 |
Christmas, 2012
|
 |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
(click on the picture to see a detailed
view)
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| Dear Friends, |
| |
|
|
|
|
| 2012 brought family expansion, interesting travels, and some
changes on the work horizon for the family. Here’s the summary of
our year in Lake Charles, LA. |
|
|
In April, Ellen and Mark celebrated 25 years of marriage with
a special trip to Switzerland. Our travels took us all across the
beautiful country, from Lake Geneva to the cheese and chocolate factories,
Interlaken, Mt. Pilatus, Rhine Falls, and Zermatt. You can view more
of the photos online. On this trip Ellen experienced the joys of international flying in Business
Class, and declares that she will never go back to Economy Class. |
 |
| In August, the whole family traveled to New Jersey to witness
the wedding of Ellen’s nephew Joshua and his lovely bride Becky. The
wedding was a wonderful affair, and it gave us a perfect time to see all
the family members again. Then in December, Ellen and Lisa embarked
on a Caribbean cruise out of New Orleans. Mom and daughter were joined
by Mark’s sister, Gina, and her daughter, Carly, from Pensacola. Mark
stayed home with Sarah, spending some quality time. For Christmas
all from Mark’s side of the family came to visit. We all had
great fun. |
 |
|
|
Sarah has passed her twelfth birthday and attends
middle school. We can tell our baby is growing up by the things
that interest her, and we can see a big difference in her
maturity. She’s showing an interest in fashionable clothes, but
still likes her dolls. Sarah added another to her American Girl
collection. Her dance studies, tumbling, and piano lessons
continue, while she maintains top grades in the SPARK program at
school. Sarah joined the beginning band at school, choosing the
French Horn for her instrument. She still reads avidly,
preferring fiction books. Sarah still has her iPod Touch which
she uses to communicate with her friends in various ways; we have
resisted getting her an iPhone for now, but the pressure’s definitely
hitting us from various sides. Sarah’s latest trend is creating
things from duct tape. She has dozens of rolls of different
colored duct tape and she designs all sorts of things from keychains to
purses to pillows, all made from the tape. You can see her wearing one of her
creations in the photo. And once again, one of Sarah’s photos ended up
winning the Mayor’s
award. |
 |
|
|
Lisa had a another exciting year as she attained the age of
full majority (21). She celebrated this while on a cruise with her
mother, aunt, and cousin. Lisa continues her Chemical Engineering
studies at LSU. She has worked her way through most of the prerequisites
and is now starting into the core courses as she pursues the fourth chemical
engineering degree (after her three brothers) to carry on the Congiundi
tradition. Lisa has continued to stay very active in the Baton Rouge Jewish
community, by working at the local synagogue and by holding her position
as Secretary in LSU’s Hillel. She enjoys it very much, and hopes to continue
to stay involved as much as her schoolwork will allow her. Lisa has been
very motivated this past semester to get into shape. She took an aerobics
class at LSU, along with her engineering classes. She enjoyed it so much
that she took her love of working out and started doing it outside of class
on her own. She now enjoys taking jogs around the LSU lakes and attending
weekly Zumba classes at LSU’s UREC. |
 |
|
This May, Samuel graduated Magna cum
Laude from Texas A&M with a bachelor’s in Chemical
Engineering. He decided to celebrate by taking a road trip with
some of his college friends, traveling over 3,000 miles through
Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. Upon returning, Samuel started
permanent employment with Chevron Phillips in Port Arthur, TX.
He’s currently working as a process engineer, but he expects to
transition into a process control engineer job soon. Samuel also
purchased his first new car, a 2013 Volkswagen Jetta TDI and is
enjoying the perks of owning a diesel car (50 mpg). Taking
advantage of Texas A&M’s move to the SEC, Samuel treated his dad to
A&M’s first SEC game which happened to be against his dad’s alma
mater, the University of Florida. Later, Lisa and Samuel attended
the A&M - LSU game. Although Texas A&M lost both games,
Samuel still enjoyed a 10-2 season and was able to witness one of
A&M’s own winning the Heisman Trophy. When he’s not watching
Aggie football, Samuel has fun with his crazy kitty, Pebbles.
