Merry Christmas from the Roth Bunch in Ann Arbor!

The Roth Bunch – John, Jacki, Brad, Caitlin, Therese, Jillian, Adrianna, Austin and Brittan

This picture was taken in July at a beach on the Atlantic Ocean near where Jacki and John live.

Hi Folks!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Roth Bunch in Ann Arbor, MI! 2009 was an eventful year and we would like to share a little bit with everyone. Our family blog has been neglected this year since we now post things on Facebook. For those on Facebook you may already know much of the following. For those not on Facebook, what are you waiting for?

Brad has now been with White-Rodgers for 4 ½ years and enjoys covering his sales territory from our home in Ann Arbor. The economy has hit Michigan harder than some other parts of the country but he managed to win a special Sales Achievement Award for the second straight year. He really likes his job.

Therese is completing her second year as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Life Sciences Institute at the University of Michigan. She continues her research into the role of insulin signaling in the regulation of germline stem cells. She uses Drosophila (fruit flies) as her model system.

In February this year we were blessed with a new addition to our extended family when Adrianna Charlotte was born to Jillian and Brit. Austin really enjoys being the big brother – unless Adri tries to play with his toys! Adri has just started crawling and likes checking things out and just being cute. Austin is about 2 ½ and quite the precocious toddler. He loves learning letters, numbers, etc. as well playing all types of sports. His favorite thing however is playing with Therese’s iphone. It is amazing how quickly he learned to play games, look at pictures and many other things.

During the Fourth of July holiday week we once again drove to North Carolina to spend it with Jacki and John. We had a full van with seven of us packing in. We had a great time visiting with the Schreiners and really enjoyed their cooking and hospitality.

Jacki continues to work for Bissell Homecare on a contract basis from home while taking on freelance web site development opportunities for other organizations. She has recently been promoted to the position of Digital Content and Analytics Manager. Jacki and John won’t be coming north for the holidays this year, but Jacki was here this fall for a family wedding and was able to stay for about a week. John was also recently up north when he flew up to see the Michigan vs. Ohio State game. Although the game didn’t turn out as he would have liked, we enjoyed seeing him for a little while and he was also able to visit with college friends that just moved back to Ann Arbor.

John returned from his second deployment to Iraq earlier this year. He has taken a number of computer classes and earned several certifications that have enabled him to now teach computer classes for other Marines. In John’s new position he is working primarily at Camp Lejeune rather than Cherry Point. Since they are still within driving distance they did not have to move.

Jillian continues to work at O. E. Meyer as a Health Care Marketing Representative and balance the challenges of being a mother of two. Brit is an Engineer at JBT FoodTech (formerly FMC FoodTech) in Sandusky.

In February of 2008 Caitlin had surgery to remove a benign brain tumor. She continues to have periodic CT Scans and everything is going well. She does not need to go for another scan for a year now.

Caitlin is now half way through her sophomore year at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. She loves being back in Holland and has decided to double major in Biology and Sociology with a goal of working in Public Health.

This summer Caitlin had a job working in Therese’s lab at the U of M and gained valuable experience for her future studies and career. This was a tremendous opportunity for her. She is now making plans to spend the fall semester 2010 in Australia on an exchange program through Hope College.

We are all thankful for the many blessings we have in our lives.

We wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Safe, Healthy and Happy New Year!

Brad, Therese and Caitlin Roth

(Buddy too)

OMG-A NEW POST!! (Easter weekend)

We had a fun Easter last week, even though we celebrated it a day early . Caitlin was home from Hope and Jillian, Brit, Austin and Adrianna came up to celebrate with us. We missed Jacki and John, but hopefully we will all be together soon.

We made homemade pizzas on Friday night, which were delicious!

Austin wore a Mount Union College t-shirt (Brad's alma mater) so Brad put on one of his MUC t-shirts so we could take a picture-how cute!


Afterwards, of course Austin had to play Wii- I think he is addicted, but he is so good at many of the games! I believe he may be a future sports star!


Caitlin really enjoyed holding Adrianna, who is going to be her godchild at the baptism this Sunday...

except when she huddled under the afghan with Jillian :)


Brad took Austin on a tour of the White-Rodgers Training van he had for the week.


We bought Austin and Adrianna a few small Easter presents-some books and some U-M items- a hat for Austin and a shirt-and-pants outfit for Adrianna, as well as some candy for Austin.

We went to the "Big House" to get a tour of the locker room and see the Spring game, but the lines for the locker room tour were too long and it was just too cold for the kids that early in the morning, so the Gills headed back to the house.
Brad and I stayed and went on a prearranged tour of the new luxury boxes under construction-no picture-taking was allowed on the tour. We could see the water tower by our house from them.

We stayed for the first play of the game, but then we left to head home and visit with everyone. It had warmed up by then and the stadium was packed.

