2012 Holiday Letter
Hard to believe it’s already time for another Holiday letter. How was your year? We love hearing from you! Here’s what we've been up to in 2012:
(In order to make this readable on phones and tablets, I had to reduce the size of the pictures on the left. You can view all of these pictures full size here)
SJ and nephew Drew
Visiting the Sierra Mountains with friends
Sunny morning in Portland
Susan Jane continues to maintain both an active litigation caseload and work with an Eastern Oregon forest restoration collaborative group, the Blue Mountains Forest Partners. In recognition of their progress in a difficult field, the collaborative group received a $25 million grant for restoration efforts for use over the next ten years on the Malheur National Forest. SJ's work with the collaborative has resulted in some unusual alliances: late this summer, she joined forces with a lumber mill in John Day to save it from closing! Working with diverse stakeholders – loggers, ranchers, county government, environmentalists, the Forest Service, and others – is challenging work but also rewarding.
This year, SJ was nominated by the Secretary of Agriculture to serve on a Federal Advisory Committee that will be involved in implementing new laws governing management of our national forests. This committee will work together for the next three years to advise the Forest Service on collaboratively developing science-based plans for federal forest management on more than 193 million acres across the country.
There's always time for naps
Hiking in the John Muir Wilderness
Taking a break during our all day bike ride in Indy
Paul with niece Malia (5) and nephew Drew (3)
For the past several years, Paul has been working to move into software management. This year he started managing a team working on Intel’s AIM Suite. This has been a fun and interesting project and is the first “official” software product that he has released. Paul’s team is based in Arizona, so he continues to travel to Chandler several days every week. During the year, he helped with Intel’s recruiting efforts at Purdue, Arizona State, UCLA, and USC. Paul was also invited to Guadalajara, Mexico early this year to teach a class for several days - it was great to catch up with his colleagues there and see the growth that has been happening on the site (the team Paul started with 6 people in 2008 is now almost 100 people).
Checking on Mom and the scary water monster
Hiking with SJ's parents in April
Paul and our Israeli friend, Nir
Beautiful day at the Indy 500
The latest canine fashion accessory, "Doggles"
It seems like every other weekend at least one of us was away from home. Paul went to CES in Las Vegas. While he got to go to some fun parties, that was probably his last trip to Vegas - it’s too easy to get into trouble
Strix took many trips to Home Depot
. SJ went hiking on the Oregon Coast, in the Northern California Redwoods, the Steens Mountains, and the John Muir Wilderness. Her favorite for this year was John Muir - with lots of big trees and Alpine lakes. Epic views and good friends, paired with some crazy stormy weather, made this excursion one to remember!
We were also able to enjoy several trips together this year, including a weekend in the Sierra Mountains with some friends and the TEDxBend conference. If you have not yet heard of TED, it is truly inspiring and there are events all over the world - definitely check out the website and try to go to one if you can. The Best Man from our wedding invited us to join him at the Indy 500 and it was an awesome experience! It was our 13th wedding anniversary and we spent the whole day before the race bike riding around beautiful downtown Indianapolis - what a blast! Race day was amazing, largely due to the preparation and hospitality of Steve and his wife Tracy - if you know how to do it right, live racing can be surprisingly fun.
At the Oregon coast with our friend Sarah
Strix and his friend, Neptune
Paul has even started watching “Indy Car” on TV!
That's about 200 lbs of dog :)
Strix playing with his girlfriend, Juno
We took a trip to Hawaii in July, staying mostly on Kauai but also hopped over to the “big island” to check out the active volcanoes. You can read about our trip here and view more pictures here. We went back to Chicago to visit with family while Paul’s 89-years-young grandmother was in from Nova Scotia, and got to catch up with SJ’s extended family at a beautiful wedding in Colorado Springs. For Thanksgiving, SJ’s parents came out, and we rented a cozy place on the coast in Rockaway Beach, Oregon. We enjoyed some pretty exciting storm-watching and caught up on some family time.
Always on the lookout for trouble
Strix and SJ reading in the sun
Strix continues to compete for “The Most Spoiled Dog in the Universe”. He spends his days at doggie day care, visiting with his friends on play dates, making new friends at the dog park, playing with his rock in the back yard, and sleeping curled up in his beanbag. It’s a tough life. He’s gone back to boot camp a few times this year, but he enjoys it so much, I wouldn't call “hard time”.
He got to spend some time running around a friend’s tree farm in September and also really enjoyed the trip to the coast in November. (many more adorable videos are available here.)
This was a pretty quiet year for home improvements, as we start to prepare for our backyard redesign next year. We did some minor repairs and upgrades (garage door opener, kitchen floor), but nothing major. Paul did attempt to upgrade us to a “smart home” with new light switches, thermostats, security cameras and so on. He tried several options, had help from friends, and spent many weekends reading confusing instruction manuals - but so far we just have smartphone apps that don’t always work and a box full of expensive light switches that we can’t return.
It seems like every year when I sit down to write these letters, I can’t think of anything we did all year. Looking back, I’m not sure how we fit it all in! We were fortunate to spend time with many friends during the year, and hope to catch up with even more in 2013. You can see all these pictures and many more here.
We send everyone our warmest greetings at this time of year and wish you all a healthy and prosperous New Year!
Love,
Susan Jane and Paul