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
