2012 Newsletter From The Wilsons
It’s time for our annual end-of-the-year letter. We hope you enjoy
hearing about our family as much as we enjoy hearing about yours.
We brought in the New Year quietly, but feeling very blessed! Our
son Matt was able to return to his home after recovery from his major
surgery. We began getting our lives back
to a normal routine. Jim was doing remarkably well from his kidney transplant
and returned to work fulltime. We celebrated Matt’s 30th birthday
with a night of great food, family and several of his friends/coworkers. It was a memorable milestone indeed.
We continued to enjoy a mild winter but that didn’t change our
annual trek south to Longboat Key, FL. Jim had his 6-month "routine" kidney
biopsy from his September transplant.
Our donor-angel, Stephanie returned to Delaware for her checkup and
surgical discharge (http://www.christianacare.org
/). We attended the National Kidney
Foundation Black Tie Ball/Gala (http://www.kidney.org/site/112/ball.cfm?ch=112
) which was held in Philly. We took advantage of the location and spent the
weekend in Philadelphia. Jim serves on the board for this cause. We also
celebrated Jim’s birthday with our traditional family celebrations.
The mild winter resulted in some early summer blooms (many spring
bulbs seemed very confused and began sprouting in late January). We were even able to begin planting a few
items in our little garden area. The
week of spring break combined with the nice weather made for a great time to
visit St. Michael`s Maryland, on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. We
made many trips to numerous hospitals as several dear friends and family
members were either recovering from surgery or having surgery or testing.
Graduations and weddings seemed to occupy a significant portion of the end of
spring and provided opportunities to catch up with numerous friends and family members.
We enjoyed our “annual” Memorial Day weekend getaway with Matt, Megan, Lindsay
and Jackson.
We celebrated our 32nd
wedding anniversary and combined a working trip to DC with an early anniversary
celebration. We took the train and
enjoyed the perks that Amtrak has to offer. We had an opportunity to go to Cape
May for a long weekend near Tina’s birthday and spent time with some long-time
friends from our Glen Rock years. Dad had his heart valve replacement surgery
early June and with dad’s recovery not going as well as we expected, we continued
to go back and forth to Pennsylvania to sit with dad and to be with mom through
the rest of the month. We celebrated Tina’s 49th birthday (this is
the 3rd year now) with our family’s traditional celebration!
Mid-July Dad passed away at home with the assistance of hospice
care. We were all blessed to be able to be with him those last few days. He will continue to be missed and we are so
thankful for the years that we were blessed to have him so active in our lives.
Once again we have another “new normal”. Mom is one of the strongest, Christian
women we have every known and though her heart is still breaking, she knows
that dad is truly home. We managed to
fit in a family birthday celebration for our son-in-love, Lindsay and several
additional trips to Pennsylvania.
We also enjoyed trips to Longwood Gardens (http://longwoodgardens.org/ ) , The
Delaware Children’s Museum (http://www.delawarechildrensmuseum.org/
) , and day trips around the area. Our family spent a week together at a resort
in Southern Delaware and had a wonderful time relaxing time. We had our second
event at enjoying Longwood Gardens- special fireworks orchestrated to classical
music. If you have never experienced
this, it is very worth the cost of admission. Our schedules were getting back
to more of a routine. Tina and two friends from church spent the day in NYC
seeing a show and doing some shopping.
The Canal Street Experience was something Tina was looking forward to
almost as much as the musical and she wasn’t disappointed in either! The end of
September brought Jim’s one-year kidney transplant celebration and all was
fine. It is still such an amazing blessing to think about Jim’s gift from
Stephanie. We also went to several concerts throughout the year, including Neil Diamond (for Jim) and Barbara Streisand (for Tina).
Our grandson, Jackson turned 2 on October 10th and we
were able to celebrate with family and friends as his parents threw a great party
for this special 2-year old!. What joy this little “man” brings to our
lives. Grumps and Mimi can’t think or
talk about him without a huge smile appearing on our faces! Besides his big party, we also had our
traditional family dinner, which for Jackson consisted of Mimi’s homemade mac n
cheese, chicken tenders, a veggie and homemade applesauce, with cupcakes and
ice cream for dessert, Yum, Yum! Grandparenting is the best!!! Jackson also participated in swim classes, music classes and his first time playing soccer. He loves all his extra activities. Jackson’s momma’s
birthday was also this month, and we celebrated Megan’s birthday with her
choice of restaurants for her special meal as well.
