Jaimie, left, and Jordan Shaver of Poland talk about being thankful for their many blessings this year. Jordan said his life has changed drastically for the better in the past year with a new job, a May wedding and a new blended family that includes his daughter, 8, and her son, 7. This story is the result of hundreds of Giving Thanks letters received by The Vindicator over the past month.

POLAND — If you could tie the top things for which Jordan R. Shaver is thankful, the connective thread would be the word “new” — as in a new job, wife, blended family and home.

“My life is drastically different now than at this time last year, for the better,” Jordan, 40, said.

In May, Jordan, a project manager for Crowe’s Cabinets in Poland since September, married his wife, Jaimie, in the nearby Poland Municipal Forest, complemented with a string quartet. The marriage also resulted in a loving blended family that includes his daughter, Kinsley, 8, and Jaimie’s son, Isaac Hochmann, 7.

“My daughter and her son have grown a lot this year. We’re very close,” Jordan said.

Acting as added glue to bond the family was an eight-day vacation the four of them took in July to Hilton Head, S.C. — an experience Jordan called a “familymoon.”

“I’m beyond thankful for Jordan. He’s very supportive, attentive and a very good father to my son,” Jaimie said, adding that the couple had gone through difficult times in the few years before they got together.

Jaimie is a beautician at Salon at Creekside in Boardman and owns a hair salon. Her specialty is doing makeup for weddings, which also entails a lot of traveling, sometimes to as far away as Florida. She averages about 55 weddings per year, Jaimie explained.

In addition, Jaimie’s gratitude extends to a growing faith in God, she said, adding that good communication is essential in the couple’s relationship.

Also on Jordan’s thankfulness list is his 1960s ranch-style home, which Kinsley refers to as an “adventure house,” he said. Both children assisted with remodeling the home via painting, working on some of the studs and other projects; on one of the studs, they wrote “God bless this house.”

Along those lines, Jordan also is grateful for his father, Fred Marchese, who, among other things, installed the windows in the couple’s home into which Jordan moved in March on his 40th birthday. Perhaps more importantly, Marchese had taught his son many tricks of the building trades and made himself available to work on the house and for the family in general, Jordan recalled.

Beforehand, father and son collaborated to build Church of the Rock on Luteran Lane in Poland, Jordan continued. Also, before getting the job with Crowe’s Cabinets a few months ago, Jordan had worked earlier this year for Bolt Construction Inc. in project management for the oil and gas industry, he said.

In addition, his home is a bastion of family artwork. The walls are adorned with paintings his grandmother, Jean Dearing, and great-grandmother, Minerva Lynch, made. Also in the mix are pieces of pottery from his aunt, Valerie Dearing, whose Poland home he helped remodel before she moved to New England.

Even though Jordan and family are new to their residence, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve settled down for good. Jordan also owns more than four acres in Lowellville on which he plans to build a home he had designed on a computer.

The list of items for which Jordan, Jaimie and their children are thankful is not complete, however, without mentioning their plans for today, the main attraction of which will be having between 15 and 20 extended family members to their home for the first time, Jordan said.

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