Christmas Blog 2005

Schwartz 2005 Christmas Newsletter

Well, here we are again, finally getting down to writing our Christmas letter and looking forward to receiving all of yours. We hope this message finds you well and that the past year has been good to you.

Glenn and Celeste began 2005 with a week in Veradero, Cuba. The weather was great and the food plentiful. What more can we say?

From there it was all coasting downhill to Glenn’s last day of work on March 30. It is very interesting how something that seems so far away comes more and more into focus as the time approaches. Glenn’s co-workers put on a great retirement party for Glenn and one other retiree. It was heartwarming to see all the family members and friends who attended. Celeste elected to continue working. She doesn’t see much point in retiring if Glenn is busy all day and she ends up sitting at home, watching TV.

As Glenn has said to whoever would listen, he liked his job, he just didn’t have time for it. Now that this time is freed up, he has been able to make progress on some of the projects on his plate. He is working 15-20 hours a week at Accutrak and continues to run the Zichydorf Village Association. In the latter capacity, he managed the acquisition and distribution to members of the church records for Zichydorf and another town, manages the member list for more than 100 members, replies to individual inquiries, produces the newsletter, and is coordinating a trip to the homeland and the production of a history book. The book was supposed to be for the 2005 Saskatchewan Centennial, but it had to be postponed due to other commitments.

At the end of May we traveled to Vancouver for Darren’s graduation. At the end of July we had another brief stop in Vancouver when we were invited to crew on a forty-foot sailboat around the Gulf Islands of BC. We had a very enjoyable few days with captain and first mate Doug and Karen Haughey and fellow crew Kevin and Linda Kuntz. In mid-September, we visited Vancouver again on the way to and from Mt. Angel, Oregon. Members of a genealogy email list that Glenn belongs to have been getting together there during Oktoberfest for the last few years. There is a meet and greet dinner on Friday and a few educational sessions on Saturday before adjourning to the Weingarten. It was a lot of fun and quite interesting to meet all the email friends face-to-face.

Carla and Tyler have finally set their wedding date for August 18, 2006. Carla will be home for the first two weeks of December during which we will engage in a whirlwind of planning and decision making. Tyler will be home for two weeks starting December 24th. They will both come home for the wedding, then return to Japan for another year or more. They have been enjoying their time there very much, as you will know if you have been following their blog at ctjapan.blogspot.com/. They are both working, at different places and different times, often in the evening. Although working cramps their style, they are still managing to soak up the Japanese culture of festivals, eating, drinking, and karaoke.

Darren finished school at the end of April, took a month off to catch his breath, and started work in June. During his break, he and Sue were able to visit Regina and attend Glenn’s retirement party. The next weekend, Celeste and Glenn attended his graduation (Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Commerce) in Vancouver. As we have explained over the years, he took a long and circuitous route with a few detours, but it was a proud moment to see him achieve success at the end of the road. He is working for West Coast Engineering, designing steel structures for street lights, highway signs, electrical transmission lines, etc. It’s more interesting and complicated than it sounds. See www.wceng.com/ He was recently appointed quality control officer and has been taking classes in quality control procedures. Sue is still working on water quality issues, traveling a fair bit, mostly in BC. They keep busy with beach volleyball, ultimate frisbee, skiing, curling, and all sorts of other fun stuff. Sue competed in a Triathlon in Penticton in August. They will be spending Christmas in Germany. Sue’s sister and husband live there, working for Microsoft. Sue’s parents are temporarily living in Paris, so they will join the party too.

Between school most of the year and work in the summer, Laura hasn’t had much time for adventure. She and Brett did get away with a group for a rock concert in Calgary in July, then went on to Tofino, BC for sightseeing, hiking, and whale watching. Between the two of them, they are wearing ruts in the highway as one visits the other pretty well every weekend. School is still going well. She agreed to a contract with Superstore in which they will help with school expenses and she commits to work for them for two years.

We are anticipating an exciting pre-Christmas, Christmas celebration. When Carla was able to confirm her trip home, everybody else was able to plan around her for the Dec. 3-4 weekend. Laura will be home for the weekend; Darren and Sue are flying in; and Celeste’s sister, Angie, and her family will be here. Everybody else still lives here. We are having a Schwartz party on Saturday and the Kuntz family Christmas on Sunday. Should be a great, although brief and busy, reunion.

Early in the New Year, Glenn and Celeste depart on a long-anticipated adventure to New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and a few minor stops along the way. We will be gone most of January, February, and March. Celeste’s brother, Tom, will hold down the fort in our absence. We eagerly anticipate seeing a new part of the world and visiting the Jones family in Australia and Carla and Tyler in Japan.

That about sums up our year and our plans for early 2006. We hope that your year has been as good as ours, and we wish you and yours best wishes for the Christmas season and happiness and prosperity in the New Year.

Glenn, Celeste, and family