The fall brought opportunities for us to “give back” a bit to a
few causes we support. The 5th
Annual Wilmington Kidney Walk was held mid-month and was another huge
success. Our family is very involved in
the dynamics and workings of the Wilmington Kidney Walk. Team Wilson/Wilmington
University raised over $6,000.00 ( http://www.kidneywalk.org
)! Tina and Megan were able to participate in a 5K Walk/Run in Wilmington for
our very close friend, who continues to fight her battle of breast cancer. It
was an honor to participate with Team Bower Power (http://morebirthdays.com ). We also
supported through donations only to the Pancreatic Cancer 5K Walk/Run that was
held in Philadelphia (http://www.purplestride.org
), we had planned to participate but we had a conflict on our schedules. We are
looking forward to our Thanksgiving and Christmas break to be with family
enjoying a meal or two, making memories and remembering those that have blessed
our lives so richly.
Our son Matt’s year has been very different in some aspects. Matt’s
3-month check-ups continue to be normal and he will have his 1-year post-op
visit in the next few weeks Through all the recovery, Matt reached ABD status for his doctoral
degree (http://www.waldenu.edu )! He is
doing very well in his work positions and enjoys his responsibilities and
teaching schedule (http://www.wilmu.edu) .
He continues to work in community outreach services and he also has achieved
some recognitions : He recently was
accepted into an elite leadership group (http://www.Leadershipdelaware.com
), and he also received “Young Alumnus of the Year” award through Ohio Valley
University (http://www.ovu.edu/ ).
Our daughter, Megan and Son-in-love, Lindsay, have been amazing
through all the events of this past year.
While both Jim and Matt were in recovery status, Tina knew that Lindsay
would be there for anything she needed, at any time, even though his plate is
very full. Lindsay continues to enjoy his full-time work and teaching
opportunities at Wilmington University (http://www.wilmu.edu/
). He also made a great decision to begin his doctoral work through Walden
University (http://www.waldenu.edu ). He is doing well and continues to keep the
balance between his work load and his family life. He is a wonderful dada and husband. He is a good provider for his family and a
wonderful addition to our family! He is
just a blessing to all of us. Megan,
continues to work half-time at (http://www.wilmu.edu/)
, and is very thankful that she is able to be home with Jackson. The days that she works Jackson is with Tina
(Mimi-days). Megan is a fantastic momma! She definitely enjoys her role as wife and
mother. She too, has been “right there”
throughout all the events of this past year.
We are so blessed to have such amazing children. Megan and Lindsay
celebrated their 4th anniversary in early November!
Though we have had some serious events this year, we have been
blessed through all the experiences. We
don’t take things for granted and see that each day is a gift in its self. We are thankful that Jim loves his work as
Vice-President of Academic Affairs at Wilmington University (http://www.wilmu.edu/) and his health is very
good. Tina knows how blessed she is to have the “gig” she has: Mimi-Days are
the best! She continues to do volunteer work as well as some small bible
studies and mentoring times with young woman (singled and married). Both Jim and Tina would like to spend more
time on their hobbies, but they fit them in when they can. Life is good!
While we look forward to 2013, the events of this year remind us
that we all need to cherish the “little-things”-moments in our everyday lives.
Look at each day, as our grandson does with anticipation, excitement, curiosity
and hope, knowing that he has a safety net whenever he needs it. We too have a safety net in the One who is
always with us; through the good events and the not-so-good events. He catches
us when we stumble and guides our walk when we are unsure.
May you and your family be aware of how special the little,
ordinary, everyday things can be; they may in fact turn out to be
extraordinary!
Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year from our home to yours.
The Wilson's
Jim & Tina
Longwood Gardens
August Family Vacation
Delaware Children Museum
Jackson at his Soccer practice for tots!
Most of our team for this year's Wilmington Kidney Walk.
Jackson's 2nd birthday celebration with friends and family.
Jim and Stephanie at their 6 month checkups.
One of our family pictures taken on our family vacation.
Some of Matt's buddies at his 30th Birthday celebration!
One of Jackson's two-year-old pictures.
One picture from our Cape May trip.
The Rice Family in August!
Florida sunset, some of the prettiest!
Team Bower-Breast Cancer 5KWalk/Run
.Christmas visit to Santa 2012
Jim and Tina at the Kidney Ball.
posted by Tina @ 11/27/2012 05:51:00 PM
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