2007 Holiday Letter

Happy Holidays to our family and friends… We hope this letter finds everyone safe and healthy! It’s been another busy year with work, school and travel. For Ann and Jim, not much has changed in terms of work. Ann is still a VP at Fair Isaac and Jim still a Master Black Belt at Solar Turbines. Ann’s traveled a bit more this year – to the FI User Conference in Lisbon in February with a stopover (for fun) in Ireland. Then after Thanksgiving, she took a two-week trip to Singapore and Bangalore, making Christmas preparations a bit challenging!

Jamie is doing well in school (she’s in 2nd grade), and we keep her involved in lots of activities. This spring she played Little League (boy’s) with her friend Sammy, and Jim was one of the assistant coaches. She’s still taking dance (three classes/ week), is in Brownies and Pop Warner cheer. Cheer started in August with practices 4 times a week for 2 ½ hours each. It was much more intense than last year, continuing with either practices and/or games 4 days a week through mid-November. Ann was the head coach for Jamie’s squad, and though it was fun and rewarding, the time commitment and stress of leaving the office a bit early every day took its toll… so, Ann’ll be watching from the stands next season!

After our ski trip over Christmas ’06 to Aspen/Snowmass, we took one more ski trip to Utah in March. Then we met up with the extended family for Vanessa’s first communion in St Louis in April. Our vacation highlight was a Disney Cruise in the Mediterranean, sailing from Barcelona to ports in Italy and France. Ann’s Dad and Nan joined us so it was a special treat to have the three generations traveling together. We started the trip with a great couple of days in Madrid (highly recommend it!) and then ended with a stopover in Heidelberg.

We were lucky again with the San Diego wildfires in October. We evacuated for just one day – packed up both cars and dogs and headed out… Schools were closed for a week, work for a couple of days – it was a stressful time. Unfortunately, our friends Jacques and Marcyn weren’t so lucky and lost their home.

We’re still golfing as much as possible. We cheer for the Padres, attending about 10 games a season. This year we saw a few traveling Broadway musicals, and headed up to Los Angeles to see Wicked – it was great! Jim and Ann work out together with our trainer on Thursdays, and Ann squeezes in additional workouts over lunches. We’re in the Superbowl next week for our Fantasy Football league – wish us luck!