Family Update

(Photo from Bar A Ranch which has been in Kimberly's family for 120 years - from Jack's High School Senior Pictures)

Greetings from the Schumachers!  We have been remiss in providing much of an update here for quite awhile, so we wanted to share a bit of news of what is going with all of us:

--Jack is 19 and a freshman at Abilene Christian University, he is majoring in Finance and his roommate is his first cousin Lukas.  He has a new job on campus this semester.  We do not have pie chart on the amount of time studying versus playing intramurals and hitting the golf course, but it looks like he is keeping those things in the right proportion most of the time (except for the intramural playoffs of course).  He is participating in one of the freshman acts for Sing Song (only ACU folks will really understand this reference).  He also has a girlfriend who is beautiful on the inside and out who we have really enjoyed getting to know.  Suffice it to say, he has continued the Schumacher men's unbroken streak of outkicking our coverage on that front.

--Johnny is 16 and a sophomore at the St. Anthony's School in Carrolton.  As many of you know, Johnny is on the autism spectrum and completely awesome. The St. Anthony's School specializes in helping kids with various learning or social challenges, so we are so glad to have found this school and this community for Johnny.  Johnny completed a title run on his school's kickball team in the Fall and has started his basketball season.  Johnny loves sports generally and especially college football.  He became a Georgia Bulldog fan many years ago, so this recent national title run has been something special for him this year.  He also may have mentioned the victory a few times to certain a member of our family who is a University of Alabama fan.  We are not sure the parenting protocols of preventing your son from talking smack to his grandfather about the outcome of a college football game.  If anyone knows a parenting book that has a chapter that addresses this situation, please send us the link.  

--Annie is 14 and a freshman at Richardson High School.   She has noticed the big jump between junior high and high school in the amount of homework that you have, but she has been up to the task and is doing well.  Annie is also in the choir and a member of the freshman cheerleading team.    Annie has been in cheerleading for a couple of years now, so as a cheerleading parent, you want to be supportive and help the cheerleaders out.  That means actually doing the cheers along with the cheerleading squad.  We parents have down most of the cheers and follow along pretty good - for example, the ones where the crowd spells R-H-S for Richardson High School, we got that one down.  However, this football season, the Richardson Eagle Freshman Team was on defense.  And the cheerleaders led us in a cheer where we - the crowed - needed to spell D-E-F-E-N-S-E and the cadence of the cheer had us doing it pretty fast. We are not sure how often you have ever tried to verbalize the spelling of  D-E-F-E-N-S-E at a quick pace, but we found a little prep and practice on that one would have been helpful.  Alas, us parents may not helped our defenders' spirit much on that cheer, but we know what to work on in the offseason.

Since the last we posted, we have three updates to share:

(1) We made a massive 0.3 of a mile move in 2018 within our Spring Creek neighborhood in North Dallas.  If you need our new address, let us know!

(2) Jason has become a partner at O'Melveny & Myers at the start of this year.  He is helping start the Dallas office of this law firm along with four of his partners from his prior law firm Locke Lord.  The departure is bittersweet as he has good friends at Locke Lord, and it was a great part of his career, but he is looking forward to this new opportunity and working alongside four of his really good friends and partners.  For those at all interested, he would be happy to tell you all about it.  Including our mothers, tens of tens of people have viewed the press release regarding the move which you can read here and you find out more about Jason's experience here.

(3) The dog count is up to three.  Pepper, our Shih Tzu is the senior member of the dog committee.  She is pretty much all business and believes in tight perimeter barking enforcement.  Clifford (photo credit above) is a full bred poodle and was purchased and trained to be Johnny's service animal.  As it turns out, Clifford is basically not trained much at all at this point (something about lesson reinforcements or something may have gotten overlooked), but he has definitely become everyone's emotional support animal.  Sadie is the new dog in the family, as she was our replacement for our sweet Shih Tzu Angel who died last year.  Sadie is a poodle-mini poodle mix.  She takes her French heritage seriously as she attempts to kiss us right on the lips from time to time.  Meals times are pretty well full guilt sessions with three dogs, as our dogs look longingly at us and seem to ponder their existence and will to live if they do not get to share in the bounty.  Perhaps you know the feeling.

Our family still attend The Branch Church in Farmers Branch, so any of those looking for a church home in Dallas, we would love to have you join us!

For Both of Us, 

--Jason

Summertime Update from the Schumachers

Friends and Family,

We wanted to take an opportunity to update you about the happenings at the Schumacher house.

Jack is 15.  He and some of his buddies started a business which takes care of homes and pets for people who are out of town  The proceeds of this enterprise has resulted in each of them assembling an arsenal of firearms for airsoft wars.  There is nothing more comforting than pulling up to your child’s friend house to see an army of teenagers in full camo with real looking guns dodging between the bushes and trees with rounds of plastic bullets filling the air – we have hit the deck more than once and try to maintain a state of deniability for when the authorities arrive sometime in the future.  Jack is playing baseball and football and keeps threatening to start playing golf.  He is hoping hooks (and hairstyles) are not hereditary on his father’s side.

Johnny is 12.  Johnny played football and baseball this past season.  On the football team, he plays a ferocious nose tackle.  Johnny loves being on the team, but he admittedly does not enjoy some of the contact that comes with being a defensive lineman.  As such, he has been prone to move right before the ball moves.  He does not jump offside, but he has three go-to techniques – either moving sideways, backwards or gets into his “speed bump” position (i.e., the fetal position) to clog up the running lanes.  It has been interesting to see the reactions of a 5th grade offensive lineman to Johnny’s pre-snap shifts.  Suffice it to say, we think he has screwed up a blocking scheme or two, and we plan to send Jason Garrett some tape to get ready for the 2017 campaign.  Johnny’s journey with autism continues with great progress.  He continues to be in a mainstream school with appropriate modifications.  We have been incredibly blessed to have wonderful teachers and administrators at Spring Creek Elementary in the Richardson Independent School District who have poured into Johnny.  We thank all of you who honor our family with your prayers for Johnny and ask that you to keep them up.

Annie is 10.  Annie has continued doing ballet and jazz, but she has tried volleyball, basketball and softball this year for the first time.  We have enjoyed watching 4th grade girls sports.  The games have not often been “smooth” – but watching her rejoice with her friends with a sports feat like a serve going over the net has been heartwarming.  What they may lack in skill at this point they more than make-up for in team hugs.  We hate to be biased, but we would say our team led the league in team hugs, which has to be step in the right direction.  She keeps our walls adorned with art – some might call her works “abstract” but luckily having the artist in house we can quickly get her interpretation (and identification) on her creations.

Kimberly continues her role as a mom who “stays-at-home” but the mileage on our car would seem to indicate that staying at home is a bit of a misnomer.  She has been leading a woman’s group through Bible Study Fellowship that meets in Richardson for the past two years.  She also has a great group of first graders she has been teaching at Sunday school at our church congregation – The Branch in Farmers Branch, Texas.  The coloring opportunities are often better in one classroom than the other, but she does not play favorites.

Jason is still a partner at the law firm Locke Lord, where he is in the corporate and oil, gas and energy groups.  He coached Johnny’s team in football this past season – the team had a massive amount of speed, strength, and size and a losing record.  So, his dreams of becoming the next Nick Saban will need to be postponed for the time being and probably needs to stick with his day job.   He also coached 4th grade girls' softball.  There was an early exit from the playoffs this season but the team suffered no broken bones - considering the flight paths of some of the "throws", we counted that a victory.

We still have two Shih Tzu’s – Angel and Pepper.  Pepper has maintained a consistent verbal campaign against the Chihuahuas next door over the years that involves her barking, jumping and taking small bites out of our fence with each jump.  We just could not be more proud.  We look forward to asking our neighbors to pitch in to replace our fence in order to maintain the fragile peace sometime soon.

We have included some photos from a somewhat recent photo shoot - Jack is about four inches taller already but otherwise the rest of us look the same.

Wishing you and your families a blessed and prosperous rest of 2017!  We hope our paths cross soon to see you in person.  

--Jason & Kimberly Schumacher

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

Update from the Schumachers

Christmas Greetings from the Schumachers!

It has been awhile since we have updated the world about the happenings of the Schumachers - we thought we would invade the blogosphere to share some news about our family - from youngest to oldest.

