Dear Family and friends,
Every year when the time to write my Christmas letter rolls around, I look through all of my pictures to jog my memory about what has happened during the year. It’s not a very time-efficient way of doing things, because I always end up looking at the pictures and reminiscing for way too long. This year, though, I don’t seem to have taken very many pictures, so I hope I remember all the significant events.
I started out the year with a new job at the Seattle P-I. I’m now the business wire editor, which means I choose and edit the wire service stories that go in the business section. It’s a pretty fun job except when my boss is gone, because then I have to manage the entire section. That means I have to make sure we have something we can use as a centerpiece on the cover, assign reporters to breaking stories, go to all the news meetings, edit all of the business staff’s stories and stay until the section is completely laid out and filled. Oh, and I have to do my usual job while I’m at it. I just went through that last week, so the wounds are still pretty fresh.
I was fortunate to be able to see quite a bit of my family this year. In May I went to Arizona for my niece Makenna’s baptism. She was so cute: She came out of the water laughing because she was so happy to be baptized.
“/blog/slideshows/ipod/slideshow/ipod.html”
At the end of May, my brother John came up to Seattle to spend the summer with me. It was fun to spend time with him and get to know him better as an adult. We took a trip to Victoria, went to Virden for an Ed Payne family reunion, enjoyed the mellow sounds of Pink Martini in Portland (my brother Paul was along for that concert because he came to Seattle for a type conference), went camping at the Hoh rain forest and Rialto Beach, crossed the Capilano suspension bridge in Vancouver, and played tennis almost every day. He also was one of my fans in May when my band, Force Majeure, clobbered the competition in a P-I battle of the bands. I think what won over the crowd was our punked-up version of “Close to You.” Karen Carpenter would not have been proud. A link to the YouTube video is on my blog, mushpots.com.
My parents took their older grandkids rafting in Utah and hiking at Canyon de Chelly for cousins’ camp in July, and Meg and I decided to tag along. That was the biggest trip I took this year, but I hope to visit Paul in England sometime next year.
My grandparents celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary in November, so I took a whirlwind trip to Arizona to party it up with them. We had a really nice family home evening honoring them. One of the highlights was when my very ungrinchy dad showed up as the mean, green guy and scared all of the kids.That’s about it for this year. I’m spending Christmas at my desk at the P-I, but I plan to carve up some sweet powder on New Year’s Day.
I hope the coming year is a good one for all of you. Merry Christmas!
Love,
Maren
0 Response to “Christmas letter”