Happy Halloween!

Hi all - just a quick note to say Happy Halloween! attached is a photo of the girls taken when I was in Toronto and they were going to their dance Halloween party. Charlotte is a blueberry in case you weren't sure (one of her 3 costumes for this season!)

We are looking forward to trick or treating and hoping it's not too cold.

Thanks to all of you for posting - this gives me something to look forward to reading online (as opposed to email, for instance, YUCK!)

Some pictures from CA

"Heather", our most recent feline acquisition. Unfortunately, she does not like other cats (at least not OUR cats), so if she makes it indoors, she stays in the garage.

on my Birthday I was presented with a cowboy hat, and these are the kids who wanted to pose for my class photo! After taking this one, I realized how much more concerned they were with TAKING the photo, not me being in it, per say, so I just took a few more of them. I don't think I'll post those - security reasons - but its cool nonetheless :)

These pictures are of Matt playing tuba with the Stockton Symphony!!! They were taken with my cell phone from the balcony (no reference to any euphonium CDs there...), and I must say - he sounded incredible!

one of our first days in Stockton, taking Buddy on his walk. Those clouds you see in the distance were the only resemblance of "weather" we had for months....

Buddy, up by the levy, where a bunch of cows like to roam :) This was not the same day as above, obviously, but its another pretty day no less.

This is also right behind our apartment, less than a 5 minute walk. Pretty cool place!

Here they are!

Trying to post a picture

Well it only took me 10 minutes to figure out how to post a new blog, so let's see what happens now when I try to post a picture or 2...here goes...well, actually I wanted to put in pics of all three boys with their "robots and sons" but doing this one seemed enough for now, going to try to add one more of all the kids & get out while the getting is good. Okay, seems I can't do that, will try another route...meanwhile, love to y'all

Sunday Letter, October 24th, 2010

Good Afternoon

Now that Sarah has created this family blog (thank you Sarah) and  Jessie explained to me how to join (thank you Jessie - Sarah, I completely forgot about the 2nd email with the invite) I can now do my Sunday Letter in this medium.

We just finished having a fantastic weekend with the boys.  We split wood, they made robots from  the materials at The Scrap Box, we had a fire (the weather is beautiful) and  we had an allround great time.  Sarah and the girls came over with Roxy, and the kids discovered that Roxy likes to chase a ball... lots of fun.

My own week was somewhat sad, as one of my students died in an auto Crash  while on a color tour.  The student was Chinese and just 22. Her parents (and the other person who was killed) came from China and the U had a dinner for them Fri.  I was one of the speakers.

So Mom and I cane back from Glen Arbor on Monday.  Sunday evening we had dinner with an old student of mine, Kevin Sietz, who had just retired as a VP of BCBS.  Kevin and his wife have a magnificent home overlooking Lake Michigan,  I was green with envy, and "its not easy being green!".  

Also this past week I had three presentations - one on supervision, mentoring, and coaching 

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=411400206009971867

 my class, and then another on Leadership on Friday. This is the ppt.  I am not sure how to post a file as yet.  Advice would  be most welcome.)

Needless to say I am not getting much done with respect to my books and articles.

The leaves are almost gone  and we can see so much more now - it is always a surprise. 

  Today it is so warm (75) that Mom and I will be eating out on the Deck! I am thinking that this unusuakl weather might actually presage a tough winter.

Lots somng up - the  initation of the School of Social Works 90th Anniversary - Friday 11/19.  But before that I am going to "Dayton to give a talk, then after thatto Houston.  So lots going on.

Love to all.. Dad/John

Sunday thoughts

Hi, there, going to see if this works again...still feeling a little techno-shaky...good to hear from y'all, great to get updates from Matt and Molly...whew - THREE cats!? good heavens, hope they don't pass the word along to other neighborhood strays...we now have 4 granddogs and 3 grandcats! Glad you all seem to be doing well...same is true here, we just had a grand Sat-Sunday with the boys, so much energy & lots of fun..the girls and Roxy were able to stop by for a quick visit and some play time with the Roxy & each other. Since Sarah is off to Toronto now, I will be helping with the girls Monday and Tuesday...they have requested spaghetti and meatballs for tomorrow's dinner...tough work, but someone has to do it :)...our new wood floors are in & look great, can't wait for everyone to see them, especially our California contingent...hope the "rain" lasts long enough for you folks to get a feel for it...so that's about it for now, thinking of you all and sending lots of love...I know dad is working on his "Sunday letter," so he may fill you in on more details of life here in AA...love to y'all!