Annie is 5, and she has started kindergarten this year.  Pink is her favorite color, with purple running a strong second.  She wrapped up her second season of soccer with the Little Eagles.  What the Little Eagles lack in skill and speed is made for with an unbridled enthusiasm for the after-game snack.  She also has continued her gymnastic career at the Richardson Rec. Center.  So, it looks like we are raising a Mia Hamm/Gabby Douglass mix.   Annie shows a natural maternal instinct with her brothers and her army of dolls, but she has enough moxie to make sure her two brothers do not run her over. 

Johnny is 7, and he has entered his third year at the Discovery School.   The term "school" is a bit of a misnomer, as the Discovery School is only comprised of Johnny's five classmates and their teacher, the magical Ms. Barbie.  In the past year, Johnny has learned to read and do basic math.  As many of you know, Johnny has been diagnosed with autism, so this is big progress for Johnny.  We love to see this development, and we pray that it continues.  Johnny played baseball in the Spring in the fantastic Buddy League (http://www.buddyleague.org/)  where kids with special needs of all kinds can experience playing a sport with their brothers and sisters and their friends - Jack and Annie were on Johnny's team and that experience was rich for our family.  Now, Johnny is tackling basketball with some of his friends from Discovery School.  While we are not slamming the ball quite yet, you can only imagine the joy we feel getting to see him to play and learn a sport.  It is a special thing.  Johnny is doing great, and he is certainly progressing.  No one outdoes Johnny for his enthusiasm for other people - whether it be his family members or a complete stranger that he may be hugging (we are in the process of trying to teach that high fives, fist pumps and handshakes work, too).  We love that he loves people.  We thank you all for praying alongside us and encouraging and supporting us all these years that we have been battling Johnny's effects of autism.  Through this process, we have learned about the outbreak of autism, as there is spiked level of autism in the general population.  While there is great debate about the explanation about why the rate has risen, we know that much more research needs to be done to figure what is happening to cause this condition in our kids.  As such, we strongly encourage each of you to consider being involved with autism research or giving to organizations who help families who are struggling to provide the necessary treatment for their autistic children. 

Jack is 10, and he is in the 4th grade.  Jack is a sports nut.  He plays basketball, baseball and football (and we are sure he would play tennis, golf, archery, ping pong, and hockey if we let him).  Per one of his recent school projects, we found out that he is a self-proclaimed die-hard fan for the teams he supports.  While the 2011 World Series Rangers' loss was hard on Jason, we may never forget seeing Jack's emotions over the Rangers' meltdown.  We are seeing that Jack strongly embraces any cause that he takes up and brings passion to it, whether it be sports, being the big brother in the family, or a school project that sparks his interest.  We hope that characteristic stays with him.

Kimberly continues her role as a full-time, stay-at-home wife and mom.  She wrapped up an amazing year leading a small group with Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) and recommends that Bible study course.  While she continues to attend BSF, she has stepped away from leadership this year in order to spend more focused time in her role as Johnny's homework buddy.   She also serves with Jason as a co-leader of a bible study and fellowship group at The Branch, our church congregation (www.thebranch.org) and works in other ways with our childrens' ministry as the need arises.

Jason is a now a partner at his new law firm SNR Denton (http://www.snrdenton.com/) - he received his new title earlier this year.  Now, he has to be more focused on bringing in work than just doing work, but it is a tremendous opportunity.  If you have a legal problem or want to know the legal snares of a business opportunity, do not hesistate to give him a call or shoot him an email - he would love to talk to you about it to see if his firm can be helpful or refer you to someone that he knows who can help (his contact information can be found by clicking here).  Jason is still active with Kimberly at The Branch, where he volunteers as small group leader and serves as a greeter in the childrens' ministry.    He also wrapped up his first season as the head football coach for Jack's 4th grade tackle football team. 

We have new pictures of our family, so we wanted to share those with you.  We have to give credit to Angie and Matt Weedon at Angie Weedon Photography (http://www.weedonphoto.com/) for their beautiful work.

Feel free to connect with us on Facebook.  Jason also is on LinkedIn and Twitter - his Twitter handle is @theschusez.  Neither of us post much on social media, but we like the connections to keep up with your families and to let our friends and family know the occasional news about our family (or an occasional Rangers opinion on Twitter that needs to be said).

