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Christmas, 2013
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(click on the picture
to see a detailed view)
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| Dear Friends, |
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2013 brought more family expansion,
more interesting travels, and some challenges to the
family living situation.
Here’s the summary of our year in Lake
Charles, LA. |
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The big news is the arrival of the
newest member
of the family, Leo Mark Congiundi. Born on December 10th to
proud
parents, Anthony and Erika, he’s their first child. He is a
good
size boy, nearly 9 pounds at birth, is very healthy, and eats well.
He’s even sleeping well at night.
In late February, Mark traveled to Secunda, South Africa, to
begin
a two-year assignment with Sasol Synfuels. But this provided
a
golden opportunity for the family to visit him in South Africa.
So in July, Ellen, Samuel, and Sarah took the long journey to
Johannesburg and toured all over the country. They saw
beautiful
and unusual terrain on the Panorama Route, and many wild animals at the
Kruger National Park. You can view some of their
photos online. |
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| In
December, Mark managed to get back from South Africa for the
holidays. The family traveled
to Pensacola to visit Mark’s sister, Gina, husband,
Doug, and her daughter, Carly, and spent a wonderful Christmas with
them. |
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| Meanwhile, in
Houston, Anthony and Erika (and baby Leo) got together
with Joseph and Jessica (and Chloe and Lilah) for a nice Christmas
celebration. |
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Sarah has entered her teenage years
and is
turning into a mature young lady. She’s in the
seventh grade and
continues to make top grades in the SPARK program at SJ Welsh.
Now one of her main activities is studying for her Bat
Mitzvah,
coming in February. She continues her after-school activities such as
piano lessons, dance, and tumbling. Sarah now has an iPad (being the
beneficiary of a hand-me-down) as well as an iPod touch. And she has
her very own mobile phone. It’s not an iPhone, but it is a phone.
Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers. Over
the summer she
went to state rally for piano and finished in second place--not too
shabby. In district rally she got first in her division. She still
plays the French horn in her school band, but now instead of being in
the beginning band she is in symphonic band. Which is the highest band
at her school. She also is trying out for honor band in January. Once
again, Sarah got the Mayor’s
Choice award for her theater and dance performance in the
Lake Charles Arts Camp. |
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Lisa continues on with her Chemical
Engineering
studies at LSU, with
only a year and a half left to go. She reached a huge milestone this
year, accepting an engineering internship offer this past summer. She
worked in the
environmental department at Axiall in Lake Charles (formerly PPG). The
job was very rewarding and introduced her to a lot of great people as
well as modern corporate life. During her Fall semester, she received
numerous internship
interviews and job offers for summer 2014, but after
considering them all she decided to stay with Axiall in Lake Charles;
this time she will be
working in production, a prospect that Lisa finds
very exciting.
Because of her summer internship, Lisa was unable to make the trek to
South Africa. Instead she took a
vacation
to Destin, FL,
with her boyfriend Jason, also a chemical engineering student at LSU.
They had a great time
being beach bums and eating lots of seafood. It was a great way to
recharge before they both returned to their classes at LSU.
Earlier in the year, she spent a week in Scottsdale, AZ,
hobnobbing with her grandmother and cousin.
Along with her studies, Lisa still contributes some time to Hillel. She
has been elected as Vice President for the 2014 calendar year and
continues to stay active at the university. She also stays physically
active, working out at the university’s Rec Center as much as possible.
Lisa’s physical stamina has improved dramatically
from last year. |
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Samuel continues his
employment
with Chevron Phillips in Port Arthur, TX, where he has made the
transition to a larger role in process control. He’s actively
implementing control improvement strategies, one of which resulted in a
million dollar savings for the company. Samuel also experienced his
first plant turnaround, which lasted an astounding three months.
