Feld Family 2013 Season’s Greetings
Happy Holidays from the
Feld family! It has been a few extremely
eventful years since we shared holiday news with our close-held friends. We hope this greeting finds you all enjoying life!
2013 has been a year of
new beginnings for Karl. In the fall he
began to pursue a life-long dream of completing his PhD, pursuing the doctorate
at North Carolina State University in Communications, Rhetoric and Digital
Media http://crdm.chass.ncsu.edu. In the
first semester he has engaged satellites, musical notation, GPS, Sumerian clay
tokens, big data, optical fiber and birdsong, in addition to Greek and
German. It promises to be a fascinating
adventure. At the same time, he began a
new job working with internet- and mobile-based research methodologies with a
German-based company called GfK (www.GfK.com). He has aggressively taken up swimming as a
way to keep exercising while recovering from decades-delayed shoulder and knee
surgeries he underwent this year, a love he shares with Amelia and Bridget. He optimistically plans to return to fencing
and running, while starting Thai boxing in the coming year.
Julieann (Juju) has had
a year of reflection. The broken leg of October 2012 was the catalyst to new
thought. There was lots of downtime, good for reflection, which allowed her to
see that it was time to end her Pampered Chef career and follow some other path.
That path is still not entirely clear, but we are getting closer every day! She has signed up for business classes in
January and may just open her own café in 2014!
Stephenie is becoming a
young woman as she finishes up her junior year at Corinth-Holders High School. She is a Future Farmers of American
competitor and has won state-level awards in equine confirmation judging. This year she joined the schools' forensics
and speech team and has enjoyed that experience. She continues her work volunteer work as a
supervisor and farmhand at Bank's Miniature Horse Farm (www.banksminiaturehorsefarm.com)
and still plays with the county Youth Orchestra. She is also working to improve her driving
skills with her learner's permit, which you might imagine has been a mixed experience
for Mom and Dad. We are still alive
though....
Amelia (Mia)'s love of
sea life, dragons, birds and reptiles has developed over the last few
years. She is doing well in school as a
fourth grader and science is her favorite subject. She has a wide array of bird-feeders
installed in our back yard so we can all watch North Carolina's wide variety of
bird life. She current wants to be an
exotic animal veterinarian and researcher when she "grows up" and
visited a veterinarian clinic open house this year to explore the career. She is hoping to complete job-shadow visit
soon. Mia discovered a real thrill with karate
this summer and has achieved her yellow belt.
She continues to pursue her love of swimming and the water with summer
swim team activities as well as her growing talent at the piano keyboard. She is currently preparing for a piano
competition in February.
Bridget is still smart,
feisty and hyper-competitive bundle of non-stop energy that keeps all of us
laughing and groaning. She dances,
sings, makes funny faces, is full of wisecracks and generally gets into
everyone’s business. She has also
developed a love for leopard print. Bridget
and Amelia are still BFF (Best Friends Forever) and do almost everything together. Bridget too loves karate and has a natural
talent for it, achieving yellow belt this year.
Her coach regularly matches her above her belt level for sparring. She is also actively involved in tumbling and
has an interest in gymnastics. Bridget
has started her piano studies with Dad.
She loves to sing and play at the same time and is currently belting out
Christmas carols. We are actively
shaping her innate Broadway talent!
Karl, Bridget and Mia
are in their second year as Y-Guide Princesses, a youth program of the YMCA
popular in North Carolina. This year has
been marked by overnight and weekend camps, parks and environmental activities,
outdoors outings, and many, many campfires, hot dogs and marshmallows. Karl took over as tribe Chief this year. Both
Amelia and Bridget will also start Girl Scouts this year. It has taken a while
to find appropriate troops. Bring on the Thin Mints!
The whole family has
taken up Olympic archery this year as a group activity. Inspired by the sequence of movies with women
toting bows, we attended a series of professional lessons and now let fly in
our back yard with recurve bows at 20 or 30 yards. Bridget and Mia especially enjoy showing off
for their friends. Stephenie intends to
use her new skill and equipment competitively for the high school next year.
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