|
 |
|
|
This past summer, Samuel also continued as the organizer and
director of the Kids Summer Chess Camp in Lake Charles. This was his
sixth consecutive year running the program. |
Ellen continues as the “stay-at-home
mom,” staying active as ever. She’s got everyone going in
the right direction and keeps the family household running on
track. She’s still a regular at the local Curves Center, having
taken the 10,000 steps program to heart (she wears her pedometer all
the time). Ellen volunteers at Sarah’s Middle school, teaches
Sunday school at the Synagogue, and now is helping Sarah to prepare for
her Bat Mitzvah in early 2014. She and Mark are getting close to
knowing what “Empty Nesters” are all about, as most days only Sarah
remains in the household. Well, at least she still has the three
kitties (Luke, Lucy, and Tidwell) to keep her entertained.
|
| As promised in the last newsletter Joseph and
Jessica are proud parents again to another beautiful daughter named
Lilah Nicole, born this year on Leap Day! They continue living in
Houston with their first daughter Chloe, who had her third birthday
party in November, a beautiful affair. Chloe continues to amaze
us with her talents and artistic abilities. She and Lilah both
got to spend some quality time with us this Fall when Joseph and
Jessica took a vacation in the Virgin Islands. Jessica has put
her counseling career on hold for the moment and is focusing on the new
baby and Chloe; both are flourishing. Joseph’s still going strong
at Lyondell-Basell, now working as the interim process control manager
at his facility. |
 |
|
|
The other really big news is that Anthony and Erika finally
tied the knot this November 10th. It was a glorious affair in Houston,
beautiful to be there and watch them become officially husband and wife. (View wedding photos here.
Take special note of the Aggie bonfire cake.) So it was off
to the Bahamas for the honeymoon which lasted well beyond Thanksgiving
and took in at least three different islands. When they do it,
they do it right. Erika and Anthony are now settling back at
their jobs, she as a Licensed Professional Counselor doing group
therapy, and he as a senior principal engineer at
Lyondell-Basell. Erika, having completed her intern hours, was
recently promoted to Treatment Plan Manager. Anthony enjoys his
process control engineering work; he’s leading a major DCS upgrade
project and has spearheaded numerous control improvement projects
resulting in multi-million-dollar savings for the company. |
|
Mark’s Process Control work at Sasol North America has
shifted more to the project role. Sasol’s earlier decision to build
a new unit at this site has occupied large amounts of time, much of it
spent in Houston where the design teams are located. This year,
the project will focus on the site construction. Meanwhile, Sasol
has announced major
expansion plans
at the Lake Charles plant: multiple chemical units plus a
Gas-to-Liquids facility. While Mark would like to work on the
front-end designs of some of the more-recently announced units, he’s
gotten a request to push the process control improvement program in
South Africa. Having accepted this challenge, he will be doing a
two-year assignment there while keeping up with things back in Lake
Charles. The move to the Scottsdale retirement home is still on
the horizon, but it will have to wait for a little while.
Somehow, the most exciting stuff seems to come when we are almost ready
to quit. So for now Mark will forge ahead, hopefully getting his
second wind.
Like his son, Mark decided to move to a diesel-powered vehicle, so he
traded in his beloved BMW for a 2013 VW Jetta diesel (same model as Samuel’s).
[Part of this inspiration came from his experience on the Switzerland
vacation; there he and Ellen rented a Mercedes E-Class diesel car. They
traveled all across the country (from France to Germany) on
less than one tank of fuel. Fuel economy ended up averaging
44 mpg.] We now have three diesel cars in the family (all VWs).
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| Our kitties Luke,
Lucy,
and Tidwell continue
to hang with us. You may recall, Luke gave us cause for concern
last year when Ellen discovered a tumor on his side. She had
caught it in time, and the tumor was removed successfully, but Luke had
about 5 or 6 more tumors that showed up. With each operation his
fur would get shaved at the same spot on his side just when it had
started to grow back. But after the last one was removed (nearly
6 months ago) Luke seems to be free of the problem and has his
beautiful coat back. Meanwhile, these cats continue to rule. |
| |
|
|
|
|
| This year we are thankful that we’re all in good health and
we continue to have interesting, gainful employment. You can find this Christmas
newsletter and all those from previous years online. Just go to our Web
Home Page and click on the Christmas tree near the bottom of the page. Please
note our Internet addresses below, as well as our street address. Please
write (snail mail or email) or stop by for a visit if you’re in the area.
We hope you are all healthy and feeling lots of joy. We wish you a very
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Mark, Ellen, Joseph, Jessica,
Chloe, Lilah, Anthony, Erika, Samuel, Lisa, Sarah, and Luke, Lucy, and Tidwell
the cats
|
