December 31, 2005
2005 Year-in-Review
We sent this text* in our Christmas cards. It sums up the year pretty well…
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Welcome to the first annual Buchwald Family newsletter. Last year, our only news was that we were finally married. This year is a completely different story. 2005 brought a lot of wonderful news to share with everyone. The BEST news first:
MATT HAS A JOB
In July, Brian helped Matt get in contact with a company called Integrated Industrial Technologies. In September, after two interviews, Matt was offered a job! He began on October 3rd. At his job, he attempts to conquer the world while building an army of gnome-soldiers. More seriously, he finally gets to use his engineering knowledge while working on projects involving motion control.
AMY STILL HAS A JOB
This isn’t really news, and it’s definitely not as exciting as Matt finally having a job. Amy just completed her second year at her job. She’s now been in her department for over half of its existence. There was some talk about moving everybody underground, but the Powers That Be have changed their minds. While we still live here, Amy loves the location of her job. Onward to more exciting things…
MATT JOINED THE CLUB
Matt finally became Catholic at Easter Vigil. His journey started in September 2004 when he joined the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults class at Beloved Disciple. He received the sacraments of initiation at St. Matthias with Father Ritzert. Matt chose Ferdinand as his Confirmation name. St. Ferdinand III of Castile is the patron saint of engineers.
WE MET MICKEY
In April, we spent a week at Disney World. The highlights of our trip included meeting Mickey Mouse and having breakfast with Cinderella and her friends. Matt tried to pull the sword out of the stone, spent some time on a Viking ship in Norway and drank a liter of beer in Germany. Amy spent the whole week trying to convince Matt that he really could ride the Teacups, but she never succeeded. Amy hopes that none of her children get motion sickness because she REALLY wants to ride the Teacups the next time we go to Disney World. The real reason we went, of course, had nothing to do with Disney. We were there to see Amy’s cousins, Beth and Samantha, and the rest of their marching band. They were the pre-parade entertainment on Friday afternoon.
OUR FUR-ST BABY
In June, we went to a picnic-reunion for Matt’s RCIA class at a farm belonging to one of the other families. While Amy was busy talking about babies, Matt snuck off to the barn with the kids and fell in love. We brought our little bundle of fluff home about two weeks later. He was born in early April, right around the time that Pope John Paul II passed away, so we tried to call him JP, but it just didn’t fit. Instead, we named him Ratzi after Pope Benedict XVI. Coincidentally, the Pope loves cats. Having a cat has been a learning experience. Ratzi has taught us all sorts of “child-proofing†techniques, especially regarding the toilet seat!
WEDDING MANIA
We spent a lot of time at weddings in 2005. At the beginning of April, Amy’s co-workers, Dawn and Cory, were married. In September, Amy’s sister, Lisa, got married. Then the real fun began. We attended three weddings in three weeks in October. First, Steve, a friend from high school, married Courtney. We both enjoyed getting to see people we went to school with, some of whom we hadn’t seen in about six years. Next, another of Amy’s co-workers, Ambuer, married Josh. Josh’s uncle, Tim, was in Amy’s parents’ wedding WAY back in 1979. It really is a small, small world. Finally, we traveled to Rhode Island where Matt’s college friend, Matt, married Diana. In our brief stay in Rhode Island, we’re pretty sure we saw the whole state.
WHERE WOULD JOHNNY DAMON GO?**
While we were in New England for Matt & Diana’s wedding, we took a day trip up to Boston to visit Bill. We followed the red brick line along the Freedom Trail tour and saw Paul Revere’s grave and a lot of other really old stuff. We also took a tour of Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. It was cold and rainy, but we went to the top of the Green Monster anyway.
A LOOK AHEAD
We’re headed back “home†to the Evans City area in order to split the difference between our jobs. As of this writing, we’re hoping to move before Easter. We’re glad to be moving closer to our families, but we’re definitely going to miss Grove City. We’re going to miss a lot of things about living up here: Amy’s going to miss her four-mile commute, we’re both going to miss the YMCA and of course the people we’ve met here.
UNTIL NEXT YEAR…
We hope that 2006 brings everyone happiness and many blessings. Please stay in touch & let us know how life is in your neck of the woods – especially if we haven’t had a chance to see each other recently. We’ll be sure to send out an update when we know where we’re headed next. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!
Love,
Matt, Amy and Ratzi Buchwald
*this version is edited because, well, this is the Internet.
**apparently, Johnny Damon would ditch Boston & sign with the Yankees. Boo to him. :-p
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