Alan and Belinda are now volunteer ushers at the Hobby Center in Houston, and for their efforts are rewarded with the opportunity to see a professional musical theatre show about once a month, and can choose to work for other interesting events as they have time.

This year Dan joined the Bellaire High School choir under the excellent direction of Ms. Amy Solberg. This is a high-quality group and they are looking forward to participating in a competition in Florida in March 2008. (Naturally they expect to do well!)

In order to raise money for their Florida trip, the choir holds various fundraisers throughout the year. Here's Dan washing cars at one of them on a hot September day.

Jason is a lot happier playing music now that he has switched from clarinet to drums. He takes lessons from Mike Grove and also plays in the Stage Band class at Pin Oak Middle School.

Following in his mother's footsteps, Jason has also decided to play bass guitar. He's finding that this complements the drumming well, and is also a more portable instrument when he's out jamming with his friends.

Belinda's musical involvement remains primarily the Houston Choral Showcase. The fall season in 2007 was a special occasion as it was the organization's 75th anniversary and they got sparkly new costumes to celebrate.

Jason ran on his school's cross country team again this year with the primary goal of using the exercise to stay fit.

Jason has also run in a few local 5K races, and on this occasion (the Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot) was joined by Dan. At least running 3.2 miles in the morning gave them a good excuse to eat a big meal later in the day.

Alan has not done so much running this year as his right knee became progressively more painful. Eventually he opted for arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn meniscus and was briefly on crutches. However, he is making a very rapid recovery. Unfortunately, his surgery somewhat curtailed his usual fundraising efforts in the annual Houston marathon to raise money for Take Heart Association Project, Inc., a charity helping underprivileged children with heart disorders in East Africa.

It's not often that we get cold days in Houston, but they do happen occasionally. Here's Belinda on one such day after several hours outside watching an athletic event in which Jason was participating.

Both boys are active in the Crosspoint Church youth group. Here's Jason being wild with his buddies on an outing during the summer.

And here it is... the obligatory animal photo. This is Midge taking a nap in her never-ending quest to find warm spots. (Midge, by the way is the subject of our "Amazing Cat Rescue" story in 1999.)

Another project that keeps the boys busy, especially Jason, is designing products to be sold through the Zazzle web site. Check them out and buy something! Jason's site is www.zazzle.com/duck_and_punch, with a selection of products shown here.

Dan's Zazzle site is www.zazzle.com/danman111111 and his products are shown here.