Dear Friends,                                                                    Sunday, December 14th, 1997

As we hinted in last year’s letter, we were moving around Christmas. Little did we know that “around” meant Christmas Eve! Escrow closed at 10:00 that day and by 7 PM, Katie, the kids, and her parents headed to church, leaving Pete to finish with the movers around 8PM. Our first day in the new house was Christmas Day, 1996.

Since then, we have pretty much settled in.  Several tree limbs went into the fireplace to make more visibility toward the street. Pete put lots of additional wiring in the attic crawlspace (always more to do).  New garage doors were added to make room for our new Ford Expedition. These things and others along with Katie’s loving touch, have made the house our home.

By the way the area code we gave you last year was wrong. Our correct home phone number is now 562-907-9003. Please update your phone books.  While you have the book out, please add our email address “wb6dao@earthlink.net and send us some electronic mail!

We had an addition to the family in February.  Beau, now one year old, is a Standard (means big) Poodle that thinks he has to be in the middle of whatever is happening.  He took an obedience class that taught Karen, Katie, and Pete how to obey his every wish. We can hardly walk around the house without stepping on one of his squeaky toys.  Best thing is that he eats only dog food and doesn’t know about people food, so he is not a pest at meal time. He is shown with his basketball on the left.

The big trip this year was taken by Karen. She spent a month in Spain and Italy with her Santa Barbara grandparents and Aunt Chris. She had fun shopping in Rome and being serenaded in Venice on her 14th birthday.  Everyone was jealous.

We took several trips to Laughlin with the Sea Doos this year, see the picture to the right for Katie and Karen “Sea Dooing” under the London Bridge at Lake Havasu, Arizona.  We visited Oatman, Arizona one day when it was too windy on the lake. See the picture of Kevin and Pete  feeding the “wild” burros on the next page.

       The big water trip was to Catalina, over the July fourth weekend. No, we didn’t ride them over (even though Katie volunteered), we towed them behind our friends’ “house”  We had a great weekend there, weather was super and we saw fireworks both on the 4th (on the Long Beach shore) and the 5th at Two Harbors. They had entertainment in the form of a kid’s craft construction day on Saturday. We don’t know where so many kids came from! It was an official weekend for the touring club that Bob and Charlotte (our hosts for the weekend) belong to, so there were some enjoyable potluck dinners at their cove (see picture of Pete and Bob in the cove on the left).

Kevin is halfway through his senior year at Los Altos High School. He is busy trying to decide which college he will attend.  So far, from the applications sent, Cal-Poly San Luis Obispo is ahead.  Computer Science seems to be his major of choice for now. He had a new experience this summer, a real job. He learned about how to run a fast food restaurant (if Burger King is a restaurant) from the kitchen to the drive through window.  He is driving and needed some money to support that expensive habit. Kevin completed his Boy Scout Eagle project this summer, but is still working on additional Eagle requirements.

Karen is also at Los Altos as a Freshman (freshwoman?).  She is enjoying singing in the school choir and is still very busy in National Charity League with social and volunteer activities.

Katie has been very busy substituting this year. As usual the high school did not properly predict their attendance and she had to start and run a full schedule of English classes for two months.   Since then she has substituted almost every day for various classes.

Pete will celebrate his tenth year with Metricom in March, a new record for him. The job has not gotten too boring yet and there is always something new and different to dive into. “Bucketing” one day a week helps get him out of the office environment.   Metricom’s Ricochet is now operational in portions of Los Angeles, so Pete has fun “e-mailing” and “surfing the internet” from odd locations (including Catalina on July 4th).

Our summer vacation plans this year were cancelled because Katie had to have laser eye surgery unexpectedly for a detached retina. She could not do anything for two weeks and couldn’t do much for another month. So we are looking forward to a Spring Break cruise to the Southern Caribbean.  Pete, Kevin, and Karen are planning to take Scuba lessons to become certified before the cruise, so they can make a dive or two during the trip.

We are looking forward to a relaxing Christmas in our new home.  Katie’s parents will be with us also. Please stop by and see us if you are in the area. We are very close to the intersection of the 605 and 60 freeways.

Our best wishes go to all of you for a happy and healthy 1998.