Christmas Greetings

Greetings from the Seaman Family! Since you last received a Christmas card from us, there have been lots of changes for our family. First of all, we moved to Knoxville in May of 2012. Instead of living in a quiet neighborhood on Boone Lake, we live in a 1960s rancher just a block from I-40. We were all so sad to leave our home, friends, and church in Johnson City. But we can say without a doubt that God was behind this move. We have all come to love it here and enjoy being close to Terry’s family. Terry no longer works as an engineer but instead works flipping houses. He really loves this work, and the Lord is providing all the income we need. He’s got some great guys that he works with that have become like extended family to us. He’s also been able to teach our boys a lot of practical skills. Terry has recently been diagnosed with MS. He was experiencing a lot of numbness on one side and thought it was just a back injury . We appreciate your prayers as we learn to deal with this “new normal.” There was a time when a diagnosis like this would have been more upsetting, but we have both learned a lot more about trusting God in the past few years and know that adversity is the best way to stay dependent on Him. Other big changes have been in our extended family. My mother passed away in May of 2012. I still miss her very much, but I am so glad she is with the Lord. There were so many neat ways that God ministered to me during that time, and if we have a chance to visit in person, I’ll tell you all about it. My Dad is doing well and surprised us all by getting married again just a week ago. Rebecca—is a junior at ETSU. She is an English major planning to attend graduate school in physical therapy. She keeps busy with things like student government, intramural football, and producing a video series for YouTube (“The Emma Project”). Though she’ll still be a full-time student, she is moving out of the dorm this next semester to become a part-time live-in nanny for a family of six kids. Nathan—is a junior in high school. He’s still being homeschooled but is also taking dual enrollment college classes. He plays varsity soccer and is also involved with a huge Lego building project for the Tenn. Valley Fair. Caleb—is a sophomore at Bearden High School. He decided he wanted to try out public school this year, and he likes it a lot. He also started working at JC Penney and has been especially busy there during the holidays. We are blessed that our home is so conveniently located that he can ride his bike to school each day and also walk to his job at the mall. Noah—is in the 8th grade and is still homeschooled. He is on a Lego robotics team and a speech and debate team. He has made tons of new friends. We always love to hear from friends - whether at Christmas or any other time. Call if you're going to be in the area!

Summer

I was just taking a walk with Rebecca last night, and we noticed lots of leaves on the path. She said it made her sad, and I understand. Though I love autumn, I always hate to see summer go. It's harder now that Rebecca is here in the summer and gone during the school year. Summers always seem too short!

I also have an annual guilt about summer - every year I feel like I didn't get enough done - like I wish for a do-over. At least this summer we didn't move twice! And we had a vacation - even if it was a teeny-tiny four-day weekend.

In June, we took a brief vacation to one of our favorite spots on earth - a place Rebecca calls "The Wood Between the Worlds" (a Narnia reference), and a place I just call "Our Spot." This year it did not disappoint. We got a great site and had great weather. Even got to watch a full moon over the lake, which is always nice.

From Wood Between the Worlds

From Wood Between the Worlds

From Wood Between the Worlds

We spent four wonderful days water-skiing and tubing

From Wood Between the Worlds

reading, chasing coons from our campsite, feeding a duck that came by every day, playing chess

From Wood Between the Worlds

playing with fire

From Wood Between the Worlds

making fairy houses for folks to find in the woods

From Wood Between the Worlds

and playing cards (looks like Caleb is enjoying a good hand of spades)

From Wood Between the Worlds

While there, we celebrated Nathan's birthday. Here he is trying to guess his gifts:

From Wood Between the Worlds

But he never guessed that we were sending him to Denver to visit his friend, Noah Smith! We actually have a neat video of his emotional reaction to that gift, but he has forbidden me to post it on the internet. If you ask me in person, I will be happy to show it to you, though.

We had such a good time that we had hoped to do it again later in the summer, but we just couldn't find a weekend that we were all available. Noah spent two weeks at camp TaPaWinGo, Caleb spent four weeks at Doe River Gorge, Nathan spent a week in Denver, and Rebecca had two weekends taken up with wedding photography. Noah and I went to Arkansas for a week, too. Before we knew it, the opportunities for camping were gone.

Caleb started public school at Bearden High School on August 12th. He rides his bike to school every day as it's just one mile away on the Greenbelt. The rest of us gloated a bit and didn't start our homeschool until August 22nd:

From

On August 15, we got a visit from the Rideouts, who we knew back before they met and married. Now they are missionaries in Niger here on furlough. We had a great time teaching all their kids to ski and just hanging out together.

From August 2013

From August 2013

Other than that, the big news of the summer was that Terry finished his fourth flip house. I won't post all the before/after pics here (I'm thinking of creating a FB page for him to feature those), but here is one:

From Grenada

We are blessed that it sold quickly for a good price. We had a big party here last weekend to celebrate its completion. He's now started on his fifth house.

So Far This Year . . .

Our year has been pretty quiet so far. We are getting settled into the swing of life in Knoxville, enjoying visits from friends and relatives and doing a few CRAZY things.

