A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FROM THE FRISINGERS
December
16, 1995
The
most significant news of the year for us is the death of my mother, Elizabeth.
She died at home at her condo in Lauderdale by-the-Sea.
She had been in quite poor health for the last few years.
We also sold the cottage on North Lake so contacts with my youth are
drying up fast.
An
interesting side event that was an outgrowth of the above is that my siblings
and I decided to give mother's car to Diane in appreciation of the year she
spent taking care of mother. Consequently
Ava and Diane spent almost two weeks driving from Florida back to Seattle.
Some major highlights were visiting New Orleans (and seeing Ann Rice's
House), New Mexico, including watching two wheels come off the truck that was
just ahead of them on the freeway and getting caught in the big traffic jam on
I-5 in northern California which shut the freeway, down for the better part of a
day. They were cutting it close for
Thanksgiving as it was. Ava and
Diane rolled into Issaquah about 6:30 Thanksgiving evening. It was a wonderful experience for them both.
In
the race to see who gets married first (or may be to see who can stay single the
longest), Robert is now closer to the altar than Diane.
Robert and Amber are planning to get married Friday April 5.
They are tentatively planning a small wedding that will be held at our
house. I would not buy any
plane tickets yet but it will probably come off approximately as planned. Dan and Diane are still serious, but no date has been
set.
Ava
is getting back into politics. She
was elected to the city council this November by a 68% margin.
She will probably make another run at the Mayor's spot in two years.
Ava was working on two campaigns simultaneously.
In addition to her own campaign, she was co-manger of a bond issue
campaign to build a new police station. That
campaign also won by a 68% margin. Most
attribute the strong showing to Ava's campaign skill.
The police bond campaign was also a good opportunity for Ava to get
better acquainted with people who could prove helpful in her next run for mayor.
I
am still being kept busy at Boeing but if you have been keeping track, you know
I have been working on a new program every year.
This year is no exception. This
year's job is working on a proposal to build a new attack type aircraft which
would be a replacement for the Navy's A6 Intruder airplane, the Marine's Harrier
and some older Air Force airplanes.
Our
home remodeling continues. Robert has finished the upstairs bathroom which looks
wonderful. It is hard to imagine it
was not there since the time the house was built.
It even uses wainscoting that was part of the original house and has been
hidden under a false ceiling for many years.
Robert's
big challenge this year has been to find a good paying job.
It turns out that his Bachelor's in History is less than an optimum
springboard to riches. He worked
for about six months as a framer. He
is now working the night shift for Eagle Hardware.
His most interesting future job prospect is as a police officer with the
Mercer Island Police Department. He
already knows that he is in the top 25% of the candidates.
Let
me again pass on our favorite books for the year.
Ava's favorite was “Snow Falling on Cedars” by Guterson.
It is a book set in the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound about a murder
trial of a commercial fisherman. Robert
and Amber’s favorite was "Failure to Appear", a J. A. Jance mystery.
Diane liked "Memnoch the Devil" by Ann Rice.
It is the end of her Vampire story.
series. Dan's favorites were
the Carl Hiassen comedy mysteries set in Florida.
My favorite book was "Tilting the Balance" by Harry Turtledove.
It is the second book in what will probably turn out to be a trilogy
which is a science fictionalized account of World War II.
It is in a similar vein to his earlier book about the Civil war,
"Guns of the South" which is even better.
Have
a good Christmas and may Christ be with you in the coming year.
Rev 6/16/02