As I am always reminded of in this time of year when we reflect back on the past year, I realize that I have been truly blessed with wonderful friends and family. In fact, I have so many friends and family that I cannot send physical Christmas cards to everyone I would like to anymore. Luckily, I have this handy, incredibly often-used blog with which to send out our greetings (with photo enhancements!!!).
Hanke Journal-Sentinel - 2013
I
decided to turn
over a new leaf in this year’s Christmas letter. No, I don’t intend it to fit onto one side of
the page (that’s only, like, 1000 words – are you nuts?). I’m going to scrap organizing this letter chronologically,
since the first full year as a family of three (more on that later) really was
defined less by events and more by day-to-day experiences. It’s OK, though, since I’ve found that
parenthood definitely relaxed my engineer’s need for control and organization–
like how when you have to pick up James’ crayons 3 times a day, you can no
longer organize them by color EVERY time.
Either that or I’m mellowing in my old age; after all, I am a
thirty-something now.
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| James at the beginning of 2013 |
The biggest joy this
year has been watching James grow from a baby boy to a little man. Looking back it’s hard to believe that at the
beginning of 2013, he was still not sleeping through the night (finally started
doing that around 1 year old!!!!), not walking (again, around his first
birthday – now it’s a challenge to get him to WALK and not run), not talking
(he’s a Hanke – is anyone surprised that he’s also a talker?), and not eating
much table food (well, some things didn’t really change much!). James had a wonderful 1st birthday
party in March, with all of his
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| James' 1st birthday. |
grandparents and aunts and uncles making the
trip, and his ear infection that week didn’t stop him from absolutely
destroying his cake. Soon after, Sarah
and I (and Sarah’s mom Vicki, who babysits regularly when Sarah works) found
out how exhausting chasing after a child is when you have to literally chase
after him. James is definitely an
energetic child – his two favorite games right now are hide-and-seek (though
you can’t hide too well, or he’ll just give up) and pushing his toy dump truck
all over the house and “kaboom”-ing it into pretty much everything. The Christmas tree is still standing as I
write this, but I’m not certain it will make it until Christmas. In summer, James loved to go for walks to the
park, pick up all the neighbor’s crabapples on the way, and endlessly walk on
the wooden board edging by the pond behind our house. (PS – We are still renting the same house in
Ann Arbor from an old NASA colleague). Once
the weather changed, he became obsessed with raking leaves, and got his first
taste
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| James at a local waterpark for Labor Day. |
of snow shoveling today. It’s a
good thing that James is a great napper – without the break, I think Mommy and
Grandma would be on the 3:10 train to Crazytown by now.
To precisely no
one’s surprise, James is also quite the little chatterbox. Sarah and I sat down one night around his
18-month birthday and wrote down all of the words that we knew he recognized
and said. We gave up around 200 or so,
and it seems like the list gets longer every day. Now, he’ll count to ten (though he sometimes
skips four and goes right to five – too much Monty Python and the Holy Grail in
the womb?), spell his name, identify pretty much all letters of the alphabet
(we love how he usually just says “Double” for W), and pretty much talk about
SOMETHING nonstop, often rather loudly.
Just goes to show that not all traits breed true, right? We’re still working on the finer points of
language, such as the fact that you can, in fact, answer a question like “Do
you want to go upstairs and change your diaper?” with “Yes.” All these language skills should really come
in handy for James when he grows up and starts working at his dream job –
which, at this point, is probably garbage man (kid is OBSESSED!). All joking aside, and with the full
disclaimer that he can oftentimes be exhausting and frustrating like any
almost-two-y
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| James at his first MLB game |
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ear old, Sarah and I are so blessed to see the exuberant, joyful
boy James is starting to become and witness him learning and growing every day.
