Another year almost over. Such a busy year, too. And, yes, it is time for that self-indulgent tripe we have come to call a Christmas letter. For what is the true spirit of Christmas? Receiving gifts and LOTS of them. OK. That isn’t it, but it sure seems like it. Well, you know the Christmas Story, so I won’t bore you with details. It was a man far wiser than me who said, “For it is in giving that we receive”. Some Italian named Frank, I believe. As new parents, please forgive us we are too enthusiastic about our daughter, Anna. She is of course a great genius, marvelous athlete, honest politician, graceful dancer, perfect pitch singer and baseball player and any number of things. Too bad she doesn’t know it yet. But she will. I guess the first thing that comes to mind for this year were all of the birthday milestones for Bob’s family. Anna turned 1, his Dad turned 80, his Aunt Lois turned 90, and (ouch!) Bob turned 40. Actually, it was sort of a U-turn, as he plans on turning 39 next year. The highlight of the birthdays, of course, was the double-celebration of Anna’s first and Karen’s 30-something birthdays. On the other side of the ledger, Bob’s Aunt Lois’s time on this earth ticked to an end after a busy, busy life (sub-teaching into her 80s, passing out Bibles in the Ukraine at 89). Although it wasn’t exactly a birthday, Anna was baptized this year. Karen didn’t play the piano at that baptism: she would’ve had to run back and forth between the altar and the choir section. Afterwards a celebration was held next to the church, where all enjoyed a Sundæ bar. We even had Bob’s brother Bill and family make a day trip from Fresno for the occasion! After her maternity leave ended in February, Karen returned to work two days a week. During the two days that Karen worked, we hired a nanny. The first one we interviewed we loved dearly and hired her, but unfortunately, she found a full-time nanny job and gave us her two weeks notice shortly after starting work. We then scrambled to find a replacement and settled on another good one. Of course, we had to do this legally: we didn’t want Karen to lose her eligibility to eventual promotion to Attorney General. And we didn’t want problems for Bob’s clearances. Otherwise he might get debriefed, and let’s face it: you wouldn’t want to see Bob running around without underwear. Four months into working, Karen’s new boss wanted to increase her hours 50% and have her commute to Orange County to help fill the gap with one of their attorneys that was going on Maternity Leave. Karen decided instead to reduce her hours 100% and go for a commute to the room down-the-hall. Yes, Karen took a full-time offer from a job where she is always on call and ---let’s face it--- her boss is a bit of a baby and is very demanding. Full-time mommyhood wears well on Karen. Realistically, it is the best way for us to provide a secure, safe, loving, constant environment for our daughter. We took a big earnings hit which will be in full effect next year without Karen’s GS-50 salary, but that price is well worth doing what is best for our daughter. As it is with anyone who “Gets Religion”, Karen has started to evangelize other mothers about staying home. One of the side benefits of staying at home is that the mother and child are freed from the constraints of a job. They can travel without coordinating with work. For instance, Karen and Anna went to the East Coast to visit her brother recuperating from cancer surgery (thank God the tumor was only a rare, benign cartilage growth). She also got the opportunity to experience teen children as she babysat while her brother Dr. Tom and his wife Debbie celebrated their 25th anniversary with a long overdue vacation. We live in a most excellent neighborhood for Karen to stay at home and for us to raise Anna. There are 3 pregnant women nearby and 2 newborns and 2 babies a year older than Anna. Karen and Anna take walks to the park with friends at least once a week. Anna has become an avid swinger. Karen also has pursued other means to build up her support network. (By the way, email Karen @ the above address if you want to chat). Karen is a member of a small group at St. Lawrence that specializes in mothers with children who are, at least, home on Thursday mornings. And we joined the Christian Family Movement at our church. CFM is a good social group with wonderful people in it. It has a strong social justice component and offers many social activities for families to play together. As we mentioned above, we have an Überkindern (super baby). To properly prepare for her rightful position as ruler of the known world, we have started sending her to two classes a week. One is a “Mommy and Me” class which specializes in exercises, songs, and something called “pig day” involving messy foods and babies stripped to their diapers. Oh, the humanity! The other class is taught by a