Samuel’s devotion to Aggie football is still strong. This
past season,
he travelled to six games, including a visit to Tiger Stadium with
Lisa. Samuel’s cat, Pebbles,
is as active as ever. When he’s not getting himself stuck
in drawers, he’s chasing lasers or pouncing on toy
mice. |
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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 more now than ever. She enjoyed her trip to South Africa,
but she’s not too sure when she would like to go again.
It’s a very long trip.
But with Mark away most of the time she has learned to work on
toilets, change light bulbs, run the sprinkler system, etc. Mark
even talked her through the procedure for changing the battery in a
battery backup system; this he did by phone from South Africa.
She’s still works out at the local Curves
Center and volunteers at Sarah’s Middle
school. Although she still teaches
Sunday school at the Synagogue, considerable time is spent helping
Sarah to prepare for
her Bat Mitzvah in February of 2014. She’s also staying
busy with the party, dinner, and ceremony preparations. When Mark
is gone, things are definitely interesting for her. Well, at
least she still has the
three
kitties (Luke, Lucy, and Tidwell) to keep her entertained.
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| Joseph and
Jessica continue living in
Houston with their daughters Chloe
and Lilah.
The girls are thriving. Lilah is now approaching her second
birthday (this coming February) and is walking, running, jumping, and
talking. Her older sister, Chloe, has passed age four and has
started pre-school. Her progress there indicates she will be
an
early reader. Chloe
got a two-wheeler for Christmas and already
knows how to ride it! Once again, she and Lilah
both
got to spend some quality time with us this Fall when Joseph and
Jessica took a vacation to the Hawaiian Islands. Jessica
continues focusing on the family, managing to get in some time for the
arts and crafts projects she loves. Joseph’s
still going strong
at Lyondell-Basell, having been promoted to the Process Control Manager
at his facility. |
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Repeating the headline above, Anthony and Erika
brought a
new member to their family on December 10th in Houston. But
before the baby boy arrived they managed to take a glorious holiday in
Jamaica. Anthony is now settling back into his job as a
Principal process control engineer at
Lyondell-Basell where he has initiated many control improvements.
One of his improvement ideas led to him being recognized by
the CEO in one of the company’s Bravo Awards. He also wears a
second hat as interim Project Manager for the upcoming olefins
expansion project there in Laporte. Erika, meanwhile, is
looking forward to being a stay-home mom. She has put her
career as a Licensed Professional Counselor temporarily on
hold to care for the baby and on the off-chance that there is another
child in their future.
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As stated earlier Mark’s primary home is
Secunda, South
Africa, working as a Senior Process Control Engineer at Sasol Synfuels.
The work has been extremely rewarding, giving him a chance to
learn the coal-to-liquids process along with many refinery operations
as well as the pleasure of working with numerous young engineers.
The process control work there is unlimited it seems.
He
enjoys life in South Africa and has taken the opportunity to visit some
of the local scenery as well as making a quick trip to Victoria
Falls
in Zimbabwe. Mark still has work obligations to Sasol North
America from the project role he held earlier.
Sasol brought him back to Lake Charles in September for work on that
project and he likely will make more trips in 2014 to help with project
commissioning. With Sasol’s decision to build more new units
at
this site, it looks as if retirement may be farther away than
previously thought. This year, Sasol has proceeded with
the
front-end designs of some of the more-recently announced
units. So 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 carry on with the work as long
as
it’s still good.
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| Our kitties Luke,
Lucy, and Tidwell continue
to hang with us. No status change here, just that they’re
probably a little more spoiled than last year, if that is possible.
They do seem to have lost some of the speed at which they would run
into and out of the house. Mark had them trained to minimize
the time that the door remained open but now that he’s away most of the
time they just resort to ambling in and out. Meanwhile, these
cats continue to rule. |
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| 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! |
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Mark, Ellen, Joseph, Jessica,
Chloe, Lilah, Anthony, Erika, Leo, Samuel, Lisa, Sarah, and Luke, Lucy,
and
Tidwell the cats
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