Stevie added another sport to the busy family sports' schedule. We now have volleyball to go along with soccer in the fall. With baseball and soccer in the spring and basketball in the winter, there probably isn't time for another sport but you never can tell. This was Stevie's second year in choir at Good Shepherd Catholic School. The young performers had events at several locations, all of them seemed to go rather well. In the spring, Stevie participated in the St. Patrick's Academic Fair in the Math competition. The fair has contests in several academic areas with as many as five competitors from seven of the local Catholic schools. Stevie brought home the sixth place ribbon. We are all very proud of this accomplishment. This fall, he started the fifth grade and appears to be doing very well again this year.

Anne Marie made her first Holy Communion and first reconciliation in the spring. Anne Marie also participated in the St. Patrick's Academic Fair in spelling. Nobody was more excited than her brother Stevie when it was announced that our little girl had taken the first place ribbon. That's one accomplishment we'll work hard to help her attain next year. Anne Marie is signed up for basketball this year for the first time. We are hoping that practices don't conflict with her gymnastics twice a week. She is still the best goalie on the soccer team (so says coach dad) and she did well with her spring softball team. Add Brownies to her activity list and you can see that Anne Marie is as busy as her older brother. Anne Marie wants this year to go by as fast as possible. When she gets into fourth grade next year, she can join the choir. At the same time, the music teacher will have time in her busy schedule to give Anne Marie piano lessons.

Elizabeth is in the second grade at Good Shepherd Catholic School, her first Holy Communion and first reconciliation year. Like the other kids, she is doing great in school and she also participated in the academic fair. Her subject was Art and although she did not bring home a ribbon, just being chosen is quite an honor. Elizabeth has been in gymnastics for the past few years. She has always looked forward to her Monday and Wednesday sessions. This year, Elizabeth also started in Brownies, enjoying the arts and crafts as well as the occasional field trips. Beth also began writing to two of her cousins in Iowa. We discovered that a set of twins in our family tree shared the same birthday as Beth, July 30, 1991. When we showed her this in the family tree she was very excited and wanted to include them in our nightly prayers. At the beginning of the school year, she wrote them a letter on her new stationery. We all hope that this will be an interesting undertaking for her.

Rachel became a full-time, uniformed student at Good Shepherd Catholic School as a kindergartner this fall. She would probably go to school every single day if it were up to her and those inevitable sick days are doubly hard for her to take. She looks incredibly cute in her uniform, perhaps because she is so tiny and almost looks like a little doll. Rachel has informed us that she is going to play soccer this spring, not that we would have said no if she had asked. That will be just one more of the activities the family has to squeeze into our busy schedule. Hopefully, it will be like her gymnastics, she has her class right around the same time as Anne Marie on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Now we just have to teach her that cartwheels and handstands are not exactly soccer skills.

Christopher, having just turned 3 in September, is the only child not going to school, although he did grab his backpack and was ready to leave in his pajamas the first few days of school this past August. We don't need an alarm clock to get us started in the morning, Christopher is always up before 6:00 a.m., unfortunately even on Saturdays. He always starts his day with a good breakfast and is quick to greet his siblings when they finally roll out of bed. Christopher has just started participating in our nightly prayers. We were all amazed the first time he recited the 'Angel of God' almost flawlessly the first time he went solo. Just before we say the rosary, each of the kids says a prayer of their choice and Christopher will whisper "My turn" just before each one starts their prayer, but patiently waits until his turn at the end. He gets a big grin on his face when it is his turn, he enunciates every word perfectly and will usually start over from the beginning if he is interrupted or if somebody tries to help him with the words. All of the kids at school know Christopher and he loves to play with any and all of the older kids. He is quick to giggle and his laugh is very distinctive and all too frequent. His favorite playmate is probably Joann Salzman, one of the school moms, but he does like to play with his fifth cousin, Jake Brockman, too. Jake is two weeks younger than Chris.