Blessing to each of you and your family.  Hopefully, our paths cross in person soon.

Update from the Schumachers

July 4th greetings from the Schumachers - we are unsure how often we will be posting here, but we did want to provide the world with an update on the happenings of the Schumacher clan.  We have been remiss in sending out the usual Holiday card update (or Holiday cards at all) for the past couple of years.  Our April Fool's Day card of 2008 was met with large approval, so it may make another appearance in 2012.  We do hope you stay more responsible than us and share your Holiday cards with our family, as we love seeing the pictures of your families and hearing about the going-ons of your households.

Without further adieu, here's some happenings of the Schumachers:

Jack is a recent graduate of the 2nd grade.  He is also a recent graduate of basketball camp, which we are sure he sees as the more important accomplishment.  Jack's current career plans involves the NFL with the usual route of becoming an attorney following his playing career.  We look forward to seeing these plans unfold.

Johnny attends pre-school where he is doing quite well with his academic pursuits.  Johnny was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in 2008 - his diagnosis was the result of him having a speech delay, some learning difficulties and bouts of seizures when he was two.  Johnny has been seizure-free since 2008, so we are now attacking his speech delay and learning difficulties with good success.  Johnny's road to recovery is a multiple year process, and we are plugging along full steam ahead.  We thank those of you who have known about Johnny's diagnosis and have been so encouraging and supportive of us.  For those that have not seen Johnny in awhile, you will see big changes in him being able to tell you what he is thinking the next time you see him.  Johnny is normally intent on getting a laugh or hug from you, so be prepared for either - he is normally successful with us.  For example, we inquired what Johnny wanted to be when he grew up - he says with a smile and giggle he will become a dog, a mouse in a house or a big, fat yellow cat.  Those familiar with Johnny's brand of humor will enjoy his current career aspirations.

Annie also wrapped up a year of pre-school where her behavior earned her the status of having all of her bananas in her basket for the entire year.  We are told this is where you want to be, so we are pleased with her efforts.  Annie's current career aspirations involve becoming a ballet instructor.  Given her dance moves, we see this as a potential gold mine for her.  Given her father's dance moves, we are unsure that she overcome this great force working against her.

Kimberly continues the role of being the full-time stay-at-home mom and wife.  We got her a really cool car (a minivan), so she has that going for her.  She volunteers in numerous roles at our church, The Branch located in Farmers Branch, Texas (http://www.thebranch.org/).  She also will be a leader at Bible Study Fellowship, which is a non-denominational Bible study program that is offered across the globe.  Kimberly is involved with the Bible Study Fellowship group that meets in Richardson.  She and Jason will also be running in the White Rock Half Marathon in December.

Jason is still an oil and gas and corporate finance attorney, helping businesses and individuals buy and sell things, as well as borrow, lend, invest and recover money.  Jason recently changed law firms and now works in the Dallas office of SNR Denton (http://www.snrdenton.com/people/s/schumacher_jason_a.aspx) (For those attorneys reading this who have not heard of SNR Denton, this firm was previously known as Sonnenschein in the US until it merged with the London-based firm Denton Wilde in 2010).  Jason is also very active at The Branch, where he and Kimberly lead a small group.  Additionally, for the past two years, Jason has coached Jack's flag football team.  He also fights the two conflicting camps of wanting to be in shape and wanting to be a queso and hot sauce expert - both have great importance obviously, and he is attempting to find the right balance. 

We wanted you to be able to see pictures of our family, so we have posted some pictures at the bottom of this blog post (including a couple of shots from the Rangers' run to the World Series).    We have to give credit to Cassie Henley at Twelve Twenty Photography (http://twelvetwentyphotography.blogspot.com/) for her beautiful work on the professional-looking pictures that are included in this group. 

If you use Facebook, we are both now out there, and Jason is on Twitter - his handle is @theschusez, and he specializes in infrequent commentary on baseball.   We do not promise to post much to either this blog, Facebook or Twitter, but we do plan to bring you good stories and great pictures of our kids and the occasional life transition or job related news that may occur.

Blessing to each of you and your family.  We hope we can see you in person soon.