Living R Lives Together: 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 30^th 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 32^nd 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 49^th birthday (this is the 3^rd 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 10^th 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 5^th 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 4^th 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