Collector’s Edition: 
First Edition of the New Millennium

Merry Christmas Everyone! I hope your year has been great!

This year started out with celebrating a new millennium. We decided, since this would be the only millennium we would celebrate in our lives on earth, that we would take 2 nights to celebrate. First, a New Year’s Eve Eve Party in Santa Cruz with the Joe Sharino Band performing (a Bay area band Carolyn used to go see when she was in high school). Then back to our house for a New Year’s Eve party with friends and neighbors in our courtyard. 

We then started thinking about a new addition to our family. But first we had to deal with the first addition becoming a teenager. Yes, Josh turned 13 in January! He turned 13 and by the next day he already had that “teenager attitude” and everything else that goes with that.

With that out of the way, we turned our attention back to the addition. This was becoming a tough decision and by Valentine’s weekend we decided to take a break and go up towards Tahoe to play in the snow and visit Michelle and Jim (Bruce’s sister and bro-in-law). That was a nice time to get away.

Back to reality and the new addition plans. Finally, everything was decided and settled; and on February 28th we brought home our 8 week old, adopted puppy. We named her Jenny. She is a Border Collie mix (most likely German Shepherd from the looks of her now). She has a little of each of us in her too. Goofy like Bruce, sweet like Carolyn, and spastic like Taz (oops, I mean Josh).

If those changes weren’t enough, there were more to come. Carolyn, left her job at Nortel Networks in February (before they laid her off), took a short vacation to Las Vegas with her friend Kim, and started work at Lucent in March. While getting some good experience on a new account’s payable system, this just was not a very nice place to work. So… she jumped at a new opportunity when it fell in her lap. She got an offer that she couldn’t refuse from a company called Turnstone Systems. She started there in August, after our vacation, and has really enjoyed it. 

I mentioned we took a vacation. 10 days in Hawaii. This was Bruce and Josh’s first time, so we spent 5 days on Oahu doing the touristy things. Sight seeing, shopping, taking pictures, playing on the beach, and eating a lot of crab and shrimp. We then headed over to Maui for another 5 days of pretty much the same thing. We also went snorkeling (another 1st for Josh) and got to see some sea turtles. We all had a lot of fun, even the teenager.

After we got back from vacation, Bruce decided it was time for him to check out a new job opportunity that presented itself to him. In September, he accepted a position at Cisco Systems as a Software Test Engineer. The neat thing is, that he gets to work with his good friend and best man, Rob. And yes, they do get work done.

Another change, Carolyn entered another decade. She celebrated her 40th birthday. We had a bar-b-cue at our house with friends and family there to help support her during this time. She also received a number of old-age aids, some of which have already been put to use by Carolyn and/or Bruce.

Another change for Josh! Besides the pimples, voice change, and who knows what else, he had to get braces. First,  some appliances in his mouth to spread his top teeth apart and align his lower jaw. He got through that ok and now has braces for the next couple of years. ‘

In between all this, we’ve kept ourselves busy. We’ve been serving as secretary/treasurer for our Sunday school class this year, we played in a volleyball league for one of Carolyn’s jobs, and we did some more work on the house and garden. Bruce also went back to choir this fall and spent a busy week from 12/12 through 12/17 with practice and singing in 3 programs for Christmas.

Josh also was on the JV soccer team at school last spring. We were glad to see him get out a try out for the team. He also took a trip to Arizona with his school class last May (partly fun and partly educational). He had his first job in the summer, walking a neighbor’s dog for an hour a day. Not much but it gave him a little spending money and hopefully taught him a little responsibility.

As we come to the end of the year, Bruce and Carolyn are both in jobs they enjoy and Josh is trying to get through his last year of middle school. We’re getting ready for Christmas, Bruce put up 3000 lights on the house, 1000 lights on the Christmas tree, and we got the decorations all over downstairs. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Even Jenny is excited. She knows something is up and always knows when we bring a gift home for her.

It’s been a great year. A year of changes, but a year spent with family and friends. We’ve celebrated good times with you, and walked through some tough times with some of you. We feel blessed to be a part of your life and to be your friends. We wish, for all of you, that you would receive all the blessings that God would have for you in the coming year.

          Bruce, Carolyn, and Josh (and Jenny too)