May 28, 2012

The International Haws Family


So I am a day early, or several weeks late, depending on your point of view but thought that I would take a moment to tell you about our week and the happenings of our lives.

Really, nothing has changed. I am serious, nothing has really developed over the last couple of weeks.

Lucas is doing exceptionally well at soccer and if we are here he will be participating in a tournament hosted by a professional team in a professional stadium in Sao Paulo. It is a sort of try out/scouting arena. It is quite a privilege. I even had the chance to watch him play a bit and was impressed.

Felipe has had a rough couple of weeks. He decided to break up with a girl that he had liked for almost a year. It was a tough decision but he is certain that it is important for him. That has left him a bit lost, for what is the reason to facebook when you are tortured with pictures of the person you so loved and what is the purpose for life without facebook. Wait, news coming in ... new facebook romance has begun and life has resumed and all is beautiful again.

Derick is doing well. He has struggled lately as some of his friends do not have to go to school and he would like live the life of Huckleberry Finn as well. We had a fun evening last night as the two of us talked about when he was little and the fun things that we used to do together, like how I carried him on my shoulders to school everyday and how he loved Dallin Dalmatian (Renata gave Dallin away while I was gone and Derick has missed him almost as much as he missed me).

Renata is doing well. Busy as mother's tend to be. Renata has worked hard to make sure that I can work in peace while working from home. She has been trying to be more regular in her church going and has been very regular in her Bible study, she tells me that she is in Lucas and enjoying it very much.

As for myself I have been having far too much fun. When I came to Brazil I decided that I wanted to try a new operating system, I have always used Windows at work (as most workplaces do) and have used a Mac regularly for the last two year while working on iPhone/iPad development, now I wanted to get familiar with Linux. I decided to start with the easiest form of Linux to learn, Ubuntu. It has been fun and much easier than I had originally imagined. With this I have become closer to new programming languages and have started to learn Perl. The entire experience has been thrilling! The best part almost everything is free, that is amazing, I have not had to pay for a program yet. I won't even start my rant on the costs in programming environments on Windows or Apple policies for programmers, let's just say 'free' is not an option.

I hope that you are all well.

Love,
Jeff





The Jackson's of Albuquerque

The weeks seems to be flying by for Stacie, Kevin and Henry. Henry turned three months this week and is getting bigger, smarter, and cuter day by day. Kevin is very thankful for his opportunity to spend the last two weeks with his little guy and will miss him very much while he is taking his summer course over the next month. The three amigos are enjoying the long weekend together as a family. On Saturday they redeemed a Groupon for candy covered apples and they did some delicious grilling. They hope that the weather and air are nice on Monday so they can enjoy a walk in the bosque by the Rio Grande. On Sunday Stacie baked some homemade bread, which was lovely, and in the evening they enjoyed Skyping us here in Marshfield. It was neat to have Henry and Alex on Skype together.

The Colorado Haws Family

This week has seemed to fly by. On Monday Haley went on her field trip to an animal sanctuary. Her favorite part of the field trip was seeing the tigers. On Wednesday Haley had her Renaissance assembly and was her last day of school. She was sad to leave the first grade but is very excited to be in second grade next year. On Thursday we made it to Utah to visit family. I was so glad that the girls did very well on the trip, but I was surprised that they stayed up from 3:00 am (when we left) to 9:00 pm that night without even taking a nap! On Friday we were able to enjoy a barbeque at my dad’s house with some of my siblings and their families. I was also very glad that I was able to go to the temple that day with my mom. It is always a wonderful place to be. On Saturday morning, Haley and Kayla ran the first block of the 5k run that my mom was running, not by choice, but because they were with my mom when it started while I was parking the van. They were glad that they did not have to run all of it, but were excited to see Grandma Nancy cross the finish line. Later that morning we met up with Jessica, one of my really good friends that I have not seen in a couple of years. It was so wonderful to see her and her family even though we were getting blown away by the wind. We also were able to visit with my Grandma Keisel for a few minutes before we headed down to Paragonah. Sunday after church the weather was very beautiful so my mom let Haley and Kayla take the dogs for a walk, which Kayla has been begging my mom to do ever since we arrived here. Andy is doing very well because he is headed to Kuwait tomorrow and then is suppose to fly to Georgia on Saturday. We will hopefully be able to be together next Sunday, but if not next Monday for sure. Haley and Kayla still do not know he will be coming home. I have been telling them that they need to make posters for Lisa’s (my friend) friend. I hope that they will be surprised. This has been a long year but being around wonderful family and friends and being positive has made it a whole lot easier!

The Haws Family of Wisconsin


What an amazing week this has been. We saw Emily graduate from Marshfield High School. Logan became our family's newest teenager. Lanette had her nearly weekly visit to the Elmhorst family and finally Mom, Logan and I had a wonderful trip to the St Paul Temple. We were accompanied by Sister McSweeney for the temple trip which was extra special.

Today was a day of work around our place. Many of you will remember the unfinished fence around the fruit trees. Well today it was finished! Now the chicken coop has migrated out there which was no small feat. It looks good.

We enjoyed a wonderful dinner and family home evening planning tonight. Grant has encouraged us to make a list of activities to do this summer. We did it last year too but did not get many of the activities done. We hope to do better this year.

The most important news this week is Mom and my anniversary. We have been married 32 years ago as of May 30th. I have been blessed with the best friend I could every dream of.  She is my confidant, my advisor, my friend and my encouragement. I hope you know what a wonderful mom you have been blessed with.

Dad