December 2020
Dear Friends & Family,
Greetings and Happy Holidays! We hope that this letter finds you and yours happy and healthy! And, let us hope that 2021 is far less tumultuous than 2020!
The last Christmas letter that we sent was in 2018 (more on why last year’s letter was skipped later). At that time, there were four humans and one doggo, Joey, living at 1723 Ramsey Lane. A lot has changed since then – some good; some bad.
Ivan loaded up his car and moved out to California in early 2018 to study cyber security. Upon completion of his program, he had planned to return to Indiana to find a job, but, when Google offers you a position, you don’t turn them down! While in California, he became reacquainted with a friend from Ukraine who had been adopted by a family in Wyoming. Ivan and his “friend,” Luba were married in Las Vegas this past summer and moved back to Indiana shortly there after. Ivan may have underplayed the harshness of Indiana’s winter compared to California, but they seem happy to be “back home again in Indiana!”
Robby moved out shortly after Ivan to pursue a couple of degrees from Purdue University – a Masters in Industrial Engineering and a Masters of Business Administration. He is now in management for Amazon and still lives up in Lafayette (he is understandably busy this time of year, for sure!).
Joey, unfortunately, passed away due to cancer in October of 2019 which left Levi and Chase with a very empty house.
After the others moved out, Chase and Levi decided that they were bored and embarked on a whole-house renovation (ok, Levi convinced Chase to embark on a whole-house renovation!) This included a whole new kitchen (we went from 7 square feet of countertop space to 120 square feet); a totally updated and open layout; all new bathrooms; new hardwood (native Hoosier) hardwood flooring; all new paint; new landscaping and concrete; new interior and exterior doors; and just about everything else you could imagine!
Chase – who despises change – has said for years that a renovation of this magnitude would kill him. Little did we all know how close he would come! Midway through demolition, Chase had his yearly physical and his doctor rushed him to the emergency room as he was exhibiting symptoms of a pulmonary embolism. After 7 hours in the ER, it was determined that Chase had been having a 3-week long asthma attack caused by demolition dust.
Chase, Mr. “I’m a professional estimator,” had predicted the renovation costs down to the penny. An expensive “change order” was moving him out of the house so that demolition could be completed, uninterrupted by his … demise.
Levi self-performed much of the demolition with the assistance of our friend, Dylan (Chase found that 16 year old’s saving for a car will work for cheap) and Levi’s brother Dominic (who was completing the Carpenters Apprenticeship and Chase “stole” for a couple of weeks from his employer, Glenroy Construction Co.). A lot of the detailed work was handled by our incredibly able contractor, Gene Carter. Gene completed the final phase of the renovation – Chase’s bathroom – on the day that Indiana issued a stay-at-home order thus enabling Chase and Levi to enter “lockdown” in a virtually all new house.
Quarantine saw the watching of a lot of television, books, and playing a lot of card games and monopoly. But, realizing that our home felt empty (regardless of how many houseplants Levi tried to fill it), our great joy was adopting our new dog, Lyra, from the Cincinnati SPCA. Two separate friends (including Levi’s sister, Bella) shared Lyra (then Lyric) on Facebook and were friends with Lyra’s foster mom. We assumed she was in Avon, Indiana and immediately fell in love! We then found out that she was in Cincinnati but that didn’t diminish the love!
Our first trip out of Indiana during quarantine was in April to adopt Miss Lyra Lynn Lucas Slaughter. She is the sweetest thing and just a real lover. She has yet to find a person she doesn’t immediately fall in love with (she’s not a big fan of other dogs, though). She loves car rides and “pup-cups” from Starbucks and even regularly accompanies Chase to work.
Career-wise, Chase celebrated his 10th Anniversary with the Glenroy Construction Co., Inc. in December of 2019 and continues to love working with his dad every single day. Levi continues his career in real estate but it’s starting to look a bit different. Levi accepted a position with Family Promise of Hendricks County, Inc. this year as their Director of Housing Development.
Family Promise of Hendricks County is an organization that serves the homeless and near-homeless in our community. Chase has been a member of the Board of Directors since 2015 and Levi since 2017 (though, since he’s now an employee, he’s had to resign). We have witnessed the organization grow in those short years from one employee and an $80,000 per year operating budget to 13 employees; two offices; and a yearly budget of nearly $1,000,000. In just 2020 so far, Family Promise has helped some 1,000 individuals and families find housing or prevent losing it. Levi’s job is to work with developers and landlords to create and maintain affordable housing so that low-and-medium income families can live in our community. He’s passionate about his work and has found that living with the Board Secretary is helpful when navigating grants and legal regulations. To learn more about Family Promise and some of our other favorite charities, please check out this page.
