Christmas Letter 2016

Christmas 2016

 

 

Once we have gone to the Purdue Christmas Show, I know it’s time to begin writing the “letter”.  So here it is early December, and the year is racing toward its conclusion, and I reach out to our family and friends to let them know just a bit of our experiences of the year. 

We moved Nick into his studio apartment last January.  It is fortunate that I will never meet the architect of the building that made stairways too small for any “real” furniture.  It took more than a fair share of push and grunt to wedge in the sofa and mattress, etc.  When we de-furnitured in May I “block and tackled” the “stuff” over the deck’s rail.  Not easy but much easier.  Just how much stuff does a guy need to live in West Lafayette anyway?  A lot it seems.  Nothing that a U-Haul and a couple of strong backs can’t handle…Hmmm…

Enough about moving and the complications thereof.  Winter passed and Jackie and I decided to go to a new place for our vacation.  Introduced to Amelia Island, Florida by the travel channel it seemed just the ticket. And it was.  We spent a delightful week in March on the sea shore, wandering quaint shops and strolling miles of beach in what can only be described as perfect weather.  Amelia Island is one of those places we hope to return.  Not next year you understand but one day.

Spring brought so many of the normal things that we have dealt with year to year.  The farmer did what farmers do, prepare soil and plant his crop.  It was my forty-fifth crop and I decided it would be my last.  Forty-five is a nice number don’t you think, and time has come to let the next generation take the forefront. 

Nick finished his semester at Purdue and started his fourth rotation at Zimmer-BioMet.  So a busy spring turned into a busy summer.  A spur-of-the- moment getaway found Jackie and me along the “Third Coast”, the western shore of Michigan.  Four days using Ludington as our base camp is a great way to leave the everyday behind…for a while.  We walked the shoreline to Big Sable Lighthouse.  Our third visit to the structure.  It takes determined sightseers to walk the two miles to reach one of the tallest lighthouses in Michigan.  Jackie and I feel so very fortunate we live so close to Lake Michigan, with its wide variety of activities.  Throughout the summer we spent several days at one of the shore towns from New Buffalo to Frankfort.  Whether it is to see the tulips in Holland or the SS Badger leave Ludington with the setting sun, we enjoy all that the “Third Coast” has to offer.  

Summer turned to fall and fall has its own normalcy and strangeness.  Leaves, you know them, pretty as they turn gold, red, and brown.  We watch them fly and settle and then go about dealing with them.  Sunday afternoons we go into Plymouth and “deal” with them.   It seems to fill the month of October and November.  That's probably an exaggeration.  But we do our best to please the city by raking them to the curb.  Perhaps one day I will find myself raked to the curb.  Not soon you understand, but…well maybe not.  Fall means harvest, and harvest is kinda’ like final exams.  You never know how well you’ve done your job until the grain is in the bin.  Yields have been good to great but muddy fields make it difficult to get the crop out.  Been there done that all before so I know…someday I’ll finish this crop too.  Poor Jackie, she has to deal with a husband that continues to “chomp at the bit”, as the muddiness seems only to get muddier.  Bless her heart, she has, over the last twenty-seven years, learned that “this too will pass” and when the ground freezes things will move again.  

Speaking of my beloved, she continues to work at Martin’s Super Market in Plymouth.  Now after eighteen months with this new employer, she feels confident that, overall, it was a good move.  The thirty plus years of serving Plymouth has made her more important to those she serves than she herself realizes.  Her schedule gives us the opportunity to go on exploring day trips.  Nick is finishing the semester at Purdue, pursuing his degree in Mechanical Engineering.  January finds him in his final co-op rotation working in Warsaw, Indiana.  He then will face three sessions at the university back to back with graduation, if all goes to plan, in May of 2018.  Though the studies have been hard, he loves living in this apartment, a reasonable walk from classes.  The golfer doesn’t mind the walk.   

That pretty much catches you up with what the Vander Veldens of the greater Tyner-Teegarden area have been up to.  So as I sit at the keyboard, a place I spend way too much time, I think about all our friends near and far.  It is my hope that all is well with you and yours, and that Christmas is all it can be.  I hope that you remember, amid all the craziness of the holiday season, that Christmas is about love.  For God so loved each of us that he sent His Son into the world.  A baby born of peasants in a stable, a child that grew to the man in order to show us the way to salvation.  Jesus taught us about God…and about love…ultimate love.  So have a very Merry Christmas.

 

With our love,

 

Jackie, John, and Nick too!