2016 Christmas Letter

 2016

Dear Friends and Relatives,

Tim had to go work in Japan for a couple of months, so William and I flew over on a 787 to see him.  Okay, so we waited until the only mileage awards flights available were in first class.  I want you to know, if I won the lottery, I would surely want to fly first class all the time.  But, I’d feel guilty about spending that much money on comfort versus giving some village in Africa a clean water system for the same price.

William and I were able to get from Kyushu (the southern island) to Sapporo (the northern island) then back to Tim’s apartment in 24 hours.  The bullet trains were amazing, but the slow overnight train’s floor-style sleeping (there are no seats) was ‘hard’ on me.  William LOVED being able to buy his shower token out of a vending machine, then take it on the train.

William still loves math.  Last year he went to the middle school to take Algebra.  He loved his teacher and was #1 in his class.  My best friend said, “Caroline, his competition was 8^th graders who didn’t want to be there.  It’s nothing to brag about!”  But he did get top score for all 6^th graders in Washington State on the Smarter Balanced math test.  He got a small trophy for that accomplishment.

In summer, we went to France, Luxembourg, Germany, Netherlands, and Belgium.  We stayed with friends in Brugge, Belgium and Nantes, France.  The experience of staying with locals was so rewarding and unique!  Tim loved driving on the autobahn in our BMW touring car.  Getting a parking ticket in Luxembourg was our most expensive ‘souvenir.’

I got something off my bucket list.  I got to experience 3 days of the Tour de France!  We saw the departure from Mont St. Michel, one day at the finish line of a sprint finish (Cavanaugh won by millimeters!), and a mountain climb.  That’s where they are actually going slow enough so you can see them.  Can you find Rowdy in the picture?  I put him in.

We had to stay overnight in our car, hike up a couple miles and wait all day for the late afternoon ride-by.  We took the selfie in the morning, and the guys riding by in the afternoon.  Rowdy's pic was done in December...  But you'll see Peter Sagan still in yellow in this pic!

Tim is always busy in his garage (does that say something about me?).  He not only brews specialty beer, but also builds the equipment to do so.  He worked on an animatronic spider for a Halloween spooky garage, a ‘Vegas-style’ tree topper, and taught William how to tune his own skis.  William has grown tall enough to use those long skis since he’s taller than I am now!