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CHRISTMAS 2006

May you celebrate this beautiful season with love in your home,
joy in your world and peace in your heart!
We reflect on another year that continues to bless us with the gifts of family and friends.
For all of you, we treasure your presence in our lives, past, present and future.



A theme that continued to repeat itself this past year was "We must be getting older"!  Its an ugly admission, but the evidence can't be denied.  See for yourself.

RETIREMENT OR JUST A CAREER CHANGE?
You think you are getting older when you start planning your retirement. For the last couple of years, Rich has been fine tuning "the retirement spreadsheet" that models how much money he needed to take the big step.  Susan retired 8 years ago. 

Rich has been envisioning more of a career redirection that allows more recreational time than an actual retirement.  He likes to say that he has been preparing for a new career in financial planning for 24 years. He has been devoting an hour each day to reading the Wall Street Journal (surely some wisdom has penetrated his gray matter), and then tried implementing what he read.  Then, two years ago, Rich started taking night classes to earn a Financial Planner certification.  He has also enrolled several clients.  This summer he finished his last class, and was ready to begin expanding his existing business.

You know you've reached a new level of "older" when you actually do retire - that's what happened this year.   With Rich turning 55, he took an early retirement from Boeing in July.  He had been there almost 27 years, working in many roles ranging from technical engineering, software engineering, people management and project management.  His intent was to transition into running an independent, part time financial planning practice.  And to also create more free time to do kayaking, hiking and bicycling with Susan, and other long postponed recreation.

It didn't work out that way.  Rich took it upon himself to create his own post-retirement "to do in 2006" list.  First on the list was topping some trees that encroached upon our view of Lake Washington.  That took 3 weeks.  Needed maintenance on our rental properties took over a month.  Then we started to paint the outside of our house on the west side.  It took 3 weeks of scraping, power washing and painting just to complete the top two stories. Susan nearly had a heart attack watching Rich walk on the tile roof, 3 floors above ground level.  She has decided the rest of the house will be painted by professionals!  Before his list was 3/4 complete, winter rains had started and we had done less kayaking, hiking and bicycling than in past years.  Expansion of his business also has slid until 2007.  We were left wondering; does getting older mean you have less time for fun?

May you celebrate this beautiful season with love in your home, joy in your world and peace in your heart! We reflect on another year that continues to bless us with the gifts of family and friends.  For all of you, we treasure your presence in our lives, past, present and future.



WEDDING CRASHERS
We know we are getting older when most of the parties we attend are family weddings.  Yes, we now find that we are looking to our nieces and nephews to sponsor that next big party.   Fortunately for us, both sides of our family sponsor-ed their first "next generation" wedding this year.

In early January, Rich's oldest niece, Jaydee, married.  All of the immediate Hopkins family gathered in Salem for a snow-flake themed wedding.  It made for proud parents and a happy bride.  

Next was the wedding of Amy Baugh, daughter of Rich's cousin Rob.  Amy's big event was held in San Diego in April.  Also attending the 3-day celebration were Rich's cousins from Texas and Eastern Washington.  It was a time of laughter and reunion. 

In June, Susan's oldest nephew, Mike, tied the knot with Sarah in Evansville.  Louise and Bob (Mike's Mom and Dad) helped the couple achieve a wonderful celebration.  Lots of food, dancing and karaoke kept the party going late into the night. The Chicken Dance, one of Susan's favorites, made it on the dance selection!  Even the grandparents had good time.



MORE FUN, LESS TRAVEL
No major trips for us this year.  Instead, we spent more time with family and friends, often by extending our travel time after weddings.  This was not because we are getting older.  We are just resting up for more travel next year.

After the San Diego wedding, we joined our friends, Keith and Sandi, Barb and Dave and Robert for an extra week on San Diego's Mission Beach.  We shared a 4 bedroom luxury condo with only a boardwalk and sand between us and the ocean.   Our second level vantage provided a fantastic view of both the ocean and the boