5月16日木曜日、大嵐がヒューストンを突撃し、甚大な破壊と停電が発生し、4名が死亡しました。最高時速160マイルの風が吹き、竜巻が市内を襲い、ダウンタウンのいくつかの高層ビルに被害を与え、ヒューストン内の木々を根こそぎ倒した。市内の清掃の影響は非常に厳しく、今でも数十万人が停電したままです。 これから90度を超える高温が予想されており、多くの人がエアコンや食料用の冷蔵庫が停電のため動いていない状況です。メモリアル地区では、多くのガソリンスタンドが閉鎖され、人々は車にガソリンを入れるために先を争っていました（スーザンも！）。先週の金曜日、HISDとケイティISDでは多くの学校が閉鎖され、誰か助けを必要としている方たちはお互いに助け合いましょう!私たちにお手伝いできることがございましたら、832-725-7880 Susan または 832-729-6288 までご連絡ください。幸いなことに、クリアレイク地域では、被害は少なく、停電やインターネットを失うことはありませんでした。
A major storm hit Houston on Thursday May 16 resulting in extreme destruction, power outages, and four deaths. Winds blew up to 100 mph and a tornado came through the city, damaging several skyscrapers in downtown and uprooting trees all over Houston. The aftermath of cleaning up the city has been very hard with hundreds of thousands of people still without power even today. High temperatures in the 90s are expected and many are without air conditioning and refrigeration for their food. In the Memorial area, many of the gas stations were closed, sending people scrambling to fill their cars (including Susan!). Many schools were closed last Friday in HISD and Katy ISD. If you or someone you know is in need of help, let’s help each other! Please reach out to us if there is anything we can do to help: 832-725-7880 Susan or 832-729-8829 Mariko. Luckily in the Clear Lake area, we survived fairly untouched- never lost power nor internet. Praise the Lord!
We have some super exciting Annoura Family news to report, finally!! Our middle son Ty, found out last week that he was admitted to the United States Naval Academy!! This was his #1 choice for college and we are super, super proud of him. We are so thankful to Senator Cruz for his nomination, to all of his teachers and coaches for their recommendation letters, his boy scout Troop 1513, his Clear Lake High School teachers, his Gateway Community Church leaders, and the moral support and prayers of his friends and family! Before we found out, we planned a trip to Boston and Cleveland to visit Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Case Western Reserve University, two universities Ty was considering going to, to wrestle on their wrestling teams. Over 55 hours, Susan and Ty flew through 5 different cities and met the coaches and teammates for both schools last weekend. They then learned Ty was accepted to the Naval Academy! On the other side of the world, Koh spent a couple weeks in Korea and Japan and returned home last Wednesday. In Korea, he did his time trials for the upcoming Keirin racing league, Derby Wheel and did great! In Japan, he met with his parents and the builder of our new home. Joe came back to Houston, but only to grab his snowboarding stuff, and to head to Bush Airport. One of his fraternity brothers has a house in Park City, Utah, so lucky Joe got to go snowboarding with a small group of friends. Susan spent a couple of days in Galveston as part of HAR’s executive committee, supporting the next group of HAR leaders on their TRLP journey. This week, she is in Scottsdale, AZ for her first T3 Summit (www.t3summit.com), also with her HAR EC. It’s going to be a busy next few weeks because Koh takes off for Belgium this weekend to coach his paracyclist athlete on another European racing tour! As if this isn’t enough Annoura traveling, Ty will also hit the road. He heads to Las Vegas tomorrow to compete in a national wrestling tournament with his club coach. A special thanks to Sue’s parents who will watch Zach while everyone is hustling around!
Easter holiday gave our family a chance to get together. The Annouras usually have a big Easter egg hunt at the house with our 3 boys sprinting and diving for eggs, but with Joe not coming home for the holidays, we decided to nix our egg hunt for the first time ever and go to Austin to find Joe. The season was perfect for Texas bluebonnets so it was a great time to hit some of the Texas backroads so soak up some beautiful nature. Heading to Austin, we dropped Koh off at Hobby Airport so he could fly there, while Susan, Ty, and Zach raced him in the car. If we wouldn’t have hit heavy traffic in Bastrop, we probably would have tied him, but Koh beat us! Readers probably think this is crazy but it was part of the Southwest Airlines special to get a promotional companion pass. Koh will need to get one more one way in by May to qualify so the challenge continues… The family went up to Marble Falls to see the famous farmhouse, then drove out to Inks Lake and on the way there, found a very cool vineyard called Perissos where we stopped for an afternoon of wine tasting! At time of writing, we are STILL waiting on Ty’s college decisions. His #1 choice (The Naval Academy) has not answered yet, but we did hear from NYU, who admitted him for their Shanghai (China) campus. We have visits scheduled for Case Western and WPI for this weekend. This is definitely a stressful time for all of us, as we wait to see what the final choices will be, and to see which path Ty chooses to go.
In other big news, Koh left for Korea and Japan on Saturday. There is a new world wide KEIRIN league starting called Derby Wheel that he will be trying out for. At age 57, one would have thought he was done with competitive keirin racing, but he still loves the sport and wants to compete. If he makes it, his races will be in Manchester England although everything is still very tentative. We shall see if he makes the cut first and go from there! Gambare, Koh!
This deserves a story by itself! We are proud of our second son Ty, who went to Iowa with his club coach, Joe Forsman, over spring break and battled against some of the toughest competition in the United States in the 126 pound category. The competition was through USA Wrestling (USAW) and the name of the event was the 2024 Junior Boys & Girls Folkstyle Nationals. In order to become an All American, one must finish in the top 8 spots and Ty barely made it, taking home the 8th spot! Last October, Ty finished 4th at another national tournament in Iowa (PreSeason Nationals), making him now a 2 time high school All American! With only a little over 2 months left of high school, we are still unsure of where Ty will go for college or if he will wrestle after he graduates. He is considering offers from a few different universities and is still waiting for the results of his Naval Academy application. Please keep him in your prayers! We should hopefully know his future path in the coming month.
案浦家のニュースでは昨年の夏、丈は福岡外国語大学で日本語を勉強していた日本で、サナという女の子に出会いました。二人は交際することになり、現在彼女は丈に会うためにテキサスに来ています！泰はテキサス州総体で高校レスリング選手としてのキャリアを終えました。初日はエルパソ出身の選手とダラス出身の選手に2勝し、完璧な結果となリマした。 2日目は1日目と比べて困難なものとなり、泰は一戦目敗北、その後向きを変え、同じ地域からの選手に敗北。これらの敗北により、彼は 5 位決定戦に出場することになりましたが、それはとても痛ましい結果となり、3 回の延長戦に突入しました。結局、土壇場で勝利する結果となり、昨年より一つ上の表彰台に立つことができました。私たちは泰の努力とスポーツへの献身をとても誇りに思っています。彼が高校生活最後のレスリングの試合に取り組むのを見るのは、ほろ苦い瞬間でした。まださまざまな大学からの返答を待っているところですが、彼が最終的にどこに行くのか、大学でレスリングをするかどうかはわかりません。これまでのところ、彼には Colorado School of Mines, Worcester Polytechnic Institute,、そして最近ではRochester Institute of Technologyでレスリングをする機会があります。彼の第一志望校からは合否を発表されていないですが、彼が合格することを祈っています。これからのニュースレターにて発表を乞うご期待！
In Annoura Family news, it’s a toss up on who gets the first news coverage. Maybe Joe this time! While in Japan last summer studying Japanese at the Fukuoka Foreign Language College, he met a girl named Sana. The two of them dated, and now she is in Texas visiting Joe! In other Annoura son news, Ty completed his high school wrestling career at the Texas State tournament. Day 1 went perfectly with two wins over a guy from El Paso and a guy from Dallas. Day 2 was not as easy. Ty hit a strong match with another El Paso guy and lost, then turned around and was upset by a guy in his region. These losses put him in the match for 5th place, which turned out to be a real nail biter, going into triple overtime! In the end, he won at the very last second and was able to stand on the podium, one spot better than last year. We are so proud of Ty’s efforts and his dedication to his sport. It was a bitter sweet moment to watch him wrestle his last wrestling match of his high school career. We are still waiting on answers from different universities and don’t know where he might end up or whether he will wrestling in college. So far, he has the opportunity to wrestle for Colorado School of Mines, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and most recently Rochester Institute of Technology. His #1 choice has not announced yay or nay yet, so we are still holding our breath and praying that he gets it. Check back to the newsletter for updates!
On the horizon for Koh and Susan is a lot of travel. Conventions in DC and Scottsdale, leadership overnight in Galveston for Susan. Koh’s is way more interesting with trips to Belgium and Italy coming up for competitions for his Japanese paracyclist client.
