Texas Boeding 2011 Christmas letter

The Kids

Stephen, now 24, is now in grad school at the University of Texas-Dallas. He has finished his first year of grad school studying literature. Stephen currently has a 3.67 GPA, and has finished 15 of his 33 required hours for his degree. He has found a new sport to follow and play; rugby and he’s learned the game quickly. UTD has a club team that is participating in the Texas collegiate league. UTD is now 3-0 in league play and is hoping to win the rest of their games, win state, and travel to Wayne, Nebraska for regionals. Stephen plays fly-half, and kicks for the team, and has a total of 18 points so far. Stephen still coaches fencing at UTD, and enjoys seeing many of the students he’s taught develop into such great fencers. Stephen has also been keeping active in campus ministry at UTD. He is a small group leader in FOCUS (Fellowship of Christian University Students). He leads the small group with another grad student, and the group has about 4-5 attendees every week. In November, Stephen also participated in the baptism of a fellow student he had studied the Bible with. He also asks for your prayers and support as the young men in his small group develop in their faith and learn how to lead a fuller, Christian life.

Anne Marie is in her fourth year at the University of Texas-Arlington, majoring in Music Education. Those of us still in the local area have had occasion to see her perform with the choir in several local venues and even caught a performance on a Dallas classical music radio station.

Elizabeth will be in her third semester at the University of North Texas in Denton after spending three semesters at University of Texas-Dallas. She is working on a major in music and has discovered the art of crochet.. Many of us will be the beneficiaries of her talents when we receive our various scarves, hats and gloves during Christmas.. She may turn out to be as talented as her late grandmother, Rosella, was with a crochet hook.

Rachel graduated from Bishop Lynch High School this past spring and is off to Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. We packed her up and drove her there in August and haven’t heard from her since. Well, not really; she calls or we call her quite often and our Thanksgiving trip to Kentucky became mandatory since she did not come back to Texas for that holiday. She sings with two choirs at school and seems to never run out of things to do. We assume that all of her close relatives in Lexington are glad to have her there and they are keeping an eye on her for us. Those of us still at home really miss her.

Her final year at Bishop Lynch was eventful. She made all-region and all-state choir. The choir traveled to Montreal in March and there were performances at different venues during the year. Rachel finished in the top ten percent of her class and was a member of the National Honor Society.

Christopher is a sophomore at Bishop Lynch High School this year. He made the junior varsity soccer team and has already demanded mom or dad’s presence at his games on some of the coldest and most miserable nights we have had this fall. It seems like every other waking hour he spends in front of one of the computers upstairs playing on-line soccer, and perhaps occasionally doing some homework. As a freshman last spring, he earned a school letter jacket for placing third in the state parochial school academic competition.

The Rest of the Family

Nancy is in her 8th year teaching 4th grade at St. Monica's Catholic School in Dallas. She and Chris still get lots of quality time in the car together as Chris catches the Bishop Lynch bus at St. Monica for his ride to school in the morning.. She continues with her extra teaching job on Monday nights for the Faith Formation department at Good Shepherd and has finally added after-school tutoring to her resume (and income) since Steve is so willing to cook dinner most nights.

Steve is doing volleyball pretty much year round, as usual. This past fall, he refereed three nights a week, drawing some top big schools and officiated for several of the schools that made it to the state championships. He coached a sixth grade team at St. Monica and has been doing a lot of clinics for his club. Still at Blue Cross Blue Shield, his full time job has him doing some Java projects along with the old mainframe computer programming that has kept the family in groceries over the last few decades.

Other Happenings

The family still calls Garland, Texas home; that won’t be changing any time soon although it is only an occasional home for all of the girls. We will soon have seven drivers in the family; we pay more for auto insurance than we do for health insurance. It could be worse since collectively we don’t get tickets and don’t have wrecks (knock on wood). We still call Good Shepherd Catholic Church our parish but with activities all around the Dallas area, individual family members have gone to Mass all over the Metroplex. If our Christmas letter seems to change tone and tense randomly, everyone got to contribute their own paragraph this year because the usual author is such a procrastinator.

Our Travels

There haven’t been any family trips for quite a few years; we end up travelling in smaller groups now. Mom and Dad actually travelled by themselves to Nebraska in June for a Boeding get-together and send off for cousin Matt the Marine. Nancy flew to Kentucky by herself this summer rather than driving. Mom, dad and Rachel shared the driving when we carted Rachel off to school in Kentucky and enjoyed a cool week there while everyone in Texas was still sweltering. With the four oldest children working summer jobs, it became impossible to run off anywhere together but maybe we’ll make an effort to do that this coming summer.

Christmas

Our Christmas letter barely gets postmarked before Christmas anymore, this year being no exception. Christmas decorations started going up a little earlier than usual but the week before Christmas we are still not done. The few of us that are left at home probably couldn’t get used to less than a frenzied pace. The whole family will not be spending Christmas together. As most of us head to Kentucky to be with Nancy’s side of the family, Anne Marie will be staying behind and working as the assistant choir director at St. Maria Goretti parish for their Christmas programs. We will miss that extra driver on the long journey East, but even more so on the days we spend together around Christmas Day. We won’t be able to visit all of our friends and relatives but we will always want to share our lives with them, even if it's just a letter at Christmas or a casual greeting as we scurry past each other on our always busy days. As we looked through our Christmas mailing list, we are saddened for the names that won't be receiving mail anymore but are in greater need of our prayers now. So, as you remember this Christmas, we are thinking of you in our wish that you will have a wonderful and blessed Christmas.

Return to top of page