Brad cooked "beer-butt" chicken on the grill for dinner and it was delicious!

Later in the afternoon, we dyed Easter eggs (Austin is wearing my Grandma Teresa's old housecoat to protect his clothes).

Austin really enjoyed all the different colors.

When the eggs were dry, we decorated them with Sesame Street stickers that Jillian brought.


Austin even made up a little "Easter Egg Bowling" game!



We also made "cake pops" that everyone loved-Caitlin is insisting that we make them again tomorrow (she is home this weekend for the baptism).

Then the Gills headed home after a fun-filled time!

Easter Sunday itself was pretty laid back. The Easter bunny hid a few scattered candy-filled eggs for Caitlin that she hunted for before Mass. She had to look under things and over things and behind things...

but she found them all :-)

Buddy also found his treats pretty quickly, and immediately gobbled them up!

Later in the afternoon, Brad took Caitlin back to Hope College. Buddy was sad after everyone left-he loves having his family together.

Reflections

Here we are at the memorial for Beth today.

My Ph.D. mentor, Kate, hosted a memorial brunch today at Gandy Dancer for our former lab manager, Beth. It would have been Beth's 57th birthday, but we lost her last fall after a long, brave battle with cancer. After the brunch, we all headed back to Kate's lab to work on making a themed crossword puzzle in honor of Beth, who did the New York Times crossword puzzle every day.

I really enjoyed my time with everyone who was able to take part today-I miss woking with them on a regular basis. I was very lucky to have such an awesome Ph.D. adviser as Kate, and she continues to include me in lab activities and give me advice, which I really appreciate. She just always has so much faith in me, even (especially) when I don't have faith in myself! I think one of the best things about Kate is her ability to make everyone feel so welcome and an integral part of her lab. Kate is really an inspiration to everyone who meets her, and even after lab members move on to to other ventures, they almost always remain in touch. We all want her to remain proud of us.

It was Thank your Mentor Day last week on January 22, and even though this is late for this year, I want to acknowledge how grateful I am to have mentors like Kate to encourage me and help me to become the best person I can be. I could never repay her for all she has given me and done for me.

Florida highlights

Brad and I had fun last week visiting his mom Eileen and Ralph at their home in Florida, even though part of the week had the coldest weather the area had seen for 17 years and Ralph spent 3 days in the hospital. We are so relieved that Ralph is back home now and feeling much better.

We ate out a lot to try some of their favorite spots, and went shopping at some of the shops we don't have around here. Brad and I spent a couple of afternoons at the library in order to catch up on our email and other online work, using their high-speed internet access. The weather actually dropped into the 20s on several nights, but towards the end of the week the temps were back in the high 70s during the day. Brad and I spent time walking around the complex and lounging around their complex's pool and hot tub area on the warmer days.

Here are some photos from our trip:

We visited Ave Maria, a university/town that Tom Monaghan (who started Dominos Pizza) started. The church and surrounding areas are pretty, but there is still a lot of work to do before it is done.





We watched the historical inauguration of Barack Obama on tv, and yes, this is a picture I took of the tv screen (I know I am a dork)


Brad and Ralph were not able to have their golf competition, so that will have to wait for the next visit. Here is the trophy in the clubhouse that has Ralph's name on it from his golf championship at the complex.

We saw a lot of dog-walkers in the complex, some of the owners were actually walking with their dogs, while others-not so much.


On Friday night, Brad and I played in their weekly dominoes game. It was a lot of fun...


...and I won the jackpot!Lucky!


After a full week, with Ralph finally out of the hospital, Brad and I headed home. I sat next to Avery Johnson (former NBA player and coach) on the airport tram. Of course, I didn't know that until Brad told me afterward. On the second leg of our return flight, the first-class section was filled with WWE professional wrestlers. When we got to the luggage area, there were lots of groupies gathered for autographs and pictures. It was kind of exciting. Brad did not want his picture taken with any of them, but he did manage to sneak in a couple of shots of the others, anyway.


Next weekend Austin is coming here, so we are eagerly awaiting his visit!

Watch this space, we hope to catch up soon...

I know we have not been very good about keeping up our blog. I had hoped to catch up while we were in Florida this week, but obviously that did not happen. I hope to backtrack and fill in some of the things we have been up to since our last blog post soon. In the meantime, here are a few pictures from our Florida trip...

Eileen and Ralph left their Christmas decorations up for us to enjoy-very pretty!


We went to dinner for Brad's birthday with some of the "Florida gang"


Brad's mom made him a delicious cake-chocolate with white frosting (his favorite)!


We saw an armadillo at "Barefoot Beach"


Caitlin would be glad to see that they serve Coke products at the pavilion (how did that Pepsi machine sneak in?!?)


The beach was very pretty and we found lots of nice shells-hopefully they will make it back intact on the trip home!