Finally joined!

Hey all! This is such a cool idea!

Looks like Matt caught us up to date on the logistical just the other day. We are doing well in Stockton, with our first "rainy" days of the years. Rainy is a hilarious un-truth, because it only occasionally sprinkles, but its sort of cloudy, which is exciting and different!

We can't wait to see everyone in December, but plenty of posts shall be made before then!! Miss you all, and we'll put some pics of our dog and cats up soon!

Molly

Hi All! Just posting to let you know I did officially get my passport so am off to Toronto tomorrow. Not sure I'm happy about it but at least there won't be a whole in the program where I was supposed to talk! We are all doing well after a hectic week. Charlotte made us all breakfast this morning which was so nice - we have not sat down as a family for breakfast in ????

I'm so glad we are all signed up! I bet Molly joins us soon. The next question is do we dare see if Matt S and Kevin want to post??? Photo is one Evelyn too of Charlotte for her "star of the week" chart!

Hola!

Hi all,

Finally signed up - awesome! I was in New Mexico for the first "Sunday Letter" so I'm just getting caught up w/ everything now.

Today I am in Sacramento getting the car worked on. There is no Subaru dealer or foreign car place in Stockton so I came up here to SAC to what's basically a CA version of Lou's shop - they only do Subaru but are not a dealer so it's much cheaper. We'll see how they do! They dropped me off at one of the malls here so I'm making use of the free internet. They were going to take me to some other, closer mall, but turns out some crazy guy barricaded himself in the GameStop and lit the place on fire! He wasn't killed but managed to burn down half the mall and put a few hundred people out of work until further notice. Only in California.

Molly is in Antioch at her elementary music job and she gets to do instrumental music today which is her favorite. So far we like CA pretty well, although the newness of it all has worn off and so now we fell like we're in the "regular life" phase, which is naturally not as exciting as accepting new jobs, getting married and moving across the country all within a one-month span.

Stockton is OK and it's nice for me since I can bike to work. But it's a bit of a commute for Molly so we will certainly move elsewhere some time over the next several months. It all depends on whether Molly stays with the Antioch job or accepts something else. It will be nice to get to a living situation where we can have more space (hopefully) and we can at least practice at home. We inherited an outdoor cat (Heather) so now we have way too many pets! And Sarah, in that picture of Roxy, I swear I see TWO dogs? What did we miss??

Can't wait to see everyone in just a few short weeks.

Thursday October 21

Hi All! I am loving the blog. Thanks all posters! This has been a crazy week. I found out tuesday morning that an enhanced drivers' license is, in fact, NOT sufficient to FLY to Canada. It is sufficient to DRIVE to Canada (whoever made that distinction???). So at first I thought this meant I could not attend my meeting next week in Toronto. But my assistant found a place that would process my passport for $300 (yes, plus the additional $170 it usually costs!). Love her - she is so resourceful! So we set out to do that which turned into a huge comedy of errors including taking the girls to the truck stop to fedex the package (per the direcitons of fedex) tuesday night - however they fedex guy never came so I had to RETURN to the truck stop Wednesday and take it elsewhere...to make a very long and painful story short, I either get it Saturday or not. If not, I'm staying home. While I would not at all mind, it would not look great career-wise.

Evelyn is home sick today so I am working from home too. Trying to finish my presentation for the trip I might not go on! Other than that, all is well here.

So off for now - more to follow!

UM Stadium boxes!

Hey, folks, just wanted to report on our experience with the U. Way reception last night which was held in the building where the boxes are located. This bldg. is called the "Jack Roth" bldg. (Jack must have given a huge bundle)...and it's across the stadium from the Press Box box area...and is quite beautiful. The boxes run along the side from about the 20 yd. line to the other 20yd. line...some are totally in door and glassed in, others accessed via a door to the outside, where they are outdoor but under a roof...unlike the comerica boxes, they do not have any facilites, only seats...the facilities are all shared in a huge common area with tvs, bathrooms, etc...and last nite they had two bars, one at each end, several tables set up, and numerous food stations all around. This was a 1000% upgrade from the reception last yr. which was at the President's house & included about 2 canapes & a handshake...they want folks to renew their gift, and even increase it (ya think?)...anyway, since that's as close as we are likely to get the the boxes, thought y'all might be interested in an eye-witness report.

