Christmas 2003

Dear Friends and Family,

Don’t need a house, do you? We have one for sale by LeRoy. That, of course, is the big news as far as this Pike family was concerned this year. The move back to the home farm near Rochester affected us all and mostly for the better. Here are a few facts about our move:

• We moved our first load of personal belongings on June 14.
• We slept at the farm for the first time on June 28.
• By the time we finished moving we had made about 28 trips with the van, pickup and trailer. This doesn’t count the “big day” when we made a trip with brother Mark’s trailer.
• Ted’s 15^th birthday fell right in the middle of moving. His birthday present was not having to help move or paint.

We are happy to be here and are getting sort of settled in.

What else went on?

Matt and Ted continue to play their guitars. They starred in two groups – “Near Death Experience” and “18 and Under”. One of their bands performed at the state FFA convention. Deb and I were their roadies and hauled all the band’s equipment to St. Paul and back. They also performed at the Mower County Fair Talent Contest. They are talented, but they lost anyway.

Matt received his FFA State Farmer degree. He tried his hand on the high school golf team where his main job was to distract opponents. He graduated from high school in May. Wayne and Deb spent their twenty-third anniversary getting ready for his graduation party. Matt lost his mortarboard before he got home from the ceremony, but he held on to his diploma. He worked on landscaping again all summer for the Treehouse, a local nursery. He lived alone at the LeRoy house after the rest of us moved to the farm. He ate a lot of frozen pizza. He is back living with us and attending Rochester Community and Technical College studying landscaping and horticulture.

Ted played basketball with the LOHS Cardinals. He got his driver’s permit. He received his FFA Greenhand degree. On March 22, he went with his class to Washington, D.C. as the war on Iraq started. He called frequently to tell us how the trip was going, mostly reporting on the day’s menu. Ted is now a sophomore at Plainview. He enjoys school and is doing quite well. He is in the band and is playing basketball again, this time as a Gopher.

Bob still lives in suburban Hollandale. He supplements his full-time third-shift job at Viracon in Owatonna with another full-time auto mechanic job in Hollandale. That doesn’t leave him much time for sleep or his own vehicles (he is up to seven cars, maybe eight). He hunts a little and is a volunteer fireman, too.

Deb went back to school this fall. She is also taking classes at RCTC, in the Web Design & Development program. So far, she is doing well above A level work. This is on top of her work as our farm business management support staff and her webmaster work for the NFRBMEA.

Wayne still works for Riverland Community College as a farm management instructor. Not much changes there except now he has a longer commute to any student on the list. He must be getting on in years. A waitress at a local restaurant recently told him about the Senior Citizen discount before he ordered. He still writes a bi-weekly column for the Fillmore County Journal and has gotten some of his work into an anthology, “A Teacher, A Rooster, and an Outhouse.” He didn’t get a vote about the name of the book. You can find a sampling of his stories on his website, www.townshiproads.com.

Deb and Wayne did get in some major travel this year. They took the train to Minot for a conference in June. Rode all night, didn’t see a thing. They also took a vacation to Duluth and to Bayfield, Wisconsin. Actually, that’s one vacation to two places in two days. Not much time for more.

On a sad note, we had to say good-bye to our Dalmatian friend, Kacie. She made the move to the farm with us, but her congenital spine condition finally caught up with her. She was only seven years old, but she couldn’t go on the way she was.

We hope you had a good year, and we’re looking forward to hearing what’s new with you, too. We have new email addresses: Wayne’s is wcpike@myclearwave.net and Deb’s is dapike@myclearwave.net. If you’re ever in the area, stop by. Our address is:

6540 65th Street NE

Rochester, MN 55906-1911

(507)252-6928.

Happy Holidays!

Wayne

Deb

Matt

Ted

2002 Christmas    Township Roads Home