December 10, 2006

Just as the late autumn rains and nationally reported flood waters in Snohomish begin to subside, the Seattle area gets buffeted by an early winter snowstorm that blankets the trees (and roads) with a beautiful 8-14” layer of white fluff … and totally paralyzes the city for several days in the process. Unlike Margarita Mix and Jose Cuervo, hilly streets, Northwest drivers and snow and ice on the roads don’t blend well together. So describes Nora’s 4½ hour commute home from work (normally 25 minutes) in our older 4-wheel drive SUV on Monday December 4th. Having to go to the bathroom about an hour into it, skipping lunch that afternoon and spending the majority of those 4 hours stuck in the snarled traffic just a few miles from home only added to her agony on the “commute from hell”. At home nice and comfy in our house, the girls and I would get cell phone calls from Nora with her movement status “I’ve gone about 2 feet in the last hour.” Tens of thousands of others had similar or worse stories to tell the following day and the kids got 3 “snow days” off from school spending much of that time sledding down the hill from the top of our cul-de-sac, building snowmen and having snowball fights. Time to dust off the skis!

I spent most of February through October in a NAFTA funded Microsoft certification program. Since Rockwell Collins moved part of the Kirkland facility that I managed to Mexico, NAFTA Trade Act Displaced Worker Retraining money is made available to those left in the wake of the mass migration of American jobs overseas. I found out about this at a state presentation after months of filling out job applications mainly looking for “hands-on” IT Managers (less management, more do it yourself). Submitting a dozen request forms and attaching my job search log, I finally received the grant. After 270 hours of training classes, 700 hours of intense study and 24 hours of exams, I achieved my MCSE certification in Windows Server 2003 technologies in October. All this just so I could label my resume with the above right graphic. I decided to kick my side consulting business into full time and within a few weeks landed a $25,000 job setting up a small business in Monroe with their first server and network, e-mail, wireless connectivity, remote access, databases and scripts. This cemented into my brain all the MCSE training and I’m in the last 2 weeks of the job with two website design jobs waiting to kick into gear. I’m still filling out job applications weekly and fielding screening and on-site interviews with companies and recruiters for potential full-time and contract positions.

We aligned our vacation this year with Shannon’s spring break and April had us in Scottsdale and Sedona, AZ for some fun in the sun and a drive down the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. The drive to Sedona was a beautiful one with all the sandstone and red rock carved mountain sculptures flanking both sides of the highway. Arriving at the entrance to the Grand Canyon National Park, we were greeted by billions of little gnat-like bugs that crawled all over your car and made our trip through the park somewhat akin to an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Apparently they hatch and take over the entire park for a few days every spring … lucky us to have arrived on their first day! Our last day was spent in Scottsdale at Pointe South Mountain Resort, a very upscale hotel with an attached water park. We enjoyed the tubing river that meandered around the entire park, the large wave pool, a 100' tall tower of water slides, Caliente Springs (extremely large hot tub), kiddie pool, fountains and some great pool-side dining.

We were in Appleton, WI in May for my mother’s much anticipated spring wedding. She married a very nice 83 year old retired doctor, Denton, who she had met during her stroke rehab at an assisted living facility last year. She has now settled into life once again of summers in Wisconsin and winters in Florida. My brother Dave spent much of the last year having our mother’s condo in Punta Gorda rebuilt after it was destroyed by Hurricane Charlie in 2005. My Mom and Denton visited with us for a few weeks in July wrapped around an Alaskan Cruise they signed up for whose port of origin was Seattle. We met up with Denton’s brother, visiting his son (Denton’s nephew) and family who live in Bothell just a few miles from us … we now have more family living in the area!

