Holiday Greetings from Brian and Dee!

Dear Friends and Family,

As I start to write this I'm looking out over the calm but chilly blue waters of the South Sound, where seagulls are flying in the distance and across Henderson Inlet the seals are baying on the docks and the bats of Woodard Bay, the largest maternal colony in Washington state, are preparing to leave their home under the abandoned railroad trestles for their nightly forage for insects. The snow-capped Olympics are peeking over us to the west. Dee is cooking something chocolatey in her sister's kitchen while the music of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings is blaring out of the sound box on nearby wall. Dee's next job is to engage in some frenetic gift wrapping, a job I am not very qualified to help with due to my very low skill level in that area.

This year has been a busy and challenging one for our family, with many transitions and the kinds of various life responsibilities that face us all in different ways. And it just seemed to fly by!

The retirement of Brad Owen, Washington's 15th lieutenant governor, left Brian scrambling for a new job in January after more than 11 years with the office. He shuffled over to WaTech, the state's technology support agency, where he continues to do communications work while pining for retirement from state service. Dee also separated from her longtime employer, World Vision, in June. Her break in employment made her available to assist her dad and step-mom in Olympia at a time when they really needed an extra hand, so it worked out well in that regard. She started in late November as executive assistant to the CEO of a fast-growing opioid addiction treatment center in Lakewood and is enjoying the position and her new co-workers so far. The company is serving a major need in the area and their expansion to more clinics is expected to continue in 2018 and beyond.

Our son Kyle also landed his first big post-college job. He started with corporate T-Mobile in March, working in something called their business transformation unit where he is putting his WWU degrees in math and economics to work!

He just received his first big promotion there and enjoys the fast-paced work and his colleagues.

Thomas, meanwhile, continues with Target and received a big boost in responsibility this year with his promotion to a managerial position at the company's Factoria store, but still working the crazy hours demanded by big retail. We welcomed him back home in Federal Way for a few months over the summer as he transitioned between living situations, but he found a new roommate and home in September in Renton, much closer to his work.

Daughter Hillary continues her daily commute from Auburn to Issaquah for her corporate job with Costco, where she works as a leave benefits administrator within their HR department. She stays busy there as well and was on a big presentation panel at a major national conference for her field in Los Angeles and gave other smaller presentations - she's kind of a natural and somewhat fearless public speaker. Hillary is also busy raising two little ones at home and continues to drive late shifts for Uber on some weekend evenings. Her boyfriend Rick is working incredibly long and strenuous hours at a company that does corporate event rentals and set-ups for special events. He also made his way up a couple of rungs on the promotional ladder this year. None of our three are yet married but all three have "significant others" so we are

looking forward to good things in 2018.
We truly enjoy being grandparents to Laela and Keira, although the busi-ness in all of our lives has kept us from fulfilling those duties as much as we would like. Lots of fun day adventures and get-togethers with them though through the course of the year. Rick's older girl, Pandora, went to live with her mother full-time this year so our interactions with her have been sparse.

Clearly, all three of our young adult children continue to be sources of great pride for Dee and I.

Brian continues to be embroiled in our ongoing flood control situation at our family property on Camano Island, sort of a part-time job by itself.

He organized a couple of community meetings, one with just the neighbors and one with some county officials and has made many trips with his brothers and dad to the island to make updates and repairs to the temporary apparatus we have installed to pump water from the community ditch that runs across our property to our beach. Hopefully 2018 will bring a long-term solution for that issue, but currently none is in sight. We think the county should step up to a county's traditional responsibilities to handle public drainage issues, but they don't quite see it that way so there we are! Meantime the ancient beach outfall for the water remains busted, so if we stopped the electric pump planted in our ditch the whole area would flood as it did a year ago.

On top of that, Brian is now a year into his duties as board president for the Hands for Peacemaking Foundation which is based in Everett but has a manufacturing facility and staff in northwestern Guatemala, where teams from the U.S. and foundation staff install wood stoves, water systems and schools in remote Mayan villages.

The organization is going through much transition now and the needs are huge so that is another area of heavy commitment of time and personal resources. Brian is also again organizing a Guatemala mission team through Marine View Presbyterian Church in Tacoma, where Dee and Brian attend, for mid-April. Dee, in the meantime, started taking night classes in project management in the fall through Green River College and is enjoying the topic so much that she plans to continue to the next level next quarter.

When Dee wasn't traveling to Olympia and Brian to Olympia and Camano Island, we managed some travels on our own. In February we returned to McCall, Idaho for our annual ski trip with family and friends, always a great time. Brian, Kyle and two of Kyle's friends also escaped to Mission Ridge near Wenatchee for a few days for some great skiing there.

Our big summer trip was to the Broughton Island chain in the Queen Charlotte Strait area of British Columbia to the northeast of Vancouver Island. We were guests our friends Steve and Brenda, who have a floating home on Shawl Bay. It is a beautiful, remote setting and we enjoyed several days of salmon fishing,

crabbing, shrimping, whale watching and just hanging out. In late October/early November we took a sun break to Puerto Vallarta, where we enjoyed a week of sun, ocean, fishing and sightseeing as neither of us had been there before.

Brian's parents, Ann and Marty, tried moving into an assisted living center in Burien for a few months this year only found the situation wasn't quite to their liking so moved back to their home in West Seattle in June. They now have a wonderful part-time assistant who comes twice a day to help Ann with getting up and down and helps my dad with some of the day-to-day chores too. Otherwise Marty serves as the full-time caregiver for Ann, who has had a few scares and hospitalizations this year while dealing with her various infirmities. Their five sons are on continual standby to assist when needed and try to split things up as much as possible - thank God we all live reasonably close.

Dee's dad, Gregg and step-mom Joyce continue to enjoy their independent lifestyle at their home on Henderson Inlet near Olympia but have also befell the various rigors of aging so Dee (and one of her sisters) have spent most weekends and many weekdays too helping on the home front there. (The third sister lives further to the north but also ventured down a few times when she was able).   

Another highlight of Brian's year was road cycling, which enabled him to spend more time with son Kyle, who also took up the sport in a serious way, along with brother John. We did many long training rides together. Brian and John rode the Flying Wheels century ride and the Seattle to Portland (STP) rides organized by the Cascade Bicycle Club. Kyle also rode the STP, but unlike his dad and uncle who did it in two days he rode the whole 206 miles in one, and in a very good time! Of course he has the advantage of youth!

We also made a few boating trips to the San Juan Islands. Brian, Kyle and Kyle's girlfriend Kylie took advantage of the accidental release of Atlantic salmon

off Cypress Island and harvested a few to help with the cause. Brian also ventured to central Oregon with friends Dan and Matt one weekend to try their hands at fly fishing for trout on the mighty

Deschutes River. Unfortunately, the fish weren't biting but a good time was had by all.

So that's about it from our quarters. Our apologies for not being as available as we'd like to get together with our friends and extended family, but please know that you all our continually in our minds and hearts. Brian spends way too much time on Facebook and other social media, which isn't quite the same as personal interaction but at least a way to stay in touch. Dee pretty much stays off social media, although did become more familiar with LinkedIn during her job search months.

We hope your holiday season is a very joyous one, no matter your faith or family traditions.  May God be with you in 2018 and please call, write, text, IM, whatever anytime! We thank those of you who sent traditional paper cards to us this year - unfortunately this is our own "replacement" for that wonderful tradition.

With great fondness,

Brian and Dee