First Official Post...the UN-Christmas Letter

Dear friends
This is my official Christmas of 2008 letter. You and I both know that I missed it by a mile, but we won’t tell, will we? Shhhhhhh…..
This year has, as usual, been a mixed bag. We try to forget the crappy things, unless we happened to have learned GREAT LIFE LESSONS from them, so I’m going to hit some of the MOST LOVELY things that happened to the Osbornes this year, in no particular order.
Jeff quit his job at Bioject early in the year. Rat deserting a sinking ship, is what I called it. Their stock (of which we own quite a lot, although as Jeff reminds me, most of it was GIVEN to us) is now worth about 2 cents a share. He started with Tyco Electronics right away and, now that everyone who annoyed him was laid off a few weeks ago, is happy as a clam. Albeit overworked. He went to China for a week to straighten up the factory in Shanghai and contracted a lovely case of giardia (sp?) that made him sick for about 6 weeks. He also spent way too much money on gifts. I think the local vendors saw him coming. “Here comes a big, rich, American. Let’s double the price of everything!”
Sue (me) attended her CCNZ 50th anniversary reunion in April and had the time of her life. She felt like a teenager again and spent the week wearing a silly grin and feeling entirely giddy while hanging out with old friends. And I do mean OLD! She got to chase pukekos at The Lake, picked feijoas almost every morning from Mum’s tree, and ate too many fish and chips and Whittakers’ chocolate bars. Many other happy memories and not enough space to tell. Sue didn’t want to come home. Poor Jeff.

Sue and friends


The pukekos, of course.


While Sue was in NZ, Jeff, Jon, and Charlie went to Washington DC. The boys had an astounding time and even forgave Sue for the fleapit hotel she had reserved for them.

THE BOYS somewhere in Washington D.C.


Charlie fulfilled his goal of joining the Marines in June and spent the next 13 weeks wondering what the heck he had done! He said that after a few days he thought maybe he should’ve gone on a mission. Too late now, my boy! Seriously though, he excelled in boot camp and is now stationed in Camp Pendleton in California. He is an infantry gunner of some sort. We expect he will be deployed to “somewhere” in September. Mom and Dad drove down to his graduation and marveled at the intensity of the whole boot camp experience. Jeff, of course, had been through it in the Coast Guard, but it was slightly HORRIFYING for Sue. He has been home on leave several times since August and we think it gets harder for him to leave each time. He is appreciating home and family like never before. Hooray! And we tend to dote on him just a little, what with his future looking to be kind of dangerous.

Charlie's graduation in San Diego


Jeff attended his high school reunion in September. No, Sue didn’t go with him. Eeeeek! (That’s the sound of her running for the hills.) He was under-impressed but got to spend some quality time with sister Theresa and her family and came home with some LOVELY electronic bug-zappers. Thank you, Rick. Then a few weeks later, some more arrived in the mail. What’s with that?
Jon and Jennie moved to Newberg in August. Jon is taking a well-deserved sabbatical from school in order to earn money and pay off debt. And, I suspect, to de-stress a little. We are loving the chance to get closer to his boys and also develop a closer relationship with Jennie. He was lucky to get a night shift job at Intel right before they did a hiring freeze. The hours are difficult but the pay and benefits are great. Tommy is completely bilingual and it is a kick to hear him switching effortlessly from Spanish to English. Sometimes he makes up his own words, using parts of each language. He doesn’t like to say “with,” so he uses the Spanish “con” instead. As in, “Nana, you come play con me?”
Jeff and Sue acquired (as in bought, for mega-amounts of dollars) a recumbent tandem in the spring. The plan was to ride together so that Sue didn’t get left behind all the time, which is what tends to happen on group bike rides with our maniacal friends. Yes, the same maniacal friends with whom we were climbing the mountain last year! They (Jeff and Sue) had only put in about 100 miles riding practice when they tried the 54-mile-route of the famous Strawberry Ride in June. They had a couple of nasty crashes while attempting to ascend hills and Sue’s ankle got badly wrenched in the process. Thought she’d broken it again, but it was just badly sprained. The bike, apparently, is very tough. They finished the ride but were slightly leery of the darn bike for the rest of the summer. Oh well, 2009 is a NEW YEAR and full of fresh resolutions:
1. Ride the darn bike!
2. Don’t fall off.
Annie had an up-and-down year but is now entrenched in school, (studying for her criminal justice degree), working at the mall, and living in her own apartment. She comes home fairly often to visit, play with her nieces and nephews, and raid the fridge.
Sue had the plate and screws removed from her leg in December. There is now less pain and less grumpiness. Good news indeed.
Bethany keeps very busy with her four kids, who are all totally cute and brilliant. Bethany and Chris have been enjoying their house. Bethany paints and sews up a storm and Chris makes things (we’re not sure exactly what) out of wood. If you want to catch up on Bethany's family, click on "Life's Lessons" in my blog list.
Other lovely things:
Jeff and Jon built raised grow-boxes so that I can grow an awe-inspiring vegetable garden this year. We already planted blueberries and kiwi vines and grape vines. We will be so HEALTHY. We got produce bags from a local farm every week through last summer and I discovered that I LOVE fava and garbanzo beans. Also found out that Jeff has always likes beets but had never bothered to tell me. Who knew?
We had a composite deck built over our UGLY concrete patio. It is BEAUTIFUL.
We painted and wallpapered and re-carpeted and got a new front door and now our house almost looks like new. It makes me HAPPY. Charlie’s room is in a jungle theme and has GIRAFFE and ZEBRA paintings on the walls.
Our garden is full of goldfinches feeding on very expensive nyjer thistle seed. Yes, that word IS spelled correctly.
Jeff is considering my wish to go and volunteer with the orangutans in Indonesia. (“But dear, what about the terrorists?”)
Charlie tells us that he has quit cussing. This makes his Mom VERY HAPPY.
Jonnie bought a tiny yellow poison arrow frog and named him Michaelangelo. Some things never change! He is as gleeful over it as he ever was.
We have been married for 29 years this month. Miracles never cease!
Our kids all like us, I think, and our grandkids adore us. What else could two slightly weary, graying, cuddly (as in “ewe’s not fat, ewe’s cuddly”) people want?

Love and blessings to you all.

Jeff and Sue, who are HOME ALONE, AT LAST!