Moving on to the big kids in the family, Nancy has had a very busy year. We all know how leisurely being a stay at home mom is but she became a full-time substitute teacher in the Kindergarten class at Good Shepherd Catholic School the last three months of the 1997-1998 school year. Nancy was ready to work with the teacher, Staci Oge, before her maternity leave was scheduled to begin to try and become familiar with the class and learn a little about the students and their individual needs. Kyle Oge was not consulted about these plans and he made his appearance a few weeks early so Nancy became the new teacher somewhat earlier than expected. She has answered that call again this school year, but only a day at a time and usually on a moments notice.

Every other Friday you will find Nancy staying after school, not that she has detention or needs to see the principal but she is one of the Brownie troop leaders. The Friday commitment is only the fun part, there are meeting and preparation and planning times but two of those Brownies live in the same house with her so that time is well spent. Of course her name is also among the list of room parents for all of our kids in school so she is a very familiar face at school.

Weekends aren't always time off, Nancy teaches a baptism preparation class on the first Sunday of the month. Part of her inolvement in the church altar society has her, and two little helpers, changing out the candles in the church between Masses on Sunday. This is something the kids enjoy so a pair of the older kids help her, alternating with the other pair every week. Don't know what we're going to do when Christopher is old enough to help out. Now throw in a lot of pro-life activities and you can see that the family is on the go from the time we hit the floor in the morning until we all go to bed at night.

Steve is no less busy than the other members of the family. He started on his eighth year with Blue Cross of Texas as a contract computer programmer. The Millennium frenzy will keep him busy through this year and probably well into the next few years. This has been a great job with no demanding hours, a flexible work schedule and being close enough to school for Steve to get away for various scvhool activities.

Family history research has kept Steve's leisure hours filled. Along with his own family history work, Steve is a county coordinator for Lyon and Sioux counties in Iowa as part of the Iowa GenWeb project. This has been fun and interesting work. Letters, phone calls and E-mail keep Steve in touch with a good number of relatives and fellow genealogists, some of whom Steve has never met personally.

The kids shouldn't get to have all of the fun in sports, so Nancy and Steve also play in the church volleyball league. If that isn't enough, Steve coaches Anne Marie's soccer team (or does Anne Marie play for her dad's soccer team?). Also, Steve coaches boys' volleyball at school, assisted with Stevie's baseball and basketball teams and coaches the 5th and 6th grade girls' basketball team at Good Shepherd Catholic School. And somewhere in an extra few moments, Steve has occasionally refereed soccer and volleyball. If it wasn't for sports, this family just wouldn't have anything to do.

The family Christmas preparations were a little bit different this year. This is our stay-at-home Christmas. We will certainly miss the family and friends at our usual holiday destinations but there are a lot of 'orphaned' families among our acquaintances here that are doing the same thing so we certainly won't be alone. The kids have been busy with personalized Christmas cards and holiday related activities at school. Stevie is involved in the school Christmas play, one performance taking place at the Garland Performing Arts Center. Our usual Advent rituals started at the end of November and the kids have been eager participants. Christopher even helps by blowing out the advent wreath candles, usually at the time when he is supposed to blow them out.

Our Christmas letter this year will be our forum for passing out family history information. This has been a banner year for Boeding genealogy. Our little database that had 500 names last year is approaching 7700 names this December. We have some information on all of Franz Xavier Boedings' (1796-1878) children and their descendants where before we only had partial information on a few of his son Conrads' (1824-1893) descendants. We have one or more contacts for each of Conrad's children that had families. We have discovered and pursued family relationships beyond the Boeding surname with some interesting results.

One discovery was our Brockman kinship. In Father Arnold's publications, the Brockman and Holtfoerster names appeared in several places. The exact connection was not known early this year but after a little digging the connection was discovered and we found that in our little school of 330 students, Good Shepherd, the Boeding kids have 3 fifth cousin Brockmans'. We were already good friends with Pierce and Pat Brockmans' family but this really made our relationship special.

Our genealogical home page on the Internet has brought us E-mail from around the world. A man in Turkey inquired about some Boedings in the St. Louis area and a Boeding in Belgium was also looking for some relatives in the states. If you would like to know more about the Boedings or have some update information for us, please feel free to visit our homepage at "http://web2.airmail.net/boeding7", write, call or E-mail us at any of the following: