2009 Holiday Letter

Greetings Family and Friends!!

Hope this letter finds you all in good health. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Hard to believe, but 2009 is almost in the books by the time you get this letter. We have had a busy and challenging year but we are all in good heath and still gainfully employed. Ann at Fair Isaac (FICO), and I’m still at Solar Turbines.

Following is my attempt to update you on all the great things we experienced in 2009, and some not so great, like milestone B-Day’s for a few (well it’s better than the alternative?!?).

Starting with winter we made a holiday trip to visit our good friends Sammy, Sue and Loren who recently moved back to Scottsdale AZ. We spent a few days between Christmas and New Years with them and checked out the Biltmore decorations and the Chihuly glass exhibit touring thru Phoenix. Our annual ski trip this year was Park City, Utah. Our good friends Carolyn and Michael Ashburn have moved to Pennsylvania (miss you guys), so we had to be like regular visitors and stay at a resort. It was great fun, of course, and we stayed at a ski-in ski-out resort on the slopes, enjoyed the outdoor hot tub and pool surrounded with snow, along with all the usual fun. Jamie is coming along great with the ski lessons and soon she will be leaving Ann and me in the dust!!

March and spring brought us to Texas for a visit with Ann’s Dad (Mert) and Nan for a big family celebration of his 80th. We had fun visiting the extended family, and playing a little golf too, at Sun City in Georgetown.

April was all set up to be our big trip of the year, Disney cruise of course, but after flying to Orlando and spending a day at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Ann and Jamie got very ill (IVs and hospital trip!!) and so we were unable to board the ship and had to return to San Diego. Not exactly the week we had planned but thank goodness for travel insurance, so we were able to recover most our expenses. Both Ann and Jamie recovered as well and were back to normal in a few days.

Memorial Day this year was a fun long weekend back in Scottsdale to visit friends, play a little golf and enjoy the pool this time at the Biltmore. It was already very warm in the desert and reminded us why we live on the coast with natural air conditioning.

In July we recovered our cruise trip by doing a Mexican Rivera adventure on the Royal Caribbean cruise line (to see what other cruise lines were offering). It was fun and easy since it sailed out of LA and made logistics simple with a drive and no worries about how many bags we would bring. We had fun with stops at Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta (swimming with the dolphins was our fav!).

August was another weekend getaway, visiting my sister Nancy, nieces Amanda, Vanessa and brother-in-law Matt, too. We had a good excursion to the new ballpark in St. Louis. Tough ticket to get, thanks Matt!! That was fun, and it was good for me to be back in a Midwestern ballpark that still has beer servers in the stands! Ann took way too many pictures of that!

Labor Day and our annual Kanafest, was as always a fantastic way to close out the summer, and reconnect with our friends, neighbors, family and co-workers. Then it was onto 4th grade for Jamie already, man that was quick. 4th grade is much tougher and better – Jamie finally has tests and we can bribe her to keep a 90+ average! And fall… Of course that means football and Pop-Warner. Jamie was on the cheer squad and that kept us busy most Saturdays into November.

Fall closed out with a limo party bus blow out for Ann’s milestone (yep the big 50!). We had lots of old friends visit from Dallas and her AA days. The theme was the search for the best margarita in San Diego. I think we found it (according to the votes) at Barra Barra in Old Town. It was fun seeing so many friends and having a house full of guests. Well that’s about all the room for stories this year. Hope you all have a great Christmas and New Year’s, and even better 2010!! Stay Healthy.

Love, Jamie, Ann, and Jim