Dec. 31, 2008
2008 Year in Review
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Well, in a few more hours it will be 2009. At least here on Guam where America's Day begins. So looking back on 2008 I thought I would hit on some of the highlights of the past year. January 2008 saw me back in the classroom teaching the elementary class at GECA, Guam Evangelical Christian Academy. Two new girls entered the classroom so that now I had one K3 boy, one K4 girl, five K5 girls, one 2nd grade girl and one 4th grade boy. Thanks to the PACE system, teaching the older two was easy. Keeping the little ones occupied was more of a challenge. Thankfully my Story Time Felt business was put to good use and the kids had a great time learning fairy tales and acting them out. In February we got the unexpected news that we had to move our driving school office to a new location We had been in Barrigada for 3 years and had settled nicely into our location. Our business was growing. We had just paid for a nice ad in the new 2008 phone book. And now we had to move. Les found an office down on Marine Drive in central Guam, with a private beach, a five minute drive from our beach house. He had to do a little dream building with me to see the vision of this location as it was a bleak cement room, full of dust and debris from an old jet ski business. February passed in a blur as we worked late in the evenings painting this new office and preparing it for our move. March 15th was our opening day and we had 5 students for our first official class in our beach office. Our biggest challenge was keeping our existing phone number - 734-DRIV a number we had had for our business for over 4 years. Guam's telephone company, GTA, was not able to let us keep that number because the prefix was different for the village. But with some fancy fanangelling I was able to keep the number and business continued. It still took until almost September before our students figured out where we had moved to. I finished the school year in May and graduated my class of K5s, as well as promoting the rest of the kids to their respective grade levels. Cassie was one of my proud graduates. Summer months were spent putting together a website for our driving school business and building an online class. Les spent many hours putting together the program and working late into the night on the website. By the end of August we were able to launch our online class. The only driving school on Guam that now offered three locations for driver's ed - East Agana (our beach office), Yigo (opened in 2007) and in your own home via the computer! Exciting times. Meanwhile the kids grew and continued to learn and prosper. Kevin, stationed in California in the Air Force continued his education in Power Production and engineering, took several CLEP tests for his college degree and as of the end of December announced he was one credit short of his associates degree. Not bad considering he did it all in one year! He was also promoted to Senior Airman, 6 months early. We are very proud of our eldest son. Adam continued with his music and polished up his music CDs. We also bought a video camera in the summer and Adam has been unschooling himself in the art of filmmaking. Stephanie worked on her writing and art, and had several art pieces on display at the KAHA art gallery at Two Lovers Point for several months. Eric wrote and published his first Whiskers comic. And Les got into the publishing business as well, writing and publishing Monster Doctor. I'd say that 2008 was a very inspired year for the Smith family writers and artists. Les also sold an article to a local magazine, Everyday Home and Living Guam. Cassie started Jump Rope classes in September and has enjoyed the weekly exercise activity and fellowship with homeschooling kids. She can jump 20 times in a row consistently now and has great form. She also listens well to the instructor. Both her and Eric are tanned brown from the sun as they spend at least an hour a day swimming at the beach office. Our pet population has fluctuated and changed over the year. One hamster died. We gained two mice. The rabbit is thriving and enjoys his new outside cage that Adam built. We lost our favorite cat, Coach Z to a wild pack of dogs, but gained the sweetest momma cat, Connie and her one surviving kitten, Pillage. Nobby and Daisy are the two latest cat additions to our gang. Other cats that have survived the year are Scratch, Fargs, Pierre, Wafflebox, Peppermint, Hop Scotch, This'N'That, and Korn. Queen Victoria abandoned us to live at the Lutheran Church next door. We lost several finches and parakeets and are down to Coleslaw, our one winged parakeet that survived having his wing ripped off by Korn. Les continued in the wedding business, officiating over the Japanese weddings at the various hotel chapels. He also performed his civic duty as a juror for over 6 months of the year. The curse of being a registered voter. All in all, 2008 was a prosperous year for our family. We look forward to 2009 bringing much blessing to our household and those of our friends and loved ones. Happy New Year! |
Comments
Jan. 6, 2009 - 2008/2009
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Posted by Kandy
Jan. 6, 2009 - Hello!
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Posted by