Okay, folks, I'm going to try this & see if it actually post on the "author" page...so far I can only figure out how to do the comments feature...this is so cool, though, so good to hear updates from Sarah & Jess...complete with adorable picture of grandkids and granddogs! all is well here, I'm waiting for the "floor guys" to appear and start the installation of wood on the stair landings & upstairs hall, getting rid of the grungy 22 yr. old carpet. Then off to Battle Creek to check on Matt's house, which we try to do every other week or so...it should be a nice drive today, still lots of color. then later today dad & I have to go to a meet & greet for the U.Way kickoff at the Uof M which is to honor the "larger" givers (including us) and is being held in the new UM stadium box area...which will be the first and only time we get that close to it, I suspect. Looking forward to seeing the boys flag football game(s) on Sat. & having them over...hope to connect with the girls then too....sending lots of love to all our busy families...

Well I'll add a quick update now that I'm signed up! Matt is off to Port Huron again today for work (he was also there last week) and we are hoping he will be back on wednesday evening. The boys had flag football games over the weekend, though none were winning efforts (not due to lack of effort on their part, of course!). Sunday School started up again, much to the great disgust of the boys. There was a delay due to some problems with the hiring of a teacher, so they got a little more time off than usual!

On Sunday, Matt and I co-hosted a meet and greet for one of our school board candidates--we are very much hoping he gets re-elected. It was a very low key event and not at our house, so it worked out quite well!

As for me, this week I'm working on our school playground project--trying to figure out how to scale back the initial bid of $60,000. Who knew playgrounds could cost so much?

Hopefully this will be a fun way to share some updates with each other. Thanks for getting it started, Sar!

And I will add our own beastly pet photo, since I don't have any cool football action shots!

Monday October 18

Hi all! Trying out the blog again. Most of you should have received invitations to be authors - let me know and I can add others. Not much has happened since yesterday! It was a back to work Monday for sure. I'll keep this short and just post a photo of the dogs for today - Note that Roxy has discovered the "back of the couch" as the best place to sleep too, sadly for our couch....

ps. Evelyn just came home from dance with a Little Ceasar's fundraiser kit, so if anyone is interested in ordering pizza kits...just let me know!

Sunday October 17

Hi All! This is my attempt at keeping us all well connected. This is based on the idea, from "Grandpa John" to circulate a Sunday letter. What a great idea for us to all follow each others' busy lives! But email can get lost, deleted, etc.... So I thought I would investigate this blog idea. I was reminded of how helpful the blog was when Matt T was in his accident (Thanks Molly!).

So...what is up here at the Tropman - Hawley branch? My college roomate was in town so we got to meet Karen and her family. Her girls are the same age as ours (though one of them is taller than me, at age 10! which is funny if you know Karen b/c she is super short..). Evelyn went to her first UM footbal game! Too bad we lost. Charlotte and I tried out a local Corn Maze (M/D - something you should for sure do with the boys: http://www.blastcornmaze.com/) (photo attached). Today we fought the line at Zingerman's and went to the Artisan market where charlotte convinced Dad to get her a poncho (photo attached with Karen's daughter Rebecca).

Otherwise, work is super busy for me. I've actually been doing a lot of teaching this fall which I usually don't do. This means I have no time to do my "real" job! Which I just tried to explain to someone the other day and obviously did not go over well based on their puzzled expression! I'm heading to Toronto next weekend and will be glad when that trip is over! As some of you know, we also aquired a puppy (Roxy) about a month ago - not sure what we were thinking, but she really is cute and VERY sweet.

Kevin is officially driving to downtown Detroit every day now that Quicken has moved. So that has been hard for us. The girls are keeping busy with school and dance. That's life for us in a nutshell! I'm going to wrap up so I can review how this blog looks!