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The Harlands wish you a Happy New Year in 2013 full of peace, love, happiness, contentment, special moments, and fun with those you love and care about!
That's the important part and there is no need to read on, but for those of you who are not seeing my Facebook posts or who have no idea what we've been up to and are actually interested, read on...
Jakob graduated from UC Santa Cruz last June--dressed as an alpaca (he was the front part). The faculty and staff embraced his costume...I think he went to the right college! He is living in Santa Cruz, composes electronic music, and is working at a few jobs. He still goes to Burning Man every August for a week. Now that we are empty nesters, we hope to make the trek to see him more often.
Ian is now a senior at San Diego State, and is more than keeping busy practicing several different instruments--he has become an amazing vibes player in addition to drums, piano, keyboard, guitar, bass, etc. He also is in a band or two, and plays gigs. Because he lives near to home, we are fortunate to see him in concerts. He applied to grad school, so he will probably be at State for awhile longer.
Kira graduated high school last June, and was busy with numerous activities her senior year. She worked all summer as a camp counselor, then full time at a software company in fall, and then planned and paid for an amazing 6 week trip to Europe starting the end of October--she traveled solo, enjoying wine, clubs, new friends, etc. Thank goodness she stayed safe!! She returned to the USA already, but we don't get to see her until she returns to Carlsbad New Year's Eve. She begins college at UC Berkeley this January.
John and I became empty nesters the end of October when Kira took off for Europe, and are enjoying this new phase of life. We take off whenever we want and have time (we started that last summer on our unplanned 25th anniversary road trip where half way through it we ended up in Belize), so that's been fun, and we have been traveling more now. We are lucky to each have a full time job teaching math at the two colleges closest to us. We are still in the Temple band, and we also do a lot of Israeli dancing. We might pick up ballroom again. Life is good!
I'm always very grateful our kids get along and like each other, and like to hang out with us too. I don't take any of that for granted! We enjoy having adult kids.
This time of year, I am especially reminded to count my blessings, and to appreciate life, my family, and my friends. I think the key to happiness is being grateful, being kind, and being understanding. It's a work in progress for me for sure! I'm still working on that being patient thing!
Warmly and with much love to you and your loved ones,
Julie
P.S. This is also on behalf of all the Harland (John, Jakob, Ian, and Kira) even though they have no say and the kids, since they aren't around, don't even know I'm sending this.
P.P.S. My website is YourMathGal.com.