Christmas Newletter

Copelands 2011

Below is the active roster of our family, and the events of their year.

Allison, age 8. She is in the third grade at Snyder Park. Allison remains our resident artist, and is still spending much of her free time creating crafts and artwork. Her best friend Emma and her are now wearing matching "best friend" necklaces. She remains an active Brownie and is still doing art classes. Allison just took a big step (for her) towards adulthood: she got her ears pierced.

Tommy, age 10. He is classified as a fourth grader. His school time in 2011 has been notable by his fascination with a classmate named Madelyn, who also does not speak and is in a wheelchair. This summer meant a camp experience for the first time, at a special needs camp on the western edge of the county.. Tommy is in his fourth season bowling. Tommy also enjoyed our season passes at The Beach, where he was now tall enough to go on the big slides.

Tracey, age 12. Tracey is now in the seventh grade at Hayward Middle School, where he made the honor roll his first quarter. About two weeks before Christmas he fractured his collar bone. He currently is wearing a brace to straighten his shoulder and will not be paying winter soccer this year. In less traumatic news, he still enjoys playing video game, mostly with neighbor Isaiah;. Soccer meant a final season last spring for Springfield Thunder with his father as head coach, and then a fall season for the Dayton Dutch Lions, where by the end of the season he was playing the entire game as one of the team's two center defenders.

Megan , age 19, and as you can see with the enclosed picture, now an alumnus of Springfield High School. She is currently a first year student at Clark State University, pursuing her lifelong dream to be the female Indiana Jones, since training to be a Jedi is not offered. Megan remains a voracious reader, and is especially proud of her Star Wars books collection, which is about to hit triple digits.

Laura, age 41. She continues to be a fulltime mother. This especially means dealing firsthand with Tommy's regular and irregular appointments. With her kids, she most often reads with Megan and does crafts with Allison. She remains an avid sports fan, but the less said about her football teams the better, although the Ohio State basketball team is looking good again this season.

Scott, age 43. The St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series. After coaching Tracey in the spring, in the fall Scott dropped two years down and switched genders and coached a new team of U11 girls to a second place finish. The winter season has meant 8 am Saturday morning games. As a film buff, he was moved by The Tree of Life and The Descendants, and in the sleeper category recommends Win Win. Most of all, he's thankful The Muppets are back.

I have avoided politics and religion in the newsletter in past years, but here goes. I deal on a daily basis in my job at the Clark County Department of Jobs and Family Services with clients who are struggling to make ends meet. Instead of government addressing this problem, in Ohio we have a governor who would blame low funding on supposed greedy government employees like me while in Washington our "representatives" are more interested in partisan bickering than solving the problems of everyday people. The jobs disappeared for a lot of my clients in the past decade and the supposed safety net gets cut back every year. I don't have any answers here, but every day I have questions. In a country where so many people identify as Christian, I find it sad that help for the poor and sick, the genuinely needy, seems to be in short supply. In the days were we celebrate the birth of Christ, my Christmas wish is that more people try harder to truly live His words in their deeds, not just in empty promises.