Well, that’s all I have to say about school! My dad or mom probably will cover the other subjects.J Love, Katie Harmon

We still have my cat Felix, now in her teenage years (she is more than one and a half years old). So now I’m in high school (St. Mary’s Ryken High School). Except for the whole lowly freshman thing, it’s been really cool so far. Besides It’s funny…we’ll be walking down the hall, and the upperclassmen will start going," Eww…it’s the freshmen…trying to take over the school…what’s their problem?" I guess you could say we’re harassed. Oh well, next year it’ll be OUR turn. Just kidding…I plan on getting along with the little peoples. I’m baby-sitting a lot now and thankfully, most of the kids are pretty good. We’ve had a lot of mixers this year. Mixers are dances that people from other schools can come to. They’re a whole lotta fun. No one gets crazy enough to get into trouble, but everyone gets really hyper. I guess it’s watching other people dance…some can be REALLY bad. Hee hee. I have a Christmas Formal on Saturday. I hope mom and dad let me go. I think they might because of my good grade in honors Bio (I’m getting a b)!! I’m so proud of myself. Last night, daddy and I went to Fashion Bug, Belks, and JcPenney. We were looking at dresses. I found one that I liked, it’s this bronze-y kinda color. I think it’s pretty. We didn’t buy it because daddy wants to make sure I like it.

That’s all for this year, Love ya lots,

Christa, (p.s. Merry Christmas)

WORK… I continue to enjoy the civilian work world and the company I work for. (I even have plants and pictures on the wall in my office!) My job right now at BAE Systems is Production Manager and we build UHF Communications Systems which we put on Navy ships. I guess you just can’t get the old salt water out of me.

On the girls… We all stay busy especially because we have the two wonderful girls, who keep us on our toes (key words: "taxi service"). The girls are doing very well and both made the honor roll again. Katie had 5 A’s and 1 B. Christa had 3A’s, 1 B and 2 C’s, but she is also taking honors classes, which are more difficult. She has a lot more homework. Her honors classes are weighted so an "A" is worth 5 points, a B is worth 4 and so forth, so although she got 2 C’s, her overall GPA was 3.63. Both girls continue to take Piano lessons from a neighborhood teacher. I really enjoy their concerts. They have their bad days and want to quit, but we have managed to convince them to keep chugging along.

Church et al… I still teach 5^th grade CCD (or Sunday school) most Sunday’s. I have the best assistant one could ask for, Katie, my sixth grade daughter. Janet and I are both very committed to our own continuing adult religious education and we take evening or weekend classes. There is so much that I didn’t know I didn’t know until I found out what I did know.

Jeff Boy-Ardee…I’ve assumed responsibilities for cooking during the big holidays. On Thanksgiving morning, Christa and I stayed home and cooked while Janet, Katie and her friend went to the Church where they helped served a free Thanksgiving dinner to anyone who needed/wanted one.

Vehicles and Interstate…Some of you may remember my old Blue ’92 Ford Tempo that we bought in Italy. And we drove it all over Europe, brought it to the states and drove it to Los Angeles, parked it for three years and Janet’s cousin took care of it and put about 1,000 miles on it in 3 years. Well, it’s finally starting to break down. Yep, after 8 years, I had to replace a headlight! That’s a pretty darn good car. Our 98 van is working pretty well also. I think we’ve put about 45,000 miles on it in 28 months (you know Janet, always on the go).

Our big trip this year was to drive back to Denver to see my wonderful mom. For the drive back, I think we were on the road for about 18 hours. I did find out that books on tapes are good. I listened to John McCain’s book. Janet didn’t like it much. She said there was too much gory and sad stuff about war. Our next trip should be a Ski trip early next year because I don’t think we have enough snow around yet (maybe January?). Last winter we had a lot of snow and the kids had no school for five days. We’ll see how much snow we get this year and how many school days they miss.

We’ve been to New York twice, also went to Virginia to Kings Dominion. We’ve had a couple of trips up into Pennsylvania to a real neat theater ("Noah’s Ark") in Lancaster. Another trip was to Colonial Williamsburg, again, in Virginia. Spent 3 days and 2 nights there. Saw all the tourist-y stuff, then went shopping at the outlets and played some putt-putt golf (which the was the

highlight for Katie!) Janet had a mini high school class reunion in Princeton, New Jersey one weekend so we all went to that. [As you know, Janet grew up and went to school in the Philippines. Well, it turns out that more than half of her classmates have migrated to the U.S. and live here now.]

Of course we’ve been to Washington DC several times, especially since we live just 60 miles from the infamous beltway! I want to go and see some of the Civil War sites over in Virginia next. In November, a good friend from Japan, Ryo Usami, flew into DC for a business trip. He was our neighbor when we lived in Hayama (Yokosuka) Japan. Ryo and his wife Kazumi have two lovely daughters almost the same age as Christa and Katie. Their children spent the night at our house before and vice-versa. So we arranged our schedules picked him up at his hotel and did all those tourist-y things again. I just love DC. In fact, he was here Election Day! He told us he was so excited that he could be in the United States during the election when we elect our new president. We laughed when he left on Friday and saying: you still don’t know who your new president will be? Jeff

From Janet…The Lord has been very good to our family this year. I had a wonderful month of May when I was not working. I nourished my spirit and surrounded myself with good company, Wednesday lunches (followed by power walks!) reminiscent of Italian Gaeta days and explored the offerings of Southern Maryland (a nice way to say antique store shopping). I took over the children’s Religious Education Program in our church (Immaculate Heart of Mary", www.ihmrcc.org), and have been busy with streamlining the program and implementing new policies. u

Our July Vacation Bible School participation was vibrant with 189 enthusiastic kids and volunteers. Currently, there are 255 registered students in our CCD program (September through May) and over 45 regular volunteers. I regularly attend professional development meetings with the Archdiocese of Washington DC (www.adw.org) and am a member of the Archdiocesan Catechetical Leaders Association (ACLA). The highlight of my involvement was during the recent Eucharistic Congress held at the Washington Convention Center and the MCI Center (October 5 –8). I had the privilege of introducing one of the many speakers during this event and our family joined thousands in witnessing our love for and belief in God’s great gift of the Eucharist. Christa joined the youth groups as they attended ‘youth talks’, workshops and a rosary prayer march.

The culminating mass at the MCI Center was renewing and uplifting. Before the mass, colorful speakers vigorously led us in songs of PRAISE! The day was capped with a memorable birthday tribute to Cardinal James Hickey who celebrated his 80^th birthday (same day as Jeff’s birthday!) . Email has been wonderful and allowed me to reconnect with a lot of classmates (St. Paul Catholic girls’ school K-12^th and the Ateneo de Manila University) from the Philippines. I wish I had more time to maintain our web sites (family one is still www.angelfire.com/md/betjet).

I still play Bunco once a month, host Longerberger parties, volunteer at the girls’ schools, ‘play’ Secretary at our Hickory Hills Activities Committee meetings, attend the Wednesday Bible study regularly and drive the girls around: piano lessons, flute lessons, movies, choir, orthodontic appointments, youth group meetings, etc. ♥♥♥ Christa and Katie try to keep their own rooms clean and they do their own laundry so that helps us out a lot. Katie makes a mean grilled cheese and is the junk food gourmet chef of the household (she puts cream cheese on everything). Christa whips through my recipes matter-of-factly, talking a mile a minute with the phone glued to her ear! We have good kids over-all. But Jeff is my greatest treasure. His support with my job at church is invaluable. He shares my strict (oftentimes old-fashioned) standards and expectations regarding the girls’ academic responsibilities. And he still finds time to help out the other families in our neighborhood!