Merry Christmas from the Roth Bunch!

Merry Christmas from the Roth Bunch!

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

This picture was taken in July outside an Aquarium near where Jacki and John live.

Hi Folks!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Roth Bunch in Ann Arbor, MI! 2010 was an eventful year and we would like to share a little bit with friends and family.

Brad has now worked for White-Rodgers for over 5 years and continues to enjoy covering his sales territory from our home in Ann Arbor. After winning a Sales Achievement Award the past two years, Brad received the Salesman of the Year award from his company at their National Sales Meeting in November. It is great to see his hard work recognized.

Therese is completing her third year as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Life Sciences Institute at the University of Michigan. She continues her research work and has attended conferences in New York and Washington, D.C. in the past year to present what she has been working on.

In May, Therese, Brad, Caitlin and Jillian went to Chicago for a weekend of fun and to join several thousand others in the Path to Progress 5K Walk to support brain tumor research. Two of Jillian’s college friends joined our team (CCG’s Army!) to help raise money for this important and personal cause. The event was emotional and bittersweet as we saw many other survivors, but also saw many tributes to those that lost their battles. Thanks again to those who supported us for the event.

We made our annual Fourth of July week trip to North Carolina to spend time with Jacki and John again this year. Once again we had a great time being tourists and just hanging out playing games and eating great food. Everyone had a lot of fun and we really value the times when we can all be together.

Jacki is a Digital Content & Analytics Manager for BISSELL Homecare in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She continues to telecommute for work from their home in North Carolina. We won’t see Jacki and John this holiday season as they are on a trip to Seattle to visit John’s brother P.D. and his fiancée Andrea.

John is a Captain in the United States Marine Corps and has completed a number of computer certifications/training classes in the past year and is now teaching several classes. His training and teaching have taken him to a few different states in the past year.

Jillian and Brit’s family has also been busy as Austin and Adrianna seem to be growing up so quickly. Austin is 3 ½ now and Adrianna is 22 months. We love to spend as much time with the “A Team” as possible and they stayed with us this past weekend while Jillian got together with her college friends for their annual Chicago Christmas shopping trip. Aussie loves playing Wii games and really enjoys sports. Grandpa Brad took him to his first Michigan football and basketball games this year. Adri is such a sweetheart and always has a smile on her face. We continue to be amazed at how much she is talking now.

Jillian continues to work at O. E. Meyer as a Health Care Marketing Representative and Brit is a Mechanical Design Engineer II at JBT FoodTech in Sandusky. They are doing a great job of balancing the challenges of their careers while being parents of two young children. They are hoping to move to a new home in the coming year.

Caitlin is a junior at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. She has changed her major to Sociology with a Biology minor and still has a career goal of working in Public Health. Caitlin went to Australia in July and recently completed a semester at Murdoch University near Perth in Western Australia. After her semester she went on a two week bus trip across Australia (60 hours in a bus!) with a Christian group to attend a conference and perform some mission work. She came home last week and is looking forward to getting back to Hope in January to see her friends. She is spending Christmas week with the Gills. Caitlin kept up a blog during her stay in Australia. If you would like to view some of the entries you will find it at Caitlin’s Blog.

In November, Therese and Brad went on a two week vacation to Australia to visit Caitlin and see the sites. We had a wonderful time seeing the unique animals and plants of the country while learning more of their history and eating some great food. We spent a lot of time walking the beaches and really enjoyed the beautiful sunsets over the Indian Ocean. We can now cross this item off our bucket list! You can see some pictures from our trip by clicking on this link. Australia Holiday pictures

We truly appreciate all the blessings in our lives.

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Safe, Healthy and Happy New Year!

Brad, Therese and Caitlin Roth

(Buddy too)

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.