December
22, 1996
The
most significant news of the year is that the winner in the race between Diane
and Robert to see who gets married first has finally been settled.
Robert and Amber Argraves where married July 4th at a wedding held at the
Hollywood school in Woodinville. It
is actually a former school which has been converted to a banquet facility.
It was a very nice wedding topped off with the community fire works
display in a field across the way. (It
was the worst traffic jam I have ever been in leaving a wedding.)
Amber
has a 5 year old daughter Kaleigh so Rob and Kaleigh also exchanged vows
appropriate for a father and daughter union.
Rob then carried Kaleigh as he and Amber proceeded out.
There was not a dry eye in the house.
Our
long time friend and Episcopal priest, Jon Goman officiated.
The
saddest news of the year was the death of Ava's Father, Jerry.
He died this summer in Clearwater Florida.
He had been in somewhat poor health for some years but had only been
hospitalized for a few weeks before his death.
Ava
is back on the city council and is planning on making another bid for Mayor this
November. Ava also has a most
unusual volunteer job. She serves
on the board that certifies US and Canadian schools of Planning.
As such she will make multi day visits to three colleges a year and
attend a couple of committee meetings where reviews from all members are
reviewed and voted on. While there
is no pay, there is an expense account that pales next to any other volunteer
job I have ever seen. So far Ava
has visited Toronto and Des Moines and she has tickets for a trip to Los
Angeles.
My
Boeing career has a switch to it. This
is my second year on the same program (Although by February I will have my third
new work number). Boeing won one of
the two slots to build a demonstrator version of the fighter type airplane that
we hope will be the mainstay of the US Navy, Marines
and Air Force in the twenty first century.
The plane should fly in about five years and would make nice end project
to retire on. It is called JSF or
X32.
Our
home remodeling continues. Rob has finished the upstairs hall and converted one
of the front bedrooms to an office for Ava.
Rob's big remodel project has been the small house in back of ours.
He has put in a new foundation and completely remodeled the bathroom and
kitchen. The house was originally a
couple of outbuildings for the chicken ranch that was here. The original owner converted the two buildings into a cottage
for his daughters to live in when they first got married so he could be certain
that their husbands were really good providers before they moved away.
Two of the daughters did live there after getting married.
The third escaped to Colorado with her husband.
One
of the daughters lived there until her son was nine or ten before they moved
into the house that they built next door. That
little boy is living next door now and has a teenager of his own.
Robert's
big challenge again this year has been to find a good paying job, particularly
as Amber is expecting a little boy any day now.
Joshua Michael is the odds down favorite for the name.
Robert is still hopeful of getting into law enforcement work.
Diane
has switched answering service companies so she now has weekends off and no
night work so that is a good change for her also.
Let
me again pass on our favorite books for the year.
Both Ava and Diane liked "The Shipping News" by E. Annie Proulx. It was the winner of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Diane reports that the latest Ann Rice is not up to the usual standards.
Robert has read no adult books worth recommending but the "Indian in
the Cupboard" series is the
hands down favorite in his household. My
favorite book was "A Man Called Intrepid" by William Stevenson.
It is an account of the British intelligence operations leading up to an
during World War Two. It is particularly enlightening about the work done to get
the US to come in on the side of the English and the work that was done with US
undercover groups at defeating German efforts in the US who were trying to
convince the US to stay neutral while giving secrets to the Nazi's.
History is normally taught in hindsight and it is treated as obvious that
we would be part of the allied effort to defeat the Nazi menace.
It was not at all as obvious at the time.
With any luck, you can pick it up in a used book store. An excellent and
sad book, "Every Knee Shall Bow", chronicles the tragedy at Ruby
Ridge. Another book that Ava and I
particularly enjoyed is "Brother Cadfael's Penance", the latest in the
medieval mystery series by Ellis Peters. It
was more of a novel then her earlier works and one of the best.
Have
a good Christmas and may Christ be with you in the coming year.
PS
Our phone exchange will change from 206 to 425 April 27 with both numbers
working through Nov 16. Our basic
number will stay 392-5797. By the
way, Diane's is 557-4768 and Robert's is 557-8877.
All will get the new prefix along with anyone else you know on the east
side of Seattle or North end. Also
our E:Mail address is frisinger@compuserve.com although the old E:Mail address
still works.
Rev 6/16/02