles to get Zelly's attention) it is lovely to watch the kids play together, giggling and yelling like any other siblings. It makes Zelly especially happy, and Leo too. He also "got" the concept of his birthday this year, and was so excited that he insisted on having his birthday partygoers sing him Happy Birthday twice!
India turned two on November 26th. She blew out her own candle and was so pleased with the roars and applause afterwards.She is incredibly funny, and is always surprising us by how tuned in she is to other people, and what an accurate mimic she is (so please don't curse around her unless you'd like your expletives reproduced with perfect inflections and intonations). She now goes to Open Gate Nursery School with her cousin Alexander Dosen, and so far has adjusted quite well to the concept that other two-year-olds exist--until this point most of her social exposure was to her siblings and their friends.
We are working hard to rethink our social life in Leo-positive ways.
While this means that we don't get to see you and the rest of the people we care about as much as we'd been accustomed to, a happy Leo means a happy family. And as Leo loves destinations
with swimming opportunities, we will be spending part of June 2007 in
Kauai, celebrating Craig's parents' 40th wedding anniversary with
Craig's brother Randall's family as well as with my parents. Can't exactly call
that a hardship.
We'll be thinking of you as we celebrate Christmas with Shannon's parents Mary Pat and Gary and their
new puppy Dickens, as well as with
Shannon's Brothers Mike and Dave, their partners Michelle and Robyn, and their wonderful kids Ashlyn, Kyle, and Brian. I'm sure we'll be posting more
pictures during the week.
We'd love to hear how you're doing, so please do leave a comment below.
Happy Holidays and Lots of Love,
Shannon, Craig, Zelly, Leo, and India Rosa
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