Happy Holidays!

We are sitting here in the Portland area, enjoying family and friends, but the cold has been very interesting We haven’t been in the cold for 4 or 5 years, so it’s been a challenge to keep warm when we had below freezing for almost a week! Things are looking up, just freezing rain or snow for the next day or so, then just plain ol’ rain. We can deal with that.

We have had a great year; we left our winter home in Texas in the middle of March, stayed in other parts of Texas through the month so that I could do some genealogy. We then spent April in Arizona, May in Utah, June in Washington, July in Oregon, and August in Idaho/Montana. Then it was back to Washington and Oregon for the rest of the year! Yes, we will be here until after the first of January 2010. Then we head south to Arizona and finally back to Texas.

We have been keeping busy with my family while here in Portland. Both my mom and dad had a health scare in August, so it was fate that we had already planned on staying until the end of the year. They are doing great considering all the craziness of this summer/fall.

All the kids are doing fine, keeping very busy in their respective jobs. Mark & Sean are still in the Seattle area, Lisa and her family, are still in Idaho and Mike and his family are still in Texas. Jim is still working at Boeing which is good for both of us.

We had a great new adventure this last Halloween week-end; I was a non-voting judge at the Wine Press Northwest magazines Platinum Wine judging. What a great experience, one I would love to have the opportunity to do again. I got to spit out a lot of great wine while Jim got to actually drink his

As crazy as it may sound, we are still enjoying our vagabond lifestyle!

We hope this letter finds you and yours as blessed as we have been. From our home to yours, Merry Christmas and here is wishing you a wonderful New Year.

You can keep track of us "right here" and I am on Facebook & Twitter too! (I know, you just can’t get enough of me/us).

Kim & Jim