December 26th Phil Wrote
Each year we write a newsletter that we send to freinds and family to keep them up-to-date with many of the things that are happening in our lives. Since my turn to write lined up with my writing of the newletter, I will include it here instead of writing two differant ones. It is as follows...
The Rosenberger Report - 2004
It is December 24th, 2004, and another year has come and nearly gone. As I sit and reflect on all that has happened, my mind is filled with a wonderful mixture of the bitter and the sweet that makes life so exciting.
Well… Now it is December 25th. My, how time flies. I tried to work on this letter yesterday, but instead I just… well… I’m not sure what I did. I guess I just took it easy?!… It felt good, but now I will try again…
I did it again… It is now December 26th, and I still haven’t done this letter. (It’s a good thing that we don’t call it our Christmas letter!!!) It’s not that I don’t want to do the letter, it’s just that Pat’s father recently came back from one of his trips to Brazil and her sister is visiting from Denver, and I hate to miss any of the conversation. It is great to have them here with us. I always enjoy our time together.
We had a very busy and interesting year. Karalee and Willy were both in the Bel Canto Children’s Choir this year and had a lot of practices and performances. It has been a great experience for them and they have been exposed to a lot of great music. There were no major trips this year, but their big trip is next year. They will be going to Hawaii for the Pacific Rim Choir Festival from July 12 - 20. They are really looking forward to the trip, but they are a bit nervous about it as well. It will be a long time to be away from home and Hawaii is a long way away, but it is a great opportunity.
Willy and Karalee are also both doing home schooling with Bob Jones University’s satellite program and they really like most of it. The classes are taught by professional teachers and sent to us via satellite. We videotape them and they can go at their own pace, rewinding as often as necessary. Since they are able to do most of that by themselves (Pat just has to check their work, and I go over Karalee’s math), it gives Pat more time to spend with Karissa who has officially started school now. We held her back as much as we could, but she insisted that she have school too. Her reading has been going very well.
Karissa, more then any of the others, loves to be read to. Each evening she climbs into bed with Pat and me and won’t leave until we read to her. In the last year we read through the entire Little House series of books by Laura Ingles Wilder. I had read most of them when I was a child and it was great fun to read them again.
This summer we had a great vacation in Colorado. Pat’s sister, Anita, lives there and we drove out to spend some time with her. We all drove out one week and spent some time seeing the sights, then I flew home to get back to work while Pat and the kids stayed with her sister for the next week. Then I flew back out to drive them all back home again. On the way home our old van (165,000 miles) let us sit in Ogallala, NB. It was an unexpected stop-over that put us behind schedule getting home, so after the van was fixed we drove the last 1500 miles straight through in 23 hours. The only thing better than vacations is getting back home.
Daniel is a senior in high school. It’s hard to believe that he is almost through school. He has been looking into colleges and has applied to a few. Last week he received an acceptance letter from Hesston College in Kansas. We still need to work out some details, but it looks like he might be out there next fall.
I have mixed feelings about the possibility of Dan going away to college. On one hand I look at his room and think, “How in the world will he take care of himself?” You may have heard about his car accident a few weeks ago. He wanted to see how an air bag works and couldn’t think of any other way then running into something. The air bag worked… We are thankful this year that he is still with us… but our little blue car isn’t. But then every once in a while he does something that reminds me that he really is growing up. He needs a chance to spread his wings and see if he can fly.
Pat has spent a good deal of time this year putting a lot of our old pictures together into professional looking scrapbooks. It is truly amazing how beautiful they look. If you’re ever in the area, stop in and ask to see them. She enjoys scrapbooking, but has trouble justifying the time it takes. There are so many worthy things that vie for her time.
She and I have been having quite a few early morning dates lately. We have taken an early morning paper route to help pay for the upcoming trip to Hawaii and for my schooling, and we get some quiet time together as a result. Our plan is to take turns doing the route with Karalee and Willy taking turns helping us, but until we both know the route she and I have been going out together. We have been enjoying the time together so much that we may decide to fire the kids.
I am still in seminary. My last class before graduating next summer is a mission trip to Peru. I will be gone about the same time that Karalee and Willy are in Hawaii. Here again I have mixed feelings. I have enjoyed class and the relationships I have built with my classmates, but at the same time I am ready for another break from classes. And there is another issue… I am convinced that God called me to attend seminary, but I still don’t know why. I don’t have a clear indication of what He wants me to do with all that I have learned. Please pray that the next step will be made clear to us as a family.
For now I am still working for Oldcastle, making multi level parking garages. I have become increasingly tired of my job, and I sense that God has something else planned for me. I am waiting patiently for his guidance.
Bradley has graduated from Johnson and Wales University in South Carolina and has landed a job in a banquet hall near Reading, PA. Ryan to has returned home from SC and got a job at Decka Batteries.
Darrell and Alison are keeping themselves busy with the raising of our first grandchild, Kaitlyn. It is an awesome responsibility, but they seem to be doing pretty well.
As I have reflected on the last year, it has reminded me just how many things I have to be thankful for. In her book, The Long Winter, Laura Ingalls Wilder describes the difficulties her family faced during their first winter in South Dakota. She ends her book, with this song:
This life is a difficult riddle,
For how many people we see
With faces a long as a fiddle
That ought to be shining with glee.
I am sure in this world there are plenty
Of good things enough for us all
And yet there is not one out of twenty
But thinks that his share is too small.
.
Do you think that by sitting and sighing
You’ll ever obtain what you want?
It’s cowards alone that are crying
And foolishly saying, “I can’t.”
It is only by plodding and striving
And laboring up the steep hill
Of life, that you’ll ever be thriving
Which you’ll do if you’ve only the will
Then what is the use of repining
For where there’s a will there’s a way
And tomorrow the sun may be shining
Although it is cloudy today.
God Bless You All!!!!!
Phil, Pat, Daniel, Karalee, Willy and Karissa Rosenberger