WE finally had a family get together at my house the Monday following Christmas.  Pete and Jan were able to get here via ParaTransit and Suzie and Shaughn each came with their families in separate vehicles.  Suzie was kind enough to bring a mammoth ice chest full of her famous Christmas "Open-House" dinner oddments so food preparation by the rest of us was not a problem.  Jan brought her great smoked (and in this case, kippered) salmon spread.  No one went hungry as we all did our duty in trying to help Suzie and her family out to not have to eat the oddments for days ad naueum.

Now the bad news.  I gave Travis (Shaughn's oldest — 14) my digicam to take party pictures with and he did a fine job.  But somehow I got confused later and erased 12 out of 22 pictures and I know from getting a quick glimpse of some of them early in the day that there were some good ones.  You don’t know how bad I feel about this but nothing can be done so on with it.  Please note that the photos are unretouched except for some "red-eye" — they are just normal snapshots — flaws and all.  I decided a family grouping like this was best depicted without doctoring or editing.  My attempt at removal of the infamous "red-eye" wasn’t extremely successful but hopefully they will not look like the proverbial white rabbit's pink eyes caught in the headlights sort of thing.  All commentary is here is mine and I've told it like it is so if I've made any mistakes, it's not my fault — it's everyone else's — they should keep me better informed.

Needless to say, Pete was the focal point of this party and we were all so glad he was well enough to make it.  I’m just sorry that he couldn’t enjoy the spotlight as much as he would have in better health.  Much of his spontaneity seems to have gone, though Jan says he’s doing better now than he has in a long time and and, at home, those occasions do occur.  Jan was able to locate an affordable used electric wheelchair that lets them get out more than they had been.  With her bad back and small size she just wasn’t able to push his wheelchair any distance on the level and absolutely no distance at all up hills. Now they can visit Point Defiance Zoo and other outdoor places which they always enjoy.  I remember when I pushed my mom around Point Defiance Zoo — it wasn’t easy and she weighed a lot less than Pete.  They brought the wheelchair here, even though he wouldn’t need it for his visit.  But they had all planned to see ZooLights at the park on the way home and his chair would be invaluable there.  However, his chair was disabled somehow by ParaTransit on their way here so it eliminated the chance of seeing ZooLights.  The rest of the family was looking forward to seeing them too before heading home — but I haven’t heard whether or not they did.

As I think everyone in the family knows, Jan fell down the basement stairs early this year and has been in a brace ever since which has hampered her ability to take care of Pete as well as she would like.  Fortunately she has been able to get some help for him so he’s usually pretty well looked after.  Jan, to everyone's surprise and delight, has gotten into computers and is enjoying the experience immensely.  I get emails and jokes from her every once-in-a while.  And I can send her the same as well as pictures I’ve taken with the digicam.

Jan (and myself in the pink shirt opening my wonderful Christmas presents.)  Most of the presents were from Suzie — she’s very careful to pick out things that a person can really use — in my case some nice pots with all the stuff to go in them including fertilizer and potting soil.  And it’s a brand I’ve been wanting to try as it is what Jan uses and I’ve seen her fantastic luck — Jan’s flowers and veggies are usually the biggest and best around.  Maybe her tomatoes didn’t get ripe this year but I'm sure they were the biggest and healthiest green tomatoes in the neighborhood.  Unfortunately, being in the back brace all of the time and unable to move or lift normally, she can’t try out recipies using all the green tomatoes.  I'm sure she just feels lucky just to get a good meal on the table.

Jim is Suzie’s husband.  They live in Mukilteo with their 2 children, Briana and Brendan.  Unfortunately, I don’t think any pictures of Brendan — and very few of Briana survived my goof.  Briana is about the same age as Shaughn’s Travis while Brendan is almost the same age as Shaughn’s Rochelle.  These two sisters (Pete's daughters) were always extra close!  Having children the same age has worked out well for them.  Jim does something for Boeing but I’ve never known what.  Maybe someday he’ll explain it to me in single syllable words.

Suzie and Jim have a lovely home in Mukilteo they bought new only a few years ago and I believe they’re enjoying it to the hilt.  It has enough ammenities and room to allow everyone their own space for living and activities.  Not only in the house, but in the yard — lots of garden space.  They just wish they had lots of garden time too.   As I said earlier, they were the source of most of our food came for this get-together.

Suzie is an engineer with Boeing.  Earlier in her career there (before children), as she was in customer support and handled buyers from all over the world, she got to do some exciting travelling but with the advent of a family, that has become a no-no.

Not the greatest shot, but when working with leftover pictures after destroying the best, what can I do?  Suzie is in the black and Briana walking out the door.  Briana sent me a "glamour shot" for Christmas last year and frankly I didn’t recognize her — boy how fast the kids grow.  I feel lucky if I get to see them once a year.

With Suzie and Bill, the lady in the white sweater is Shaughn — Suzie's sister.  Shaughn and her husband, Ron, and the kids, live not too far from Suzie near an area called MillCreek.  Shaughn is an attorney with her own office.  She tries to keep her work schedule down so she has time to spend with the family.  Family is of extreme importance to both of these families.  Lots of time spent at little league and other sports.   On the same evening or weekend, often one parent goes to one sport with one child while the other parent goes to another sport with the other.  Maybe they don't attend every game, but it sure sounds like it.  In my opinion the kids are all turning out just great so I feel that whatever the parents are doing — it's the right thing and they should all be given a hearty pat on the back.

Shaughn, Briana, Rochelle and Ron.  Rochelle is Shaughn's youngest and Ron is her oldest (actually he's her husband).  Ron has his own business — I don't know quite what to call it but he's a contractor using back hoes, diggers, trenchers, bulldozers and the like.  I know he can really dish the dirt.  He drove his family here in his pickup. It's the widest, longest, biggest pickup I've ever seen.  Large back seat for the kids.  Dual everything — extended fenders, rear wheels, etc.  From the rear he has more red lights than that famous "red light" district in Amsterdam and the diesel engine makes more noise than my garbage truck.  Solid black and so shiny you could comb your hair in it — at night — in the glow of the red lights.  On the freeway I'm sure there's a lot of guys out there that eat their hearts out when they see it pass.

This is Ron with Rochelle, his youngest.  Here is where I did my famous "red-eye" work on the photograph so if they look like they're on drugs — it's me — not them!

And, this is the end of the pictures. I'm sorry to say that there's no pictures of the two boys — Shaughn's Travis or Suzie's Brendan.  There were a couple of other cameras here and I'm hoping I just might get a picture or two donated from them.  And we all had one other main regret and that is that as this "party" was held on a weekday, Pete's youngest daughter, Alcena, and her husband John couldn't make it.  I'm not sure just what Alcena is doing now — think she works part time doing public relations for an architectural engineering firm.  She worked for them awhile back but as she only wanted to work part time, left them because of the increasingly heavy work load but, I think the last word I had was that they hired more help and worked it out so she could work part-time again.  She has worked hard several years writing a novel but I think the last I heard, is taking a breather.  John has been with Microsoft for several years now ever since he graduated from college.  He's another family member whose job and responsibilities change and grow with time and I haven't got the slightest what he's doing there now.  We were all so hoping they could come so we could catch up on all these things.

If things come to mind that I forgot to say or pictures or comments come my way from the attendees, I will update this page and include them so come back every once-in-a-while and check it out.  Maybe we'll get some pictures of the two handsome young men in the family that got slighted here by my handylessness work.

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