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Wednesday, February 4, 2015

New Years Update from the Schumachers

Greetings from the Schumachers.  It has been awhile since we have shared news about our family.   We had some recent photos taken of our family which are shown below, so we thought this would be a good time.  Thanks so much to our friends Kaylane and David Crandall at Crandallography for capturing our family so well - you find out more about their business at http://www.crandallography.com/

Annie is now 7, Johnny is 9 and Jack is 12.  All are in the same school at Spring Creek Elementary in the Richardson School District.

Annie is creative, easy-going, and has a nurturing spirit.  Annie’s current interests revolve around dance, soccer and making many pieces of memorable art to adorn both our house and Jason’s office.  She also likes writing stories, which coincides with current process of mastering the English language, and we are pleased with her efforts and entertained by these intersecting paths.  For example, we were rewarded with the following from a recent essay about a lonely princess on her birthday: “So her fiary godmother gave her a birthday bomb and fill ug a tub of water and brop’d the birthday bomb in the tub and it fisleg in the water and cnfete and ever time she tuch one she felt a hug.  and that is the story.”  The moral of the story: do not be overly concerned about getting a birthday bomb that fizzles in water from your fairy godmother  – they are loaded with hug-giving confetti, which can never be a bad thing.
Johnny is quick to laugh, hug, and knows no one as a stranger.  His ability to make people feel special is one of his strongest characteristics.  As many of you know, Johnny is autistic and has been in special schools most of his life.  However, we are quite glad to report that Johnny is doing great in his second year of mainstream school in a general education classroom.  We are so thankful to all the current and past members of Johnny’s team of physicians, therapists and teachers, who have helped Johnny shine in this new and challenging academic setting for him.  Thanks also to so many of you who have prayed for and taken care of our family during Johnny’s now 7-year journey of autism – please keep it up!  The process is one of two steps forward and one step back, so we still have many steps to take and retake, but we have so much hope.

Jack brings passion to any situation, a competitive spirit and encourages others along the way.  Jack is a sixth-grader at Spring Creek Elementary – his last go around before he hits junior high at Westwood down the street.  Jack’s love of sports remains year-to-year, as he plays football, basketball, soccer and baseball.  He has also joined the school band and is playing the bassoon.  One of his big highlights was baptizing his little brother Johnny this past year at Johnny’s request.  Jack also quickly stopped the short return of his father to Madden football on the Xbox this past year, leaving his vanquished foe muttering something about “too many buttons.”
Kimberly continues her role as a full-time stay at home wife and mom.  The term stay-at-home seems a bit misguided however, as we are contemplating buying Uber to save money on gas and mileage on Kimberly’s taxi service she provides for our family.  She continued her work this past year as both a small group leader with Jason and a leader in the women’s Bible study at The Branch in Farmers Branch, Texas, our family’s church congregation for the past 10 years.

Jason has a new job.  He is still an transactional attorney, dealing primarily with oil, gas and energy companies and enterprises and individuals who invest into such companies.  He changed firms this past summer from Dentons to Locke Lord.  Locke Lord has a great Texas presence, with about 400 attorneys in State, but still is an international law firm of 1200 attorneys across the US and the world.  For those that know our family well, you know this is the same firm where Jason’s brother Clint is a litigation partner.  This is the second venture where the brothers Schumacher have partnered up.  The first one stems back to the 1980’s when the brothers founded Schumacher Lawncare, a regionally-focused landscaping company that initially featured the two brothers walking to their customer’s yards since they were not old enough to drive.  This new venture features significantly more air-conditioning than the first, so both are pleased with the results this far.  Jason wrapped up a final year coaching Jack’s football team and has been practicing his dance move with Annie prior to this year’s Daddy-Daughter dance at our church – just when you all thought the electric slide was dead.
We have two Shih Tzu dogs, Angel and Pepper.  They make our home happy and save us from paper cuts, as they pulverize any paper that is left on the ground and rip it to shreds.  We did not even have to send them to a special school for this level of protection – they are that smart.

We hope that our paths cross with yours soon – all the best to you and your families in 2015.
Jason & Kimberly Schumacher