Vol 15 The Todd Times
Dec 2002
Merry Christmas!! We hope you had success,
health and happiness this past year. Overall, itís been a good year for us.
Find photos at http://www.thetoddfamily.org
With a 9 year old boy and 10 year old girl, pretty much everything in our
house revolves around the kids ‚ i.e., kidís school, kidís activities,
kidís pets and negotiating with kids, a/k/a the little manager (Tarrah)
and the little salesman (Nathan). School dominated our lives and
both kids are doing well. Tarrah is very creative and was selected to attend
a gifted and talented art program after school. Her favorite funtime
activities are building adobe villages in the field next to our house
and playing with her model horses and barn. Nate does excellent in school
and enjoys movies, legos and reading. He bought the hardback collector
series of the Harry Potter books (with his own money!) and has memorized every
character, event, potion , etc . Violin is the instrument of choice
this year and both are in choir.
Kid activities have become the family hobbies. In the Spring we worked hard
at Karate and the kids made Blue-belt and Al made Brown-belt.
We are on a karate break right now. The boys traded in cub scouts to join
the girls in 4-H where we are all taking on horses, rockets,
ceramics, guinea pig and photography plus doing some pretty darn worthwhile
community service. The kids both had major roles in our church
Christmas play.
Our house is a zoo ‚ litterly (spelling intentional). Neighbors call our
place the ìroad kill rodeoî because of the assortment of critters nesting
here. Burrowed in the kitchen is our pudgy guinea pig Stuart Piddle.
Next to his sweet-smelling lair is Busterís always-neat living and feeding
area. Buster is our half Corgi, half miniature pincher tube-shaped low-rider
mutt with aerial-ears large enough to receive deep space communications.
Down the hall - past the fish bowl - in Tarrahís (transfer station) Room lives
our bunny named Star. This cuddly rascal can plop a poop in every square
foot of our living room in less than 4 minutes (neighborhood record).
The animal addiction doesnít end in the home as Lorrie and Tarrah take horse
riding lessons and belong to the local saddle club which keeps them busy attending
hor$e shows, horse work$hops, feed $tores, we$tern clothing shops, etc.
Al and Nate prefer gas powered steeds and ride dirt bike$ at the track and
in the mountains.
The Traveling Toddburyís visited Austin, Texas over Spring break and experienced
exceptional live blues, brisket, BBQ and bass fishing. What
a great town! We made the annual pilgrimage to Ohio in June and
parked the RV in Lorrieís sisters backyard for 2 weeks.
We had a blast swimming, partying, dirt biking and visiting amusement
parks. Back in Colorado, the summer forest fires kept us
close to home, so we focused on short camping trips and day trips
to ride dirt bikes. Our mountain rental home was unscathed
by the fires and we love going up there for 2-night getaways to
relax and enjoy the true peace and quiet of the high mountains.
It has rented well and our visitors love it. Need a mountain
vacation? Visit http://www.cabinsincolorado.com.
Our web business is still alive and kicking. We had some problems and
lost business this past summer due to email attacks on our web servers, but
after 4 months of 12-hour work-daze we managed to fix the problem. Now
in year 6, we still donít know what we want the company to become size wise.
We were up to 5 employees at one point this year but the challenges
and expenses finally got to us and we are back down to just Lorrie and I running
the business. Small, simple and sustainable seems to work best for us.
Well, thatís whatís happening in colorful Colorado. We wish you and
your family a loved-filled Christmas and wisdom, faith, compassion and joy
in the coming year.
Lorrie, Al, Tarrah & Nathan
(and Buster the dog, Stewy the guinea pig, Sunset the fish and Star
the rabbit)
