Christmas 2018
Normally this is a dreaded time of year when I have to sit down and write a Christmas letter. This year is no exception, with the exceptional exception that I actually have some things to write about. It was quite a busy year for us, with a fun adventure practically every month. So let's just start at the beginning, shall we?
In January we, uh, we. That is to say, I, uh … Look, let's skip ahead to April.
The beginning of April was the quadrennial high school music trip. This year they were headed to Disneyland to do a little performance in the park, have a workshop led by one of the Disney musicians, and have a couple days of fun. Since Calvin and Felix were both going, Connie and I thought it would be a great idea to go along as chaperones. Which was fine until everything went wrong the very first day. A late snow storm closed the interstate between us and Seattle, so after an all-night bus ride that included a lengthy detour we arrived at SeaTac just after our plane left. Well, more like 2 hours after. Anyway, we ended up putzing around in the airport for about 13 more hours on zero sleep questioning our life choices. We did end up making it to SoCal at about midnight after already being awake for over 40 hours. But after the rough start, we all ended up having a great time, and chaperoning the kids turned out to be an easy job. Connie and I really like Disneyland, so it was fun to hang out there without schlepping around little kids. Part of my chaperone duties required me to stay at Disneyland until midnight to meet the last group of students and walk them back to the hotel. It was a tough job, but someone had to do it. I didn't get a lot of sleep that week, but we had a great time.
About 5 days after we got home, Connie and I turned around and headed to Germany for a long awaited, two-week trip with the rest of my siblings, their spouses, and my folks. Connie had been saving up for about four years, so we were hoping to make the best of it. And we did. We caught our flight in Seattle – this time there was no snow storm to make us miss our flight, but we drove over the night before just to make sure. We had a terrific time touring some of the areas that my family lived in and near during my dad's sabbaticals and regions where some of my ancestors were from. The food was fantastic. And driving auf der Autobahn? Awesome. I definitely had the Fahrvergnügen. In the interest of keeping this letter short, you can read all about that trip in a different document. It's like 35 pages, but half of that is pictures. What about the kids, you ask? We can't just leave them for two weeks during the school year, right? Yes, we can and we did. We counted 5 when we left and 5 when we got back. We assume they were the same 5 – we were too tired to care.
It took us a bit of time to recover from those trips. We missed a lot of regularly-scheduled sleep in April. So May was low-key. Connie and the kids took a short trip to Utah for a family reunion at the end of May. She didn't tell me much about it, so I guess there wasn't much to tell. Moving on...
In June we hit a milestone with Calvin's high school graduation. It was touch-and-go for a while whether or not he would actually graduate. He never did catch on to the whole “homework” thing. But somehow he got his act together and made it through. After all, you can't spell GRADUATED without a couple of D's. He also had his first real job this year at Dairy Queen. He spent a significant fraction of his earnings on ice cream. “Son, you're not making much money if you're giving half of it back to them.” “But we get an employee discount.” You just can't argue with that kind of logic.
In July was a short family vacation to southern Oregon and Northern California. We spent the 4th of July in Nowheresville, Oregon and hung out for some down-home, small-town, country-livin' fireworks. The motel there was kind of shady (it's not like we had a lot of choices), but none of us caught anything. The next couple days we went down to check out the Redwoods and hang out at the beach. On the way home we stopped at Crater Lake for the first time. It was exactly as advertised – a lake in a crater. There, I saved you a trip.
In late July, Connie went to Boy Scout Camp for a whole week. She had to get a special waiver to go because she's not a boy or a scout. But Quincy was going and he still sort of needs to be watched most of the time – he has a tendency to make poor choices when left to his own devices. I mean, to be fair, they don't seem poor to him. Like having all-you-can-eat smores. Actually, he did do that. (You had one job, Connie!) Anyway, he played foosball a lot while Connie earned the leatherwork and basketweaving merit badges. Why didn't Rick go with Quincy, I can hear you ask? Well ...
In late July and early August, Felix and I took a trip to Washington, D.C. I went for business, Felix for pleasure. But I had plenty of spare time to hang out with him while we checked out the national museums, national monuments, and National Mall. It was my first trip there since I was about Felix's age, so it was neat to see a lot of the old sights and some of the newer ones. The WWII Memorial was fantastic and quite sobering.
In September, Connie and I fulfilled a long-time dream of ours by taking Calvin to college. BYU-Idaho had an opening, so we grabbed it before they changed their mind. He seems to enjoy the sovereignty that being a college student affords, and we enjoy not having to tell him to do his chores. On the way
home, Connie and I stopped at Craters of the Moon in Idaho. It's basically a large lava field and it's quite cool, literally and figuratively. Now we can cross the “crater” parks of the pacific northwest off of our bucket list. I'll do that just as soon as I add them.
That brings us to today. Calvin turned 18 this year and is currently at BYU-Idaho. No major yet, but he's looking forward to a church mission this coming summer. Felix is a sophomore in high school, and he plays the tenors in the marching band drum line, which fulfills one of his major goals. He's also doing well in his classes. He had straight A's as a freshman, and, also as a freshman, he took (and passed) the AP calculus exam, so he's still showing off. Let's be honest, nobody likes him. Quincy started middle school and thinks it's great to be in the band. We figured he could play percussion and not have to worry about screwing up too much or breaking anything. We can dream, right? Leon is in fifth grade and started playing the viola. Sort of. He doesn't practice much, and I don't encourage him to. He also plays baseball and does quite well at that. Dorothy is in second grade and is probably more precocious than any of her siblings were at that age. The teacher gives her advanced spelling words that Connie has to help her with becuse I can't spel. Does “potatos” have an e? I can never remember.
Connie and I are doing well. Nothing major, new, or particularly interesting going on for either of us, which we are grateful for. Work keeps me busy and out of trouble. I had to do some travel this year that included such exciting destinations as Las Vegas, Dallas, Charlotte, and Atlanta. Lucky me. But I did get to spend several days in June at a meeting in a beach-side hotel in Clearwater, FL. I was sure to tell Connie about how nice it was. I sent her lots of pictures, too. Connie is still subbing and sewing, saving her money for the next great adventure. I asked her if that adventure included buying me a new car. She didn't answer; I guess she's thinking about it.
Merry Christmas,
The Jacob Family