Happy Holidays 2013!

 

                                                                      

Happy Holidays everyone! Once again, another year has passed us by faster than we could imagine! We hope all of you are happy, healthy, and ready for 2014! As always, we are not ready for anything but are experiencing everything! Here is a little info about what 2013 looked like in our neck of the woods.
Keith and I celebrated 25 years of marriage in May of this year. The Silver Anniversary. We took a long weekend to enjoy the sunshine at a resort in Arizona and spent most of our time trying to decide if we could get along for the next 25 minutes let alone the next 25 years. So after a painful, few days we decided the best course of action was to try really hard not to be butt-heads to one another, stay medicated, get help and look for silver linings. Then we went for Mexican food.

Keith is still working at Hudson Printing and golfing as much as possible. Right now, he is enjoying movies, shoveling snow and vacuuming. Keith has recently been asked to be the Elders Quorum President in our local church. This post requires a lot of responsibility and organization and he is a little nervous. Keith leans towards a shoot from the hip, go with the flow, wait until the last minute kind of thing. I have been told he will really need my help and support. Frankly, I believe it is probably the end of the world. I am hoarding Ramen noodles and cold cereal and trying not to be a butt-head as I mentioned previously. On the upside Keith will be working with a lot of our neighbors around his age and making more friends…as it seems many of these guys also golf and enjoy Smash Burg
Zachary turned 20 this year. Yep, let that one just soak in. Yes, I feel old too. Zach also works at Hudson Printing full time. He works four days, 12 hour shifts, and 3 days, 12 hours on the off weeks. He has 3 or 4 days off each week. On Thursdays and Fridays, Zach volunteers for half days at Jordan Valley Seminary for Special Need kids. So far, it has been quite an experience. Zach helps in two classes most often assisting the kids with the activities and getting from place to place with their disabilities. Some days you may see him chasing a ‘runner” or trying to help an agitated student (who may be bigger than he is) to get out of the classroom and down to talk with a counselor by just holding his hand. Whatever the task, Zach is learning a lot and having a great life experience. The highlight of this year for Zach was buying a new truck, which, he did all on his own. He makes the payments, pays for his own gas, his own cell phone and gym membership. Recently he learned how to do laundry…now I am just waiting for him to do a load…voluntarily. He “talks” to lots of girls via text (over 10,000 a month!) but rarely meets up with any in person. However, I am not allowed to be involved with that….but if you know a nice girl…

My little bird Holland is 14 this year. She is a freshman at Hillcrest High School. For Holland and for me this has been a big adjustment and we are still adjusting. Holland was very excited for high school. I, on the other hand was not. Holland weighs about 90 pounds soaking wet and what she will eat has dwindled to potato chips, chicken strips, and pepperoni pizza only from Pizza Hut, Reese’s peanut butter cups and a milk chocolate Ensure that I insists she drinks every day. Imagine my surprise when I went to pick her up and found her standing next to a 6 foot 300-pound Samoan senior with a full goatee and wearing his football jersey and waiting for his bus. She looked like Flik from A Bugs Life. No worries though, Holland was craning her neck to chat with Senior Football and started smiling and waving when she saw me. This is not the hard part. Holland thrives on routine and a schedule. So the whole A day (4 classes on one day) and B day (another 4 classes the next day) and then B lunch on A day and A lunch on B day and what day are assignments due? This is where the Autism hurts Holland the most. Holland drew the short straw I guess and ended up with A lunch on B day. This means she goes to 7th period, Math, for 35 minutes and then takes her lunch. After lunch, she has to go back to 7th period Math for another 45 minutes. Super. We went over and over this before school started. After about a month I kept getting email notifications that Holland was absent for Math. I asked her if she was skipping Math. She said no. Then one night her Grandma asked her what she liked most about High School. She said, “On B day I get two lunches!” I sat there as the wheels turned and the cogs clicked into place in my head, this takes a little longer these days. The light went on. Holland was going to Math, taking her lunch and then taking the next lunch with more of her friends. Why not? Hey! Mr. Math! How about an email, a text, or a phone call or a note home or a snail mail or a freaking smoke signal?? Boy was Holland as mad as one very skinny wet hen when I had to tell her she had 45 more minutes of math ahead.

I am still working for Wells Fargo and I celebrated 25 years with the company this year. Wells Fargo has been very good to me and we are all very lucky to be working at this time. So as with 25 years of marriage, at work I try not to be a butt-head and look for silver linings as much as possible. In fact, about May of this year I made a sort of resolution. I decided to make an effort to approach every day with a kind heart and to give people the benefit of the doubt that their intentions are good. I want to respond positively and take the high road in every situation if I can. This is harder than it sounds. Mostly with strangers because, honestly, people are weird, present company included. Just recently, I was driving home from work. I was trying to open a new Christmas CD I had purchased earlier that day. Why are CD’s so frigging hard to open? I mean honestly! I have the damn CD in my lap and I am trying pick at the stupid sticker with my fingernails and then using my teeth to try to rip open the cellophane and I am weaving. I am quickly correcting myself back into my own lane and no one is honking at me so I think I am okay. I stop at the light and here is my chance to get this thing open. Suddenly I hear someone screaming “Hey there! Ma’am!” I look up and this woman in the passenger side of a gold minivan next to me is hanging out her window yelling at me. She has frosty hair and frosty lipstick and wants me to roll down my window. So I do. Frosty the snowbird yells, “Are you okay? Have you been drinking? You have been weaving all over the road! I wrote down your license plate number and I was going to call the police!” I say no, I am fine. She yells at me again “Are you texting?” I say no. She comes right back “Show me what’s in your lap!” Are you kidding me? At this point, I am thankful for Prozac and I really want to throw one at her. Instead, I slowly hold up my CD and say, “I am trying to open this CD and I’m having a hard time.” She just stares at me. The light turns and I drive away. I wonder if Frosty the butt-head will turn me into the police. If so, what will I say? She should mind her own bees-wax and get a new hair-do? I finally get my CD open with very little weaving, and listen to “Joy to the World” by Celtic Women all the way home, via the high road…I think.

May the road rise to meet you and may you try to meet it as well. Have a very lovely Christmas with all those you care deeply about and who loves you too.

                                                                          Love, Keith, DeeAnn, Zach & Holland Beltz & Bayja