Happy Holidays to Everyone,
We hope that everyone has had a safe and enjoyable year. This has been a very busy year for all of us at the Statucki household.
Tazia started her sophomore year this fall by attending the brand new Southwest Career and Technical Academy (SWCTA). She is enrolled in the dental assisting program and Tina and I are hoping that she will utilize these skills to help pay for whatever expensive college she is planning on attending in a couple of years. It was a tough decision for Tazia to leave her friends at Palo Verde, but she is attending a school closer to home. She is actively involved in several clubs and is now president of the forensics club. Tazia also has an additional responsibility because she is now the proud owner of a kitten. The cat is a terror and is aptly named Taz, as in Tasmanian Devil.
Quinton, like Tazia, switched schools this year. He is now a 7th grader at Tarkanian Middle School. Q likes his new school because he now gets to ride his bike to school and gets to sleep an extra hour each day. He has been quickly reuniting with his friends from elementary school. Quinton is active in his school’s broadcast program and frequently asks to use my computer and video camera to create videos. Tazia isn’t the only new pet owner. Quinton saved his money and purchased a milk snake named Bob. Bob came with a friend, a mouse named Lily, but I’ll let you guess what happened there.
Tina has probably had the busiest year of everyone. Tina left Palo Verde at the end of the last school year to become the English department chair at SWCTA. The summer saw her trying to get a new English department and her classroom up and running. At the end of September, Tina was promoted to a dean’s position at East Career and Technical Academy. For the first time in a very long time, Tina now has to drive to work by herself. She likes her new job, responsibilities, and challenges. I think the thing she likes the most, besides yelling at kids in the halls, is her weekends, as she no longer has to spend her weekends grading essays or projects.
Like Tina and Tazia, I also left Palo Verde after the last school year to go to SWCTA. I am the program leader for the video game technology and web design programs. It has been a busy year for me as I try to learn new pieces of software, attend conferences, and attend classes for my program areas. I like my new school and even shaved my head and grew a goatee to win a bet from my principal. The goatee is gone and so is my hair. I kept my ties to Palo Verde in the fall however, by assisting with the junior varsity men’s soccer team.
Batman is still Batman. He has his moments with the cat, with the cat usually winning. Batman usually ends up with the last laugh though because he is allowed outside and Taz isn’t.
Last, but not least, the family vacations. While we didn’t go on an extended trip this year, we did go on several smaller trips. We were in the Lake Tahoe/Carson City area three or four times, Colorado a couple of times, and we took a trip to Mammoth Lakes with Tina’s family to celebrate Blake and Lavonne’s 40th Anniversary. We continued our hobby of camping and went on a few camping trips with Paula and Shawn and their family, including a trip to hike the Narrows in Zion. The trip to the Narrows almost resulted in Quinton’s first arrest as a nearby camper took offense to Quinton peeing in a bush and threatened to call the police. As our hobby has expanded, so has our need for a “proper” vehicle to lug all of our camping stuff. Tina has allowed me to purchase a new “monster” truck to carry our stuff on the condition that she can purchase a camper this spring.
We wish you the best for the holiday season and the upcoming year.
Craig, Tina, Tazia, Quinton, Batman, Taz, and Bob