A busy but happy year.
Part of living in the Seattle area is being nimble in terms of your work situation and Will finds himself, once again, changing positions. After a two-month stint with Beon Media, he is now starting a contract project as a product manager with Onyx Software Corporation. Located in Bellevue, Will’s commute to Onyx will be somewhat challenging since he’ll be crossing Lake Washington everyday. Hopefully, more than a few of those trips will be by bicycle.
Given that Will has had lots of free time lately, he’s been a proud stay-at-home dad of a six-month old Weimaraner. The “child” in question is named Oslo, a beautiful, silvery-gray addition to our family in August (see the “Oslo” shrine….er, we mean, photo album to your left). He has just started his third obedience class and is quite the star. In addition, he’ll be in his first dog show next month. Yes, we said “dog show”. And you guys all thought the Weimie owners in “Best in Show” were wacky! Seriously, though, we don’t buy all of our clothes out of J. Crew and L.L. Bean catalogs….
Seth, at 17, continues to make tremendous progress with his electric guitar playing. And it’s important to understand, due to the quality of his sound system, that we’re keenly aware of the progress he’s making on any given evening. In fact, so is the whole neighborhood! This past summer, he worked for his dad in Alaska and with some of his earnings, bought himself a beautiful, cherry red Les Paul guitar. He takes it with him everywhere. He’s also been engaged in Washington state’s “Running Start” program. All high school juniors and seniors are eligible to enroll in any of the state’s community colleges and take classes for both high school and college credit. This quarter he took German 101 and an English class which focused on philosophical readings. He’s been a prolific pontificator at the dinner table ever since.
Michaela, 15, has a social life far more rich and varied than ours (although Oslo and she are running head-to-head in this department); the telephone is rarely available for non-adolescent use. Thank god for cell phones! To Michaela’s credit, even with this effervescent social life, she is maintaining a strong B-average in her first year of high school. She’s also showing a remarkable affinity for photography and has pieced together an impressive portfolio this quarter. While her interest in boys continues to grow, she has a hard time finding lads as tall as she is. Like her mother, she knows the right boy for her will have to be taller than she is (about 5’9″ at this point) when she has heels on. She gets discouraged, but her mother tells her to wait a few years – well, probably more than a few – but they’ll eventually catch up.
Callie is plugging away at the UW, very happy to finally be back in school. So happy in fact, that she’s doing all within her power to finagle a way to stay in school for perhaps a second master’s concurrent with this one, or maybe continue directly into a Ph.D. program somewhere. There is a design doctorate offered at the Illinois Institue of Technology in Chicago…we’ll see. Until then, though, she’s planning on studying in Rome this summer for a month via the UW’s Rome Center and will start Italian lessons this spring. The goal is to have Will and les enfants terribles accompany her to Rome a week early, and then lovingly bid her farewell while she’s sipping an authentic espresso on some Roman piazza, buzzing with the sound of zooming Vespas and the whisper of sultry Italian “Ciaos!”
Our travels of last year included a trip to New York City in May to attend the wedding of one of Callie’s dear friends, Christina, and her betrothed, Leo. It was held at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens and was truly a beautiful, elegant affair. We stayed on in Manhattan for a few days after the festivities and had a great time wandering around Greenwich Village, SOHO, and Central Park. We were also in Baltimore in July to attend Will’s mother’s wedding. It was an incredible testament to the human spirit and extremely encouraging to see two people find love so late in life. Seth and Michaela didn’t join us due to their summer visit with their dad. This year, other than the summer trip abroad, we’ll be heading back east for yet another family wedding, and hopefully a trip to Lake Tahoe somewhere along the way.
As we sit here in front of our glowing Noble fir with our sweet puppy at our feet, we wish all of you a peaceful and happy holiday and a prosperous New Year. We know this might be more difficult given the election results and Karl Rove’s insidious (Callie’s adjective) and cretinous (Will’s adjective) performance, but hey, good luck anyway. It’s only for four more years for sure this time.
With lots of love, good will, patriotic dissent, and progressive thoughts,
Will, Callie, Seth, Michaela, + Oslo
p.s. Seth and Michaela aren’t in the Xmas photo because they’re in Alaska for Christmas. 🙂