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| We got on College Gameday for a hot second in September! |
If it weren’t for
getting to watch James grow this year, I might consider labeling 2013 as the
Year of the Baby. I mean, seriously –
those things were popping up left and right this year! First, Sarah and I met our new nephew Ethan
David Doutsas, born to Sarah’s sister and her husband on Feb. 1st in
Iowa. We both made it out to see Ethan
born again into God’s family, and Sarah stayed out a few extra days to
bond. Along with baby Ethan, both of
Jeremy’s best friends from college and Sarah’s best friend either met their own
little bundles of joy or will soon after the new year, along with several other
friends. Then, of course, there is the
little minor detail that Sarah and I found out in July that we would be
expanding our little family again, and we’re going to need a completely new
wardrobe for this one! Baby Girl is due
April 3, 2014 (though we know from experience that date is more suggestion than
anything), and we are SOOO excited! OK,
maybe a little terrified as well – the chaos level in the Hanke house should
increase just a bit this spring – but mostly we are dying to meet our little
darling, especially after seeing her kick, flip, clap, laugh, and talk (of
course!) during our ultrasound last month.
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| James is gonna be a big brother in 2014! |
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| Gorgeous live oaks lining a street in Aiken, SC. |
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| The dunes at Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore near Traverse City. |
We did manage to fit
a number of fun trips and mini-vacations into the year as well. As mentioned, we headed out to Iowa in
February for Ethan’s baptism, but also made it to WI to celebrate our niece
Elissa’s birthday, two events that would have been much harder to attend before
we moved back to MI. In April, all three
of us flew back down to Newport News for a wedding in VA for our first “family
vacation.” It was a great opportunity to
see all of our friends and colleagues in VA that we’ve missed dearly since
moving, but somewhat bittersweet at times.
A less conflicted trip happened a few short weeks later, when Sarah and
I flew to Aiken, SC for another wedding, our first trip without James. Sarah did really well for her first time away
from James (maybe a little TOO well, at times!), and we had a blast dancing the
night away then exploring the area and local plantations the next day. Still, two days was long enough to be apart
from James, and coming home to his smiling face was lovely. We took a longer break to visit friends and
family in WI for 4th of July, where James got his first boat ride
with Grandpa and we caught a Brewer game as a family (without James since it
was a night game – his first baseball game came at a Tigers game later in
July). Sarah and I were able to get away
for a romantic weekend at a B&B near Traverse City, MI for our 6th
anniversary in September. We hiked in
the gorgeous sand dunes of Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, visited the Grand
Traverse lighthouse, hit a winery and a cider mill along the way, and finished
with a wonderful meal at the Bistro Foufou in Traverse City. Our last family trip of the year was back to
WI in October, and James had a blast playing with my parents’ temporarily
adopted kitten. For Thanksgiving, we
enjoyed not having to pack a suitcase for the first time since college, as we
celebrated with Sarah’s family (all 40 or so that made it!) here in MI. We will be traveling back to WI for
Christmas.
It has been a
rewarding year for us professionally and personally as well. Sarah has continued to work part-time as a cook
at Zingerman’s Delicatessen in Ann Arbor, where she periodically supplies us
with fantastic bread from their bakery and other goodies. She really enjoys the work and her
co-workers, and they have been fantastically flexible about her hours and
schedule, which has been a great help. I
have settled into my position as an Application Engineer at CD-adapco in
Northville this year. The first 6-8
months on the job were quite an adjustment, but as the year went on, I have
grown much more comfortable. The work is
challenging, stimulating, and diverse, as I have been involved with simulations
as varied as dipping a car frame into corrosion-resistant paint, to flow down a
waterslide, to the forces on an airplane wing coming in for landing. The amount of travel has been just about
right, and I have gotten to visit clients in St. Louis, Moline, Indianapolis,
Huntsville, Newport News, and Toronto.
In addition to work, we have found a wonderful church home at Trinity
Lutheran in Saline, MI, and have enjoyed singing in the talented choir.
So, with that, I
will wrap up this year’s letter a little early for once (first time ever that
the first draft didn’t come in at over 2 pages!). We have been so blessed this year with our
growing son and soon-to-be-growing family, and we have truly cherished being
closer to our families and many old friends over the past year. It really does feel like we have come “home.” Our prayer is that the Christmas season finds
you and yours also reflecting on a joyous and rewarding year and spending the
holiday season enjoying the company of those you love. Finally, may you be filled with the good news
of a Savior this Christmas, for there is no greater love.
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still
sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
Jeremy, Sarah and James
Hanke
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| Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year from our family to yours!!! |
