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December 7, 2008
 January kicked off with a rare winter blast that left 8-10” of snowy
white fluff behind for a week resulting in school closures, nasty
commutes and lots of happy children frolicking about the
neighborhood. Snowstorms seldom visit the Seattle area and typically
are followed a deluge of rain that washes away all evidence of the
season within a few days. Seattle gets 36” of rainfall (mostly
morning drizzle) and hosts over 200 days of gray skies annually. One
often wonders why do people live in the desolation and heat of the
Sahara Desert, the unbearable below zero temperatures of Antarctica
and the dreary damp weather of the Pacific NW? While we can’t
explain the first two, when the clouds around here clear, residents
are rewarded with the majestic Cascades to the east, the Olympics to
the west, Mount Rainier fills the southern sky and the Puget Sound,
Lake Washington and crystal clear skies fills the canvas with blue
everywhere that’s not already green and granite. When incessant rain
begins to cloud the senses, there’s always coffee, music and the
mountains which beckon to those who love the outdoors, hiking,
skiing and experiencing nature in all its glory.
2008 was packed with a multitude of children-based activities and
sports, group camping trips, good times with friends, a few
excellent vacation escapes and of course the requisite hard work
that pays for everything we have and do. I’m sliding into my 2nd
year managing the IT department at Applied Technical Services in
Everett and Nora her 20th managing multiple departments at Universal
Avionics in Redmond (where we met in the late 80s). Both companies
and positions are stable despite the bizarre economic seas we are
all floating around in now, so we consider ourselves lucky while we
avoid viewing the account balances on our investment portfolios.
Shannon is thriving in 4th Grade at Kokanee Elementary and just
turned 10 this week. She (and we) have been very busy with skiing,
soccer practices and games, gymnastics, cross country meets, play
dates, sleepovers and Junior Girl Scouts activities. Over the summer
she enrolled in newspaper reporting, art and rock climbing clinics
enjoying the variety of events and field trips during her YMCA
summer camp experience with her long-time friend Emma. Her Brownie
troop bridged over into the Junior Girls Scouts this spring and they
continue to do community service, cookie sales, campouts, horseback
riding, ice skating, mini golf and other fun events. Shannon
continues to be an avid reader of fiction and to write short
stories, even illustrating some of them and her teachers often
comment on her creativity and expansive vocabulary. This will be
Shannon’s 3rd year of piano and 6th year of ski lessons. We are
extremely proud of the young intelligent and considerate person she
has become.
Hailey’s social life has kicked in with many school-related birthday
party attendances this year and play dates with several neighborhood
acquaintances. She turned 4 in June. She has been learning Chinese
this year at school and constantly corrects our pronunciation of
some of the words she brings home. She is currently in gymnastics
class and we just signed her up for her first year of ski lessons.
Hailey just managed to be proficient on her bicycle with training
wheels when she got a scooter for her birthday which she quickly
transitioned to abandoning her Princess bike to a dusty corner of
the garage. She really enjoys spending time with “Ampey” Debi, who
babysits often for us, and attended “Playhouse Disney Live” with
Nora and Debi earlier in the year. “Ampey” is Hailey-speak for
“Auntie”.
 Camping adventures this year included our third annual Lake
Wenatchee State Park car camping weekend in mid-July with about a
dozen neighborhood families loading up their SUVs and heading over
the pass to Eastern, WA. This year’s trip was highlighted by Richard
Ferguson’s incredibly talented campfire acoustic guitar solos and
several fantastic smorgasbords of very untraditional camping cuisine
(crab, braised flank steak, etc). We also enjoyed a late August
weekend camping with the Lasters and their ever burgeoning social
circle of friends at Larrabee State Park near Bellingham with our
traditional “backwoods” bocci ball tournament and a moderately steep
hike up to Fragrance Lake with Hailey walking the entire 2½ miles up
by herself … no “shoulder hiking” as in previous years. Very proud
of her we were! We spent Labor Day weekend at “Camp Curtis” just
outside Leavenworth with our friends Heather and Scott and their
family. Scott’s brother Mark has a huge beautiful log cabin (more
like a lodge) on a very scenic peaceful stretch of Icicle Creek
built and furnished with just about everything you could possibly
think of. Lots of fun activities to keep the kids entertained, while
we’d find a sunny spot and sprawl in their cushy lounge chairs on
the patio next to the wood fire heated hot tub and firepit.
We spent Spring Break in Los Angeles this year touring Hollywood,
doing a triple-shot of theme parks (Disneyland, California Adventure
and SeaWorld), shopping in Santa Monica and meeting up with Nora’s
friend Thuy at Manhattan Beach on our way to the airport to head
home. In between all the weekend camping this summer, we managed to
finally visit our friends Mark and Christy in Grand Rapids, a trip
we had been planning for several years. I started out in Grand
Rapids fresh out of college in 1980, taking a software engineering
position with Lear Siegler there which led me to Seattle a few years
later supporting their 737 Flight Management System project at
Boeing. Christy came up with so many interesting things to do, we
had to pare the list down to fit it all in a week. Meijer Gardens
was a very beautiful park filled with large scale sculptures,
botanical gardens and nature
 trails with interesting path twists,
mazes and a tree house play area. Binder Park Zoo was next on the
agenda highlighted by feeding giraffes on an upraised platform
strategically placed in the middle of their extensive African
Savannah exhibit. Grand Haven Beach is a long pristine white sand
beach on the southern shores of Lake Michigan near Grand Rapids. As
the temperatures rose during the day, we braved the fringes of the
brisk cold water of the big lake. We snuck in a visit with my friend
Janet and her family at their quaint vintage home in Ada. Nora and
the girls had a great time playing “fetch” with Maxine, Janet and
Jon’s tennis ball toting, playful little dachshund. We spent a day
at the Great Wolf Lodge (indoor attached huge water park) in
Traverse City getting drenched and ended our adventure drying off
with a grueling hike up the shifting sands of Sleeping Bear Dunes in
northern Michigan. Good times!
Other memorable events were “Poolpalooza”, Mark Knoffler and Steely
Dan concerts at the Chateau St. Michelle Winery, Phantom of the
Opera with Debi, a Mariner’s game (well maybe not so memorable with
their dismal season), several Knapp celebrations in Sultan and a
Daddy-Daughter Dance ending in the time-honored midnight run to
Denny’s for a late night breakfast with a one of Shannon’s friends
and her father. “Poolpalooza” had its inception as Mary Jo put in
the winning bid at the Maltby Elementary School Auction on a band to
play an evening at a location of her choice. Jay and France offered
up their beautiful home and pool for the party setting, “Wilbur”
came to play and the night became one big blur of Jello shots, ear
punishing karaoke, water fights and disturbing adolescent behavior.
We anxiously await the sequel!
I just talked the owners of Clancy’s Ski School at Steven’s Pass
into free lessons for the girls and lift tickets as barter for me
redesigning their website. Watch http://www.clancysskischool.com
over the next few months as I transform their old
http://www.clanc.com website into a professional looking one. We’re
heading off to Orlando in a few weeks for our “every other year”
Christmas trip to visit my brothers, their families, my mother and
her new husband Denton who all live in warm sunny Florida. Our New
Year’s wish for everyone is that life surround you with good
friends, put a Mike’s Hard Lemonade in one hand, a grilled bratwurst
in your other hand (on a bun, of course), a smile frequently upon
your face, oh, and that 2009 fattens back up your 401K. Merry
Christmas 2008!
 Love
...
 
P.S. – Our website has been updated with this year’s pictures. Check
them out at http://www.digital-vision.com/alan.
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