Happy Holidays 2010 from the Carpenters! Another year has flown by and we hope this holiday season finds you and your family happy and healthy.
Travis continues to be such a source of inspiration for us, as his struggles with Neurofibromatosis (NF) continues to dominate his life. In the face of these challenges, T has entered pre-school this fall and has continued to work hard in his physical therapy activities. He also continues to enjoy attending Kindermusik classes and loves Sunday school. Travis is now seeing world class geneticists and orthopedists at the University of Utah and Shriner’s Hospitals in Salt Lake City. Kelly’s dedication to his cause has led to the family being more involved in fund raising, and her attendance at a symposium in Denver was the impetus behind us being in contact with the outstanding doctors in Salt Lake City. We are so blessed to have access to these great people, and just since October Kelly and Travis have made 4 trips to SLC for his care. Travis is now enrolled in an experimental drug trial and he is a little trooper taking his meds and going through all of the required blood draws. His story is incredible and the details are far too much for a holiday letter, but please feel free to follow Kelly’s blog on Travis’ Journey at http://tsnfjourney.blogspot.com/.
Nolan just turned 9, is now in 3rd grade, and continues to be a great student and receives exceptional comments from his teachers. He continues to be active in piano, Cub Scouts, baseball, hockey and football. His first season of tackle football had him as a wide receiver and cornerback. He had one interception and several tackles at cornerback this fall and learned a ton about football. His team even finished the season with a league championship. The hockey season is well underway, and he continues to learn and improve with the challenges of playing against some much bigger 10 year old kids this season.
Barrett started the year playing hockey and finishing up kindergarten. He then transitioned to being able to start Cub Scouts, and shifted over to the swim team at the local YMCA. He continues to be the youngest on his team and works incredibly hard with practices a few times each week. We are impressed how he often swims upwards of 1000 meters at a practice! Barrett, about to turn 7, also continues to enjoy his piano lessons, and improved greatly with his second year in little league baseball. Most important, Barrett also continues to excel in the school environment and greatly enjoys the learning opportunities that 1st grade is offering him.
Scott returned from some training in Boise in late March to meet the family at the Denver airport ready to drive to see the Texas family for Nolan and Barrett’s spring break. Kelly’s brother James decided to also fly up from Houston and help us drive down and to spend some quality time along the way. Having three drivers made our trip a breeze and it was great to spend some extra time with James. Highlights from the trip included: seeing lots of friends and family, especially the time with Great-Grandma Long, the pond at Grandma and Grandpa Findeisen’s house, taking the boys to the beach at Galveston and near Corpus Christi, and a great few days with the cousins in Corpus, San Antonio, and Sea World San Antonio. It was great fun, and nice to get warm after a near record snowy winter in Wyoming.
In April, Kelly did a tremendous amount of research on black lab rescues along the front range and we were able to adopt a black lab mix puppy that came to a metro Denver rescue association from North Carolina. Elsie has been a great addition to our home with only Rikki (our 17 year old cat) still questioning the addition of a puppy to our home.
Scott continued to adjust to a lot of change at the NWS in Cheyenne this year, but on a high note did finish his certification as one of the NWS’s Incident Meteorologists (IMET) for wildland fire and hazardous material spill incidents. There was little in the way of wildland fire this year, but he was invited to train at a June fire near Espanola, NM and then volunteered to help out at the Kalamazoo River Oil Spill near Marshall, MI in August.
Kelly continues to stay busy managing Travis’s medical care, coordinating all of the activities the boys are involved in, and running the house in general. She has continued to frequently volunteer at Nolan and Barrett’s elementary school. For some fun, she has started participating in a bible study at a friend’s church and has enjoyed some fun times with her friends celebrating all that is the world of Twilight. She even made it to an outing in Denver for the midnight debut of Eclipse in June!
This September we said good-bye to Scott’s Grandmother Carpenter. A wonderful celebration of her 106 years took place in Michigan and Scott was able to make the trip back. Scott’s Incident Meteorologist work became more of a blessing in that his trip to the Kalamazoo River Oil Spill in August allowed him one last brief visit with Grandma about a month before she passed.
We recently hosted our 2nd Thanksgiving at our new home on the prairie, with some of Scott’s family from Denver coming up for dinner. We then spent a day in Estes Park with the Colorado Carpenters at the YMCA of the Rockies, and continued our tradition of attending the Estes Park light parade on Black Friday.
The Carpenters just returned from a hockey weekend in Cody for Nolan’s squirt team from Cheyenne. Since we were only 100 miles from our former home in Billings, MT, we decided to spend a few extra days visiting friends in south-central Montana. This was a great holiday getaway, and now we are set to enjoy the holidays back home in Cheyenne. Scott will be working during the holiday again this year, but we plan to make the most of it.
2011 is already setting up to be an exciting and challenging year, especially with Travis continuing on the drug trial and not knowing exactly what lies in store for him. We look forward to our 5th year experiencing Cheyenne Frontier Days in late July, and continue to invite you to come enjoy the Daddy of ‘em All with us!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2011!!!!
Scott, Kelly, Nolan, Barrett and Travis Carpenter
