Dear
Friends and Family,
We hope this letter finds everyone well and enjoying the Holidays, always remembering the Reason we celebrate. May the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ overshadow all else that we do this season.
The Cearley
Family Year 2002 in a Nutshell:
This has
been a big travel year for our family.
We started the year off with a trip to Indiana to visit Greg’s sister
Sandy and her family. It was the first
time the children had flown on an airplane.
They loved it! The Pilot even
announced their names and gave them “first-time flier” certificates! In the spring we took the children to Disney
World for the very first time. It was
“Magical”! We relaxed and enjoyed
ourselves at all the parks.
Among many
other exciting things, we purchased a nice camper (not exactly roughing it
now!) and have been using it a lot! It
is our portable vacation home. We have
spent a lot of great family time camping.
Since getting it in late June, we have traveled to Gatlinburg, TN;
Myrtle Beach, SC; West Point, NY; Lancaster, PA; Virginia Beach, VA; and
somewhere in the mountains of North Carolina with Dad and Mom Palmer! We made a couple of great side trips to New
York City (where we took the children to the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State
Building, and Ground Zero) and to Philadelphia (where we especially enjoyed the
Benjamin Franklin Institute of Science).
We have had VERY close encounters with both Alligators and Tigers this
year. Oh my! And we’ve just endured the North Carolina Ice Storm of 2002 (We
pretended we were a Wild West family.)!
Chandler is
doing SUPER in school. He is in First
Grade at Cary Christian School. He got
all S’s on his first report card with an S+ in PE! He has played Soccer as usual and was on the machine pitched
Baseball team this spring. He has just
started Basketball and loves it. He is
playing with all other 2nd graders and is the tallest on the
team! He is reading everything he can
get his hands on and especially loves science and history. He is a natural engineer and a born
leader. He really enjoyed our trips to
New York City and Philadelphia. He
said, “I could live here!” He loved the
street dancers and the pizza parlors on every corner. He was ring-bearer in his very first wedding this summer. He looked so handsome and grown-up in his
three piece suit!
Caroline
will be 5 in February and will go to Kindergarten next fall! She is still taking and loving ballet and
tap. She was in her first little
recital in May. She wore a little makeup
and received a rose from Mom upon leaving the dance floor. She loved every minute of it! Her highlights of the year have been going
to Disney World, learning to swim, seeing the Disney Princesses on Ice show
here in Raleigh, and “the snacks” on our New York City trip! She can be quite the drama queen! She also started playing soccer this
fall. Her Daddy is her coach. Their team is so cute! She isn’t afraid to get right in there with
the boys!
Greg is still working at
GlaxoSmithKline. He is GSK's worldwide
manager for external hosting, which is a wonderful position with a lot of
flexibility. Because his role is
global, he can do his job anywhere with cell phone and Internet access. He
works from home a lot and is even able to host international teleconferences
while we’re on vacation. We get to see
a lot of him and that is great! He is
very involved with the children’s activities.
He is Caroline’s soccer coach and Chandler’s AWANA leader at
church. He and Chandler have also
joined Indian Guides (YMCA’s version of the boy scouts). They are in a “tribe” with 9 other father
and son teams. They get to wear leather
vests and feathered headbands! “How!
How!” This summer he talked the family
into having our photo taken with a 600 lb. Bengal Tiger in Myrtle Beach! One fall outing had him driving his
Expedition, pulling our camper, all the way to Newburgh, NY and back through
all the cities, toll roads, and tunnels!
Carlene has
been busy with the children’s schools and activities, packing and unpacking
from our numerous travels, imitating Trading Spaces in our home, trying out
Internet recipes, and always lots of Jazzercise! She is Caroline’s AWANA leader at church and Chandler’s piano
teacher at home. She has become the
family expert on board games and basketball!
She still plays BUNCO with neighborhood ladies every month. She’s even “performed before live audiences”
at the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular at Disney World, at the Jazzercise
Half-Time show at the Carolina Panthers vs. Dallas Cowboys game in Charlotte,
and with Jazzercise in the Cary Christmas Parade. Her favorite activities are still going to the mall with
Caroline, staying up late with Chandler, and going to the movies with Greg!
Chelsea and
Roxy, our cocker spaniels, are now 11 and 8 respectively, and we have added to
our pet population. We kept Caroline’s
preschool class hamster Smoky this summer for 3 months. After he managed to escape and get stuck in
our bathroom wall, we decided that a hamster was not a good pet for us! Greg had to rip out part of our cabinet and
use some resourceful methods to extract the critter. Carlene told him he was a “regular MacGyver” but he didn’t see
the humor in that at the moment! Smoky
somehow came through the summer unscathed, and we gladly returned him to
preschool. We have, however, added two
goldfish to our family – Bubbles and Tiger.
You can guess which fish belongs to which child! They are wonderfully low maintenance!
We would
love to hear from everyone. Drop us a
line when you have the time.
Merry
Christmas and Happy New Year! The
Cearleys
Please note
that our zip code changed this year:
Greg,
Carlene, Chandler, and Caroline Cearley
110 Canon
Gate Drive
Apex,
NC 27539
(919) 303-7066
greg@cearley.org
or carlene@cearley.org
