…..Picture taken on top of the Sleeping Bear Dunes, Michigan
Merry Christmas 2013!
We cannot believe another year has flown by, but here we are at another Christmas season. We are hoping that the year finds you blessed and that the start of a new year will bring even more blessings your way.
Some highlights from our year: A self-employed musician’s family means that we are really working all the time, so any free time to spend with each other is a treasure to us. This year, we have enjoyed a few trips to the K-T bicycle trail near our house. We also have designated Friday, Saturday, or Sunday nights (depending on when daddy isn’t working) as movie night. Our latest favorites have included watching TV classics of I Love Lucy, the Dick Van Dyke Show, and Leave it to Beaver. We also really enjoy a good Phineas & Ferb or Good Luck Charlie.
The biggest adventures we’ve enjoyed this year included a whole bunch of travel with some big events of a dance trip, an anniversary trip, and a four-week musical tour.
A Bunch of Travel:
o The Chocolate Museum in Burlington, WI
o Port Washington Harbor, Park, Lighthouse, and Beach
o Sheboygan Beach where we took pictures of the girls in their dance dresses
o Discovery Center in Milwaukee (where our oldest daughter danced and John got to conduct a virtual guitar lesson with Les Paul)
o The Safe House Restaurant (it’s a spy theme, really cool!)
• In June, we celebrated Tere’s parents’ 60th wedding anniversary. We all gathered for a week at a beach house in Gulf Shores. Well, most of us anyway. One of our nieces and her family were not able to join us because she was busy bringing her third child into the world. ON THE SAME DAY as my parent’s 60th anniversary, though miles away, we also welcomed her new baby. In addition to the amazing time with family, we drove through states we have never seen before, Mississippi and Alabama and saw:
o Graceland (Tere’s first time here, John’s 2nd. It was really fun and a musician’s dream! And, other than it being a beastly hot day in Memphis, the kids enjoyed it too.)
• In August, we began the longest on-the-road trip we’ve ever taken. We spent four weeks in Wisconsin and Michigan on tour with John performing 31 musical shows while Tere and the kids enjoyed the hotel, water parks, beaches, dunes, thrift stores, and all WI and MI has to offer. We made the most of every town we stopped and saw:
o Walked out to a lighthouse in Marinette, WI/Menominee, MI
o Tere experienced kayaking in Green Bay for her first time while the kids paddle boated
o Enjoyed a classic Drive-In theater in Door County where we saw Despicable Me 2
o Ate at Al Johnson’s, a restaurant where there are live goats on the grass roof
o Green Bay’s amusement park on the Bay where rides are 25 cents
o Had ice cream at the soda shop where the ice cream sundae was invented
.....Tere and the kids walked to the EAA Museum while John gigged out one day
o Book Worm Gardens in Sheboygan
On our last night of the trip, we went to some sand dunes overlooking Lake Michigan in Holland, MI. This beautiful sunset was the signature on our final night before driving back home.
Thought you might be interested in a brief summary of what each Scott family member has been up to since the last letter:
John – is loving performing, singing, playing guitar and saxophone, for audiences and has played more than 270 shows this year. He performs classic standards and does great impersonations of Johnny Cash, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, and others, at retirement centers, restaurants, and corporate and private events. He thoroughly enjoyed the 4-week MI/WI tour where he performed 31 shows on the road. He is also playing guitar and singing some background vocals up at church and is still teaching guitar lessons at Mozingo Music.
Tere – doesn’t know what free time is as she wears many hats, never feeling as if she truly fulfills any of them entirely. She homeschools the three children, feeling the age/grade range even more this year with two in middle school and one in early elementary years. Tere also still writes for online sites like CBS local, Believe.com, Examiner, maintains three blogs, and also ghost writes for other websites. She was chosen this year to be part of the Old Schoolhouse Review Crew social media team which means she helps to promote the magazine as well as writing product and curriculum reviews. Oh, and she’s still attempting to clean out and sell the contents of our basement on eBay.G-Man – became a teenager this year and is in the 8th grade. He is our resident IT tech computer/electronics help. He loves Sonic the Hedgehog and Minecraft, the latter of which has even become a part of his schooling as he enjoyed a study of the Middle Ages Minecraft style. He is most often found in front of his computer, Xbox 360, iPad, Wii, or his newly earned PS Vita, which was payment for his hard work helping John put together a promo video DVD and transferring music onto John’s iPad. He has been taking a film maker’s class but much prefers editing, animating and coding in various computer languages to being in front of the camera or coming up with story lines.
G-Man was responsible for editing the entire 25 minute montage of video clips from one of John’s performances. He got braces this year, but you probably wouldn’t know it if you saw him because he got the kind that attach to the back of his top teeth and clear ones on the bottom.
J-Girl – will be 12 in February, is in the 6th grade, and she never lets us forget she’s in a hurry to grow up. At 5’ 2”, she is rapidly approaching her mother’s height and has already surpassed mom in shoe size. She is a huge help around the house as she actually enjoys the laundry, especially the folding. She also still loves to dance. She got to experience her first out-of-town dance show this year and began tapping in high-heel tap shoes this year as well, like the Broadway pros. She is also often found with her iPod Touch in hand or quietly enjoying a good book. She also now has two new accessories: She got braces and glasses this year.
E-Girl – turned 7 in September, and we cannot believe our baby is growing up so fast. She loves to dance, and takes dance lessons at the same studio as her sister. She has become a pretty good reader and loves American Girl Doll books or any book about an elephant. She is still our elephant-loving girl, or perhaps we should say she is our elephant-obsessed girl. She spots elephants everywhere we go and has mommy take pictures of as many elephants as we encounter. She has worked hard on learning how to ride a bike this year and does really well with her training wheels. The last night of the 4-week tour, she surprised us all by swimming on her own without her floaties.
We wish you a very Merry Christmas and an even happier 2014! Please keep in touch throughout the year. If you are computer/mobile device savvy, we’re easy to find and check Facebook regularly (You can find John and I on Facebook as ourselves or on our fan pages)! (Hint: See links in the sidebars of this blog. They also link to John's blog, or find his website at: http://johnscottmusician.yolasite.com.
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