Our Christmas Newsletter

Us at the Christmas Ceilidh

Happy holidays from our family to yours!

As you can guess from our previous posts, it has been a very busy year for us. Trisha completed her Student Teaching and (finally) graduated in May. She can now officially teach Spanish and Earth Science! We then got married in June, the weekend after the wedding of Trish’s cousin, Brittany, in Illinois. We honeymooned in Tennesee for a week. We spent a long weekend in Niagara Falls attending a wonderful wedding right before James and Stacey got married in August. Then it was time to pack everything up and head to Glasgow, Scotland! We have had a really busy year, and it has finally started to wind down.

Stacey, Lisa, Becky, Emily, Trish, Mike, Eric, James, and Chris

The biggest highlight of our year was, of course, our wedding. We had a wonderful time at the Rehearsal Dinner and the Wedding. A big thanks to our parents for the wonderful parties! Also, thank you to everyone else for not only coming to celebrate the day(s) with us, but also for taking all the lovely pictures, video, all the memorable moments, love and support. We really appreciate all the help making our day so special.
We Honeymooned in Tennessee near Smokey Mountains National Park. Huge thanks to Uncle Jim and Aunt Marianne for letting us use their cabin in the hills. The cows thankfully never attacked, and the National Park was beautiful. It was in the ninties the week we were there, but we still managed to take a few hikes in the mountains, and even went into Gatlinburg in all the heat and tourists. We even managed to see the Dixie Stampede, which was pretty entertaining.

James and Stacey dancing

Trish's brother, James, and Stacey were married two months after our wedding. It was another wonderful ceremony. Trish has wanted a little sister since James came along 23 years ago and even more so when Christopher turned out to be a boy 19 years ago, so finally getting one was great. Mike has also enjoyed his new siblings. He went from none to three in a matter of months, so he is really liking having two little brothers and a little sister.

We spent the part of the summer in which we were not at weddings or in Tennessee packing all our stuff. It took us the entire summer and it’s a good thing that we rented the BIG storage unit. It somehow all fit in there, but it was a squeeze. And we still have lots of boxes at both our parents house's. It will be a project moving it all into where ever we live when we come home, but it should be fun.
Mike is currently working on his Masters/PhD in History through Central Michigan University and for one year Central sends students in his program to Scotland, paid. So, on Central’s money, we are living in Scotland for the year while Mike attends classes and writes a thesis at the University of Strathclyde. He has been busy not only reading and working on class work, but also researching for his thesis. He has decided to write his thesis on correspondence between Jewish communities during the early Third Reich. While you may be wondering then why we are in Scotland if Mike is studying German History, we have no answers. Although the two main archives he researches in, at the moment, are in the United Kingdom. Later on in the year we may also go to the Netherlands and Germany for Mike to research in as well. Thankfully the catalogue for the archive in Jerusalem is online and he can just order documents he needs.

For Mike it has thus far been an interesting experience to study in a different country. While they may speak English, it still sounds like a foreign language most days, and getting used to classroom discussions took a lot of patience and work on his part!
Trisha tried being a kept wife, but found that it was too irritating, and went to the nearest employment agency. Since October she has been working for the National Health Service in the Occupational Health Department at a couple different hospitals in the West End of Glasgow.

So far we have been very fortunate with our travels. Not only have we been able to travel, but the weather has been spectacular (minus gale force winds in Edinburgh) which is rare for the United Kingdom. We have been to Southern England, the Isle of Skye in Scotland, various cities throughout Scotland, and will be in Spain shortly for the week before Christmas. We are also hoping to go to Italy for a week or two in April. In the beginning of April we also will hear if we will be living in Germany for the summer. Mike has applied for a grant for a German Language study which would last for two months. Hopefully by the time we come home our passports will be filled with lots of stamps! And maybe if we’re really lucky, we’ll still have money left when we come home too!
We are looking forward to all of our March visitors (Mom Rose, Heidi, Mama Fues, and Dad Fues) and are hoping for some later in the Spring as well. See everyone in the summer otherwise!