A Christmissive (1996)


Just in case you thought we had gone into long-term hibernation or invented a religion or something, neither of those allegations has ever been proven in a court of law and the witnesses have all disappeared anyway.

What we have been doing this year is a bunch of firsts for us.  Jennifer up and quit her job in favor of staying home with the kids.  This was actually right after Christmas last year, and since then she has been doing the home-schooling thing with a vengeance.  Now Andrew is going nuts with math and is nearly reading.  Thanks to the educational CD-ROMs, Andrew is getting thoroughly prepared with the skills needed for a life of videogaming.

By late Spring, Dave was getting restless … while this could hardly be called a first, what was new was finding new professional digs at a start-up.  ILOG, although the third-largest software firm in France, is definitely in start-up mode here.  This is also a first in terms of international experience, as well as an 11-hour commute to the home office...which hopefully will never be exceeded.  After each of the trips, Dave brings the kids Star Wars toys so that they will forgive him for staying home so long.

Things just weren't complicated enough in any of our lives, so we thought it would be a good time to buy a house.  We got hit with a lot of sticker-shock, but we really had outgrown our first house.  So, we bought the "double-wide" in  August, really quite a change (has an actual basement for the labor-atory), although we probably only moved 500 yards as the crow flies.  Our neighbor, M.C. Hammer, went bankrupt with his white-elephant house…a nice place, but we got ours for $6.4 million cheaper.

As soon as the moving trucks pulled away, we realized that we still had a few dollars going to waste in the bank.  Dave cashed in 350,000 United miles (at 500 miles an hour, that's way, way too much time with his butt widening gradually to fill an economy seat) and got the whole family down to Australia for our first vacation in years.  We were lucky to be on one of  those double-decker 747s, so Scooter (not quite 3) took several walks up and down the stairway, while Nipper slept for most of the 14-hour flight.  The kids were really good, though, and probably should start their own mileage-plus accounts (Nipper has traveled nearly 50,000 miles at age 5)

What comes next?   We're not sure.  But we certainly would  love to hear from you if you have any good ideas for us!

Hope to see you in the new year.

{Jennifer refuses to take any responsibility for this letter, even though every word was actually her idea.)