nurse. Anna can now administer CPR to Karen (I think that is what Karen told me...). Bob dearly loves his daughter. She has wrapped him around his finger. He and Anna sing classic songs together, though with somewhat new verses: the Winos on the bus go Whoa, Man! ... the Taggers on the bus go Etch! Etch! Etch! Bob’s dad is also enamored of his sole granddaughter and shows her picture during every trip to the bank. In fact, Anna has many fans at church that line up after Mass just to hold her! Bob had an interesting year at work also. He had his first contract canceled out from under him in March. This was a stupid move on the Air Force’s part: several months later, they awarded Ray-o-Hac the follow-on contract and then paid for our cost to mothball and un-mothball our work. They actually cost themselves the same amount of money and much progress by the maneuver. Bob then went to work on R&D. The curious nature of R&D is that the money frequently gets sucked up and at various times throughout the year, Bob was encouraged to look for a different project. But he’s managed to hang on until the bitter end. He had hoped to go to work on a project that was originally to be awarded in June. But months stretched. We did win the project in September, but they won’t be ready to take additional staffing until March of 2000. Both Raytheon and the government work in mysterious ways. Bob is actually working for a company 1/3 the size of one he was working for earlier in the year. Did he change companies? No. Did they spin off his division? No. Did the lay people off? Not that many. When our CEO returned from his summer vacation, the stock fell from high 70s to under 20. Ouch. We are passing a petition around work encouraging him to take a longer vacation next time. Or at least notify us before he returns. And speaking of the world of finance, the Investment Club that Bob is a member of doubled their original investment in 4 years without holding any dot•com stocks. Meanwhile, Bob was elected to a position on the board of Parishioner’s Federal Credit Union. This is the seat he was appointed to last year. As a newly poorer family, the Wheelers decided to live off of the land. Bob bought two clay pots and a couple of tomato plants. After all was said and done, it only cost them $4 per tomato, much less than you would pay at Bristol Farms. Y’all remember (this was translated for Karen’s family that lives in the Southeast) when I mentioned CFM earlier? We went to their Halloween Party and Bob and Anna won the prize for best family costume. Anna was a strawberry and Bob was the farmer. They called it “A Good Crop”. A picture will be posted to the family web page by the first of the year. I swear. No sense having only a single picture (and an old one at that)! We did our crazy turn-around for Thanksgiving this year. Thursday we went to the ancestral home of the Karnowski’s, now owned by one Timothy A., for a massive party with nearly 30 guests. By the way, you would not recognize the house anymore from when Karen grew up. Tim did everything but tear out walls during his remodel. Oh wait, he did tear out a wall. Then we drove Friday up the coast to Cayucos for Thanksgiving with the Wheelers. Bob’s clan is much smaller, and there were less than 10 folks there. Also, the walls were intact. One last crazy note: Karen wanted a video camera to record Anna for posteriority. Or potential blackmail with future suitors. To appease Bob into letting her buy it, she bought him a video hookup to the family computer. We can now make videos and ship them to family members over the internet. There are two caveats, though: the files are BIG and the videos are in QuickTime format. The big videos (all of 30 seconds long) often don’t fit in emailboxes. To get QuickTime, you need to download it from Apple’s website. (Yes, you PCers can go there and get it for yourselves: there is an Wintel version). I’ve run out of things to say, except have a blessed, Merry Christmas. Karen wanted to add a few words: The foregoing litany of activities and events don’t begin to describe what the last year meant to me. One year ago, Bob and I were all thumbs with a newborn baby on our hands. Now, we have an amazing little person who hugs us and calls us Mama. (Yes, both of us. She hasn’t quite sorted us out yet.) But it is not just that we got to see a child grow. We grew into a true family as well. I know there is nothing that happened to us that hasn’t happened daily to families all around the world, yet our little family still seems completely miraculous to me. After the miracles surrounding Jesus’ birth, it is recorded that “Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” [Luke 2:19]. May you snatch a little time in this busy season to ponder your own miracles, and may you keep them close to your heart in the coming year. God Bless. Bob and Karen and Anna Wheeler.Color