Siena Ruby!

Welcome to Jake and Dana's online Christmas letter! Thank you for visiting our website. We think of you all often and are glad you're checking in on us, too.

This has been a year of travel for us. We were lucky enough to visit Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons in spring, when new life was emerging all around us. This fall we were able to attend our friends' wedding in Japan. We then stayed with them for two weeks. Jake also went on a couple of work trips to attend conferences. One trip was to San Francisco, and I was able to join him for the weekend, and the other trip was to Las Vegas. I also took the week of for that trip, and we took one day to drive to Zion National Park, which was so gorgeous in the fall with all the leaves turning color!

We have online photo albums for our San Francisco and Yellowstone trips (click on the locations to visit the albums), and were working on our Japan album. We have a lot of photos to sort through! A lot of people have been asking about Japan, so click here for a summary of our trip. Im working frantically on our photo album and it will be posted as it is finished.

Our other highlight this year, much to Jake's excitement, is that we bought a sailboat! We bought it in early summer, having no idea at all how to sail. The man who sold us the boat has given us a few lessons, and with some trial and error, we think we are getting the hang of it. Our boat is a Freedom 21 (twenty-one feet long) and sleeps four, but probably only two comfortably. Just perfect for us! Another bonus is that it can be sailed by one person. This is so I can snuggle up in the cabin while Jake sails in the cold, wet, Washington winter. So far we have mostly taken shorter trips into Olympia or to Hope Island, a nearby state park. We spent many weekends this summer on our boat. Jake has also enjoyed some off-site meetings on the boat, which are much appreciated by his coworkers!

Otherwise our lives are about the same as last year. We both have the same jobs. Jake at the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction as a computer programmer, and I at the blood bank in the lab. Jake's job is going especially well as he works his way up in the world of Information Technology. We still have four cats, and we added another fish tank when one fish outgrew our small tank. Before getting the big fish tank set up we got new carpet and painted our living room. We like it a lot and feel like were making our house our own.

Lately I've been suffering from asthma, trying several kinds of medications to discover what works for me. As soon as that's solved, we're on our way up to Mt. Rainier for some snow shoeing, hopefully in time for my birthday coming up very soon!! We love being out in nature and enjoying the quiet beauty up there, especially in winter. In the meantime, I've taken to knitting. Now Jake and I both have new scarves to wear when we go.

Thank you all for taking the time to look up our Christmas letter online! It's a nice way for us to do it. I cant wait to hear how all of you are doing. We hope you have all had great years, and we wish you another great year to come. Enjoy the magic of the season!