We continue, also, to be active members of several other local organizations. Chase serves as the President of the Board of Directors of Friends Apartment Homes, Inc. and Levi serves as the Board Vice-President. Friends Apartment Homes is a low-rent senior living community right here in Plainfield that we are very proud to be a part of.
We are also active in Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Indiana in the “Big Friends” Program and love spending time with our “Little,” even though it looks a little different with COVID. Chase also serves as the Treasurer of the Board of Directors of the Indiana Friends Committee on Legislation and is a member of Western Yearly Meeting‘s Board of Financial Trustees.
Chase transferred his membership to Plainfield Friends Meeting last year and has thoroughly enjoyed getting to know their new pastor. With COVID challenges, though, he has enjoyed meeting for worship in with a cup of coffee in his study on Sunday mornings.
Socially, we are both very active members of the Columbia Club of Indianapolis, a downtown city club. Levi recently completed the Columbian Community Impact Program for emerging leaders (which Chase completed in 2019).
While we certainly haven’t gotten in as much travel as we would have liked during the pandemic, we were able to take a few adventures here and there. In November 2019, we took a break from renovating to spend some time in Longboat Key, Florida to attend a friend’s wedding. In February 2020, we accompanied Chase’s parents and some friends to Galena, Illinois, where we stayed in the historic DeSota Hotel (Abraham Lincoln spoke off of the balcony in our room!) and enjoyed all the shopping and food that the beautiful small town had to offer. On the way home, Chase was able to convince Levi to accompany him on a genealogical detour through Elgin, Illinois where Chase tracked down several of his Hubbell and Harrison ancestors’ homes and grave stones.
In late June, Chase took a big adventure to California. Robby Stevens (who, as Lane Slaughter would say, could sell ice cream cones to ladies in white gloves) convinced Chase to join him out west to help Ivan and Luba drive back from California. They flew into San Bernardino, California early on a Saturday morning and began the drive back with Ivan and Luba in one car and Chase and Robby in the other. Chase summed up the trip in a post on Facebook thusly:
“What a difference a day can make. 24 hours ago, I was relaxing in first class on a flight between Indianapolis and San Bernardino. Last night I slept in the passenger’s seat of Ivan’s Honda CRV with my CPAP machine plugged into an inverter while Robby (I’m guessing) chain smoked Marlboro Red Cigarettes and chewed fistfuls of Trucker pills. Then, I woke myself up with a $14 truck stop shower and a cup of battery acid coffee before my driving shift.”
The group arrived back in Plainfield a mere four days later very tired but no worse for the wear!
Chase and Levi also had a very pleasurable trip to Savannah, Georgia. Never one to leave out genealogical research, Chase insisted on a detour to Beaufort, South Carolina, where he found the headstones and former home of his great-great aunt and uncle Lt. Josephine Lovell Harrison Stockton Rutherford and Col. Francis Hanson “Fritz” Rutherford.
We then spent four beautiful days on Tybee Island, Georgia, where Levi’s parents, two brothers and sisters-in-law, and six nieces and one nephew were in a condo right down the beach.
We were thankfully able to get to Nashville, Tennessee the weekend before Thanksgiving to see Levi’s sister, Bella, graduate from Belmont University with a degree in Audio Engineering. We took Lyra with us and stayed in the famous Hermitage Hotel. The Hermitage is where, ultimately, women received the right to vote as the 19th Amendment was ratified in the Tennessee Statehouse across the street 100 years ago last summer. It was amazing to stay in the hotel where people like Alice Paul and Catherine Chapman Catt stayed 100 years earlier – in the very month that America elected her first female Vice-President. We culminated the celebration with Levi’s family aboard a private tour bus through Nashville!
In March, we were supposed to join Chase’s parents for a week in Key West, Florida, arriving on his mother’s birthday (but pandemic pizza was as good a birthday celebration). Obviously, the trip was postponed, but we hope to be spending two weeks with the Slaughters in Key West this December. Fingers crossed!
Here’s hoping your year has been happy and healthy and best wishes for 2021!
We’d love to hear from you as well!
Blessings,
Chase, Levi, and Lyra
P.S. – Here’s some favorite pictures from our year!
1723 Ramsey Lane 