Holiday Letter 2011

Making predictions is for the year is always a challenge. The extended trip to London we were planning on taking this year didn’t work out. Turns out, we had plenty of other things going on to keep us busy. First and foremost, as should be obvious from the card, we have a new addition to the family. Since Moira was 1.5 weeks early, and the second child is generally earlier than the first, we fully expected him in November. Having him take his own sweet time arriving in December was quite a surprise. Everyone seems to be taking it in stride now, although it has made things a bit more complicated for Walker’s new manager. We did have our share of tacos this past year; we won a charity auction, which got us a taco truck to cater Moira’s birthday party. She now has a pretty good bar to aim for if she doesn’t want her coolness to have peaked at age three.

The reason for skipping the trip to London wasn’t Davis, but Walker’s move into management. With the new role with a new team in a new office, it no longer made sense to spend a large chunk of time helping out with a different office. Moira will have to wait to see the ancestral home of Winnie the Pooh.

Travel as a family this year was limited to one trip to Vancouver and one trip to Tucson. Shannon also got a long weekend in Boston while Walker took a few trips to Mountain View for work. We’re hoping 2012 will see a bit more. It looks promising so far, as Davis seems very happy to ride around in the car. Well, Shannon’s car. He hasn’t met mine yet, although his car seat will fit.

Moira loves being a big sister. Her favorite part so far has been the diaper changes, where she drops whatever she was doing and rushes over to pull out a new diaper. Some day, she’ll learn the reality of diaper changes, but for now, it’s good someone is showing enthusiasm. She also likes holding the baby and showing off for him, but is a bit disappointed he didn’t arrive ready to play with her. She has a knack for finding girls 2-3 years older than she is and making them play with her, so we’ll just have to continue to rely on the community to keep her amused for now.

Beyond sisterhood, Moira continues to enjoy arts and crafts, gymnastics, reading, playing with her extended doll family including a husband and several children, making grocery lists, and especially skiing. She’s still on the bunny slopes for now, making a couple turns over the course of the run. She has to make four turns and be able to stop before we go up on the list. We’re hopeful that will happen this season. We’re also hopeful that the grandparents will let us wait for two years before we’re taking Davis up to the slopes. At that point, he should be able to use Moira’s current “Princess” skis. If that winds up in a book about traumatic childhood experiences, you heard it here first.

In addition to increasing the size of our family by 33% this year, Shannon continued with her quilting group, helped with Norwescon organization, kept up with Moira’s busy schedule of activities, and helped start a pre-school co-op with some of Moira’s closest friends.

Outside of work, Walker’s main extracurricular activity has been autocrossing. Last year, he got 3rd in class individually and his team came in second (both because he wasn’t able to make it to the final event). This year saw improvement to first in both categories (although his contributions dwindled a bit after clinching the individual title. He’s very grateful to his teammates for not kicking him to the curb for slacking off at the end.

Wishing you a happy and healthy 2012,

Walker, Shannon, Moira & Davis

Holiday 2010

For us, 2010 was busier than 2009, and we expect that trend will continue. We've started traveling more with Moira, which included family trips to Arizona for our Walker's aunt Sharon's 60th birthday celebration, a trip to New York to see Emily's graduation showcase, road trips to Portland and Vancouver, attending Walker's brother AJ's wedding to Tricia in Michigan, and Thanksgiving in LA with Sharon, her daughter Emily, Walker's brother Aaron and his wife Aubrey, as well as Moira's first trip to Disneyland with Walker's father Steve.

Road trips? With a toddler? What could they possibly be thinking? Walker got a new Porsche 911 Turbo, and needed to get through the break-in period before the autocross schedule for the year started. It's yellow, and has room for a toddler saying "Whee!" and "Faster, Daddy!" in the back seat. Two thousand miles in two and a half weeks when you're also working and raising a child is a bit of a challenge, especially when there's traffic during much of your free time. When traffic cleared, though, the car was happy to give hints of how ridiculously fast it was going to be. It was the perfect vehicle for helping Walker through his 40th birthday this year.