Camping and hiking with friends over a few summer weekends has become a tradition for us. This year was no exception camping with the Lasters, Coomars and friends at Mossyrock Lake Park near Mt St Helens in July. Mt St Helens blew off half its face in a single blast in 1980, leveling all trees and buildings in a 25 mile radius and shooting a 60,000’ high plume of smoke and ash into in atmosphere. A few of our fellow campers had speed boats, with Shannon and I getting our turn at inner-tubing behind them on a sunny warm day there. It’s been many years since I’ve done that and was Shannon’s first water sport experience. In August we met the Knapps in Eastern Washington’s Columbia River basin at Sun Lakes Park for a relaxing camping weekend of sun, swimming, water wars and a mini-golf tournament. Hailey would walk all the way to the hole, place her ball 3” from it and putt it in … needless to say she had the lowest score!

Nora still manages the IT, Accounting, HR, Facilities and Administration departments at Universal Avionics. She spent many long weekends at work this year, offsetting those once or twice a year by spending a weekend away with friends. This year she and several friends spent a long weekend at Lummi Island in the Puget Sound near the San Juans. She accompanied Shannon to her first concert (Cheetah Girls/Hannah Montana) and her friend Debi to see Bon Jovi in March. She became heavily involved in Shannon’s Brownie troop this year, still enjoys the occasional scrapbooking event and made her annual treks to Champions on Ice with friends and Disney on Ice with Shannon, Hailey, Cynthia and Danae. Nora and I attended a few notable concerts this year seeing Snow Patrol in September and scoring tickets to “The Who” in October (thanks Debi!). The Who’s concert stage setup included 5 - 10’x20’ screens that moved all around in the background up and down and even came together for some songs. The screens displayed tons of very cool imagery, some related to the songs, some not. The visual displays were as cool to watch as Pete and Roger were.

Shannon just turned 8 and is in 2nd grade at Kokanee Elementary. She leads a very active life between skiing, swimming, soccer, girl scouts, play dates and the occasional sleepover with friends and a birthday party to attend almost every other weekend. She loves to read and for the second year in a row logged over 50 hours of reading during the summer break to be invited to the annual Kokanee Reading Achievement Roller Skating Party with several of her friends. She also logs in many hours on her PC and Game Boy. Over the last several years she has written and illustrated several short stories showcasing her creativity and incredibly fertile imagination … we’ll see where this talent leads her. When Nora’s father passed away last year, we inherited his old player piano, had it tuned up and Shannon began taking lessons this year. Nora and I have been learning to play as well, pushing Shannon to practice and playing her piano exercises along with her. I also had the extreme pleasure of escorting Shannon to her first Father/Daughter dance this year and assistant coaching her soccer team. Nora attended Brownie camp with Shannon this summer and continues to revolve her busy life around us all.

Children are both a joy and a challenge with Hailey hitting the extreme edge on both sides with Nora and I. With a solid year of tantrums behind her, they are now finally beginning to subside and she’s starting to work on potty training and curbing her thumb sucking. Shannon never had tantrums or sucked her thumb, ringing true what everyone told us about every child being completely different. Hailey is talking more and her vocabulary expanding a little each week. Last week I picked her up from school and she talked from school all the way to the store, throughout our shopping trip and then all the way home. The coolest part of parenting is watching the miracle of cognitive development in your own child. Hailey is 2½ now and has a steady boyfriend at school named “Palmie” (Palmer) who she goes everywhere with. I call her daycare “school” because they have a regular class schedule which includes Spanish class, art, dance, music, Dizzy’s Tumblebus (gymnastics) and her teachers have certain age related skills they work with them daily to develop.

We’ve begun a ritual of spending Christmas Eve with Holly and Dan (Nora’s sister) and catching up with Nora’s side of the family in Bremerton every other year. This year we’ll be spending Christmas in Florida visiting my side of the family. Both my brothers live in Orlando and with my Mother back to wintering in Punta Gorda most everyone is within 3 hours of each other. My older nephews usually make the trip down to visit their parents so it usually ends up being a Christmas Eve family reunion. We are looking forward to seeing them again with Shannon and Hailey getting their second trip to Disney World … we did this back in 2004. Here’s hoping that your joys are great and your challenges few in the upcoming year. Merry Christmas 2006 and Best Wishes in 2007!


Love … 

               

P.S. – Our website has been updated with this year’s pictures and an updated 
fridge gallery. Check it all out at http://www.digital-vision.com/alan.