Welcome to the Connell Family
Christmas / New Year 2003 web page!
From Chuck: Hi everyone! Welcome to our second annual holiday web site. I just read an article in the Boston Globe that it is bad etiquette to send email Christmas cards, but I think we are exempt from that since this is a web site not just email. (How's that for splitting hairs?)
We have had a good year. The tech economy seems to be picking up, so I have been quite busy at work. I took business trips to Chicago, Los Angeles, and Colorado Springs this year. In LA, I stayed in the Biltmore Hotel as they were filming the movie Criminal there. In Colorado Springs, I did a project for the US Olympic Center, which was a lot of fun. We got to eat in the athlete's cafeteria, which is usually off limits to outsiders. Lots of fit looking people there! It was easy to tell which was the table of computer nerds.
For fun, I have been riding my bike to work (during the warm weather), helping out with Charles's Boy Scout troop, and spending time with our family. Here is a picture of us doing my favorite activity, a family hike.
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From Janet: Happy Holidays to all our friends and family. As last year, I have been busy but rewarded running a household of three active kids. I am happy to see how well they get along (usually) and enjoy being a family together. Elizabeth has been a wonderful addition to our lives. It seems amazing that she joined our family from so far way, but fits in perfectly and is so American in many ways. Her favorite foods are McDonald’s French fries, potato chips, and chocolate. When we try to serve her some Chinese takeout, she bursts into tears. My favorite activity is family time on vacation. This year we went to Cape Cod for a chilly weekend during February, Ogunquit for two weeks during the summer, and Waterville Valley for Columbus Day weekend. We also took my mother to Boston for a weekend in July to celebrate her 80th birthday. We all rode one of those tourist trolleys around the city, which we had never done before. Here is a picture of me with my two girls in Waterville.
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From Charles: This year was just like any other one. Except I totally messed up the family computer, so Dad got the backup from downstairs so now we use that. But I got the messed computer and I rebuilt it and got more RAM so now it's really fast and has Windows XP. So I do all my fun computer stuff on that computer and it's totally customized to my personal settings. That was the only cool thing all year. The End.
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From Katie: My teacher's name is Mrs. Mara at Lane School. She is very nice. I take hip-hop lessons at DanceTime. My Dad and I took a trip to Connecticut in November to visit his friends. It was lots of fun. We ate brunch at a fancy hotel in Greenwich, and had dinner at the Driftwood Diner in Darien, where my Dad used to eat with his father. As we drove, we also stopped at McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, and Ben & Jerry's. Mom said that Dad didn't give me very good nutrition on the trip, but I had fun.
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From Elizabeth: I turned two years old this year. I am much bigger and stronger than last year, which is a good thing because I need it to keep up with my brother and sister. My brother’s name is Daf and my sister is KayTee. I know lots of words, so many that Mom gave up trying to keep a list, and I have started to make short sentences with them. This language thing comes in handy when I tell my parents what I expect them to do, which is often. Daf and KayTee helped me learn many of the words, including some a two year old should not know. I'm happy the Chinese government matched me with this family, and my family is happy about it too. My favorite activities are climbing on furniture that is too big for me, unfolding laundry that Mom just folded, and copying everything my brother and sister do, which Mom and Dad say is not always a good idea. In the pictures below, I am about to eat a cupcake at my birthday party and playing on the beach in Ogunquit.
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Happy New Year Everyone!
We hope your coming year is filled with joy and good memories!