In addition to back seat driving, Moira has taken to writing and drawing, picking out her clothes for the day, swimming, going to the potty (and especially flushing), telling stories to herself (that we are not supposed to interrupt or listen to), practicing her gymnastics (which she often calls "ballet"), and most recently, skiing. Meanwhile, her parents have taken to getting what rest they can when they can, and figuring out ways of tiring her out. She currently loves to scrub dishes, which will be helpful with the upcoming holidays.

Last year, as usual, we traveled to Vancouver for Halloween. We were minutes from going out for trick-or-treating when Moira was upset by one of her fellow trick-or-treater's mask. This year, we had a dry run at Google. After a slow start, she really got into it, running from desk to desk, saying "Trick or Treat" and "Happy Halloween". She repeated this performance in Vancouver, filling her pumpkin to the brim. Next year, she's either carrying her own bag, or learning about service fees and the value of chocolate.

This year also saw the passing of Shannon's Nana. We all miss her, but were happy she got to know her great granddaughter and her newly born great grandson before her passing.

When she wasn't running after Moira, Shannon did lots of sewing, including a quilt she has been working on for over 15 years. She also started volunteering with a new parenting organization, continued to volunteer with Norwescon, hosted a number of popular "messy art" playdates for Moira's friends, and expanded her canning repertoire to include tomato sauce, ketchup and salsa.  We now know what to do if we find ourselves with dozens of green tomatoes.

We'll again be hosting back-to-back family Christmas gatherings, although this year we'll have help from Steve and Liz (assuming they don't change their plans after reading this). After that, we're hoping for a couple months calm before the insanity starts up again.

Wishing you a happy and healthy 2011,

Walker, Shannon & Moira

Coming next episode: Tacos and Moira's Adventures in London!

Holiday 2009

We've had a great 2009, with less travel, no moving, and lots of changes from Moira.  We finished 2008 with the largest snowstorm in decades, which meant Walker got to shovel snow for the first time in a couple decades.  After the snow thawed and life returned to normal, Walker traveled to London on business... into their biggest snowstorm in decades.  We're told this year will be warmer and drier, and we're really hoping that's accurate.

Moira has progressed from scooting around the floor through simple playground equipment to climbing ladders unassisted.  Coincidentally, her parents have been experiencing somewhat elevated blood pressure levels.  We're looking forward to next year's new hobbies of downhill skiing and skydiving.  Her favorite pastimes are demanding encores from her mother and asking to go to the animal penitentiary.  We're not sure whether or not she can read the normal word for that, but we're not willing to take the chance.  It's a tossup over whether she's more interested in that or experimenting with pendulum motion at one of several local parks.  Yes, she knows that word too.  Everyone stresses how important it is to read to your child, but they never tell you about the consequences.

With Google's recent opening of a new campus in Kirkland, Stewie can now go to work with Walker again.  He tries to get at the ankles of Walker's officemates, checks under their desks for food that the other dogs in the office may have missed, and growls at people walking by outside along with anyone coming in with a question or with more work for us.  All in all, valuable contributions to the working environment.  The move has also added an extra hill to the commute and reduced the amount of biking to work.  Combine that with the electric motor added what has been referred to as "the worst bike ever" by a local bike mechanic and the soda fountain that's part of the cafe at the new campus, and a new relaxed fit wardrobe may be needed next year.

Shannon has been happily participating in a local quilting group for the past year, which has helped keep her motivated to make things, even with the distractions toddlers provide.  She is looking forward to the coming year when Moira will be able to help out with the crafting.  Shannon has a blog where she talks about the things she makes and Moira's adventures at http://www.maydela.blogspot.com.

Thanksgiving saw our first big trip with Moira in over a year.  We visited a number of friends in LA before driving from Lancaster to Tucson with Walker's brother Aaron and his wife Aubrey.  We'll see if they fall for an offer like that again in the future.  By the way, don't ever stop in Desert Center.  Moira got to see animals in captivity in other places, as well as the La Brea tar pits. 

Our marriage has survived our first significant home improvement project, and we now have a bathroom on the lower floor of the house, as well as insulation under the kitchen floor, which should help keep dinner warm a bit longer during the winter.  Next on the list: hosting back to back Christmas dinners, then taking a year off from remodeling work on the house.

Wishing you a happy and safe 2010,

Shannon, Walker & Moira