Christmas Greetings

Dear Friends and Family,

I put up some outdoor Christmas lights today so it must be about time to get busy writing our traditional holiday letter. In fact, it’s past time since we’ve already cut a Christmas tree up in the National Forest where there was enough snow to make it feel like the right time of year.

C.J. and I celebrated our first year of dual retirement (Yes, C.J. retired from editing last January!) with more travel – what a surprise. To escape the usually gloomy Northwest skies we traveled to Ecuador in midwinter so we could paraglide from the Andes (well, foothills at least) and along the coastal bluffs. We had a great time haggling at the markets and touring Quito.

Our second foreign travel adventure was in August to Slovenia, the northernmost part of the former Yugoslavia. We joined a group of NW pilots and, with local guides to provide transportation and advice, we flew our paragliders at a dozen sites. The Julian Alps of Slovenia are beautiful, and near the end of our trip we traveled farther afield to the awesome Dolomite Mountains of Italy and Austria for more flying and touristing.

In the USA we traveled to two United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association (USHPA) board meetings, one in Colorado Springs and the other in Chattanooga. For the Colorado one, we turned it into a road trip joining Ginny at the awards banquet where Wally received the Paragliding Instructor of the Year award, then continuing on to visit friends and fly wherever we could in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Florida and on up the Appalachians then across to Indiana and Illinois. We enjoyed visits with C.J.’s mom and her brother Rob, George’s brother Wayne and family, as well as C.J.’s sister Mary and her mostly grown-up sons. In Florida we finally got to attend a Wills Wing Anniversary party at Wallaby Ranch and spend a bit of time with long-time friend Rob Kells who sadly succumbed to cancer several weeks later. C.J. was thrilled to catch up on the many years between kindergarten and the present with one of her earliest best friends, Paula, as we stopped to visit in Asheville. We also got to visit, and sometimes fly or at least hike, with other pilot friends – Claire, Bubba, Luis and their significant others. What a great trip!

Around home we did the usual gardening and yard upkeep but the BIG project was painting the house. We had no idea how big a job it was, but it managed to use up six weeks of good weather as we washed and scraped and sprayed and brushed. It does look much better and hopefully, with two coats, it won’t have to be done again for a long time.

C.J. has been sewing T-shirt quilts and I’ve continued to substitute at my old school occasionally. But mostly we’ve just been enjoying the freedom to putter around at scrapbooking and greeting cards for C.J. and cabinetmaking for me. We still get out and fly when the conditions look good and we’ve spent time in Chelan, at Woodrat and Lakeview attempting small XC challenges.

The financial market situation has us hunkering down now and not planning any big trips for 2009 but, other than that, we’re pretty content. Just the fact that we were able to tromp around the woods, cut a Christmas tree and carry it to the car reminds us that this year we are very grateful for our continuing good health, especially as we sadly mark the passing of Rob Kells and Gene Matthews, friends our age and younger.

That about catches you up with what we’ve been doing in 2008. We wish you a merry Christmas, a happy holiday season, and a healthy, happy and prosperous new year. We hope to hear from you that you are having as good a time as we are.

Love, peace and joy,

C.J. and George