Rebecca wasn't able to be here on her actual birthday, but we celebrated a few days late with a rather sad-looking but tasty cake. Note that it is swimming in icing:

From Catch up on blogging

Nathan had really hated to leave the guys on his soccer team in the Tri-Cities when we moved here last year. He now plays for the Ambassadors here in Knoxville. It turns out that this team is full of great guys, too. Nathan was able to switch his loyalty and play his heart out against his old team and enjoy beating them! It was also nice to be missed. His old teammates came up and asked him how much they would have to pay for him to back off on defense next time. Here is the "good game" after the game. Nathan is #17. ,/

From Catch up on blogging

We enjoyed visits from my family this Spring. My sisters came in March, and my Dad came in April. He treated us all to a few days in Gatlinburg, and we did some hiking while we were there:

From Catch up on blogging

From Catch up on blogging

From Catch up on blogging

One CRAZY thing we did this Spring was take a 24-hour trip to Washington, DC on the Megabus. We left at 10 pm on a Sunday evening, spent a Monday in Washington, and then returned at 10 pm that night. It was spring break, but it snowed heavily much of the time.

From Catch up on blogging

The other CRAZY thing we did was that Caleb and I did Color Me Rad. I've decided I don't really like those races. The color is fun, but it costs $40 each, and they don't even have a clock running. I mainly ran in it so that we could get some good photos. But Terry took video instead. And Caleb tried to run it without getting any color on him, which pretty much wasted that $40. Oh well.

From Catch up on blogging

Holidays 2012

Blogging about the holidays in July just seems wrong. But skipping it seems even wronger (don't you love inventing words?).

One of the first orders of business during the holidays was to take family photos for our Christmas card/letter. Unfortunately, this letter was never mailed, or even written, for that matter. However, in case you need a recent photo of the Seaman family (ours or extended) for your fridge, you can print out one of these below:

From Seaman Disc

From Seaman Disc

We started two new traditions this year. One was to build a Lego Christmas village. We got the first collectible set this year, and the kids had lots of fun putting it together. We hope to get a new set every year and build them from scratch (well directions are included). The kids had lots of fun with this. I have no pictures of the completed Lego set, but lots of photos of the goofing off:

From Thanksgiving 2012

From Thanksgiving 2012

From Thanksgiving 2012

The other new tradition was to have a family game night with "Minute-to-Win-It" games. Got the idea on Pinterest. And it was a blast! We were glad that our house renovations were progressing to the point that we could host the entire extended family.

From For Facebook (Christmas 2012)

From For Facebook (Christmas 2012)

From For Facebook (Christmas 2012)

From For Facebook (Christmas 2012)

From For Facebook (Christmas 2012)

An older tradition is to make sugar cookies with all the cousins, and we did that, too: Another fun thing was that Rebecca got her Poppa to help her make a photo booth, and she made some props to go with it. We look forward to even more fun with it next year, as with all the excitement of the games we forgot to use it much. Here are a few of the funny photos she made with it:

From For Facebook (Christmas 2012)

From For Facebook (Christmas 2012)

From For Facebook (Christmas 2012)

From For Facebook (Christmas 2012)

From For Facebook (Christmas 2012)

From For Facebook (Christmas 2012)

Fall 2012

One of our coolest memories from last fall was the Lego Competition at the Tennessee Valley Fair. Noah won "Best in Show" for his Hollywood film studio:

From Catch up on blogging

and Nathan inspired the judges to create a whole new category - "Master Builder" - when they saw this spaceship:

From Catch up on blogging

Then when Rebecca went with Noah and me to see the displays, the three of ended up entering (and winning) a Lego building contest.

From Lego Competition - 9/15/12

The boys have been asked to help promote this year's contest at several library events this summer. Noah is busy working on this year's entry.

Besides Lego, our boys were involved in the Venture Scouts. They learned to shoot at a local shooting range (I did, too) and also learned to blacksmith. We went to a scout Rendezvous where the boys spent a very long day teaching dozens of cub scouts how to blacksmith. Here are some photos from that day:

From Catch up on blogging

From Catch up on blogging

From Catch up on blogging

Caleb also ran cross-country in the fall. I enjoyed watching him in the Marine Corp Mud Run:

From Catch up on blogging

We also took some cool hikes in the Great Smoky Mountains. Here we are at The Chimneys:

From Catch up on blogging

From Catch up on blogging

And here we are at the fire tower on Mt. Sterling:

From Catch up on blogging

From Catch up on blogging

The weather was mild, so we kept our pool open for a long time - long enough for Noah to carve pumpkins poolside:

From Catch up on blogging

From Catch up on blogging

and for Terry to hurt his back on the diving board and require an ambulance ride to the ER:

From Catch up on blogging

We are so glad that his back wasn't broken. He was back to "normal" in a week or so.

Rebecca got to come home for fall break, and her arrival coincided with the Fall Festival at our church. My favorite photos from the fall were the ones taken there:

From Fall Break 2012

From Fall Break 2012

From Fall Break 2012

From Fall Break 2012

From Fall Break 2012