Wendell's World

Our Kids and Grandkids

Christi and David

Christi is our oldest daughter and married her high school sweetheart, David Armstrong in 1999, just after getting her bachelors degree from Texas A&M. She is currently a stay at home Mom, but is also a certified special education teacher. She taught life skills at a local elementary school and has a special gift of teaching the lowest level kids. She hopes to go back to work in the public schools when the kids start school themselves. Christi is a very strong individual. In fact, when we were trying to break her of thumb sucking around kindergarten, her teacher claimed she could have the class shame her out of the habit. Well, by the end of the semester, Christi had most of the class sucking their thumbs! To this day, we don't know how she did it.

David has a PhD in biochemistry from Texas A&M University and is now working for an oil services firm in the Houston area. His doctoral work was with protein folding. We asked him if he could get a protein to fold into money, but so far he hasn't been able to do that. He is probably hiding it from us! He is a devoted husband and father, and loves to give both sets of parents a hard time. We all have to worry about the inevitable practical jokes, which are potentially dangerous from someone with any kind of chemistry background! In return, we call him Dr. Demento!

Grandkids

Ethan - Ethan turned 4 at the end of August and is a bright, inquisitive young man who is almost guaranteed to be popular among the girls when he gets older! He has a very winning smile and is truly a gentle little man, yet still remains all boy. He loves trains, especially Thomas the Train. Dora the Explorer is also one of his favorites. He also loves anything having to do with the movie, Cars. There was a phase where he wanted to watch that movie over and over again. We're sure Mom and Dad could almost recite the script by heart at one point! He's also into video games already, with Thomas and Dora games he plays regularly. He is reading now and can write many of his letters. He has his daddy's natural curiosity of the world around him. Of course, he gets his smarts from our side of the family!

Hannah - Hannah is not quite 2 and is a real handful. She has a lovely smile, and is strong willed to boot. Where Ethan is very laid back, Hannah is a go getter and tries to tackle any obstacle in her path. She especially endears herself to Wendell as she always wants Papa to hold her when he visits. She also adores her big brother, following him wherever he goes and wanting to be involved with whatever he is doing. She is learning to count and able to fill in the blanks while counting to 10. Mommy will say, "one" and Hannah will respond with "two". Then Mommy will say "three" and Hannah will come back with "four". Now is that smart or what? She has that unique ability of being likable and assertive, so we expect her to have a lot of "followers" as she grows up.

Jeri and Jared

Jerilyn (affectionately known as Jeri to us) is our youngest daughter and couldn't be more different from her sister in many respects. In fact, they are so different that we had to give them separate bedrooms when they were growing up, just to keep a modicum of peace in the family. Where Christi is serious and studious, Jeri is fun loving and laid back. Where Christi is an extreme cleanie, Jeri doesn't let clutter bother her too much! When she was little, Jeri would play in the mud and catch bugs. In fact, at day care, a worker saw her walking around with her hand closed around something. When the worker asked Jeri what it was, she opened her hand to reveal a small bug and stated, "I hungee"!

Jeri also graduated from A&M and is also (you guessed it) a special ed teacher for a local middle school. She is very committed to her kids and works her heart out for them. She married Jared in 2003 and Wendell had the privilege of performing their wedding. Just don't ask her about dad's little slip up in the vows (Something about short lives together....). In the end, they were married and are living here in College Station.

Jared is working on his degree at A&M and is a 911 dispatcher for local law enforcement. Earlier in his college career, he was a member of the A&M Corps of Cadets and played in the band. Wendell enjoys discussing all sorts of issues with him as he has a keen intellect and can elaborate on almost anything. Though he is a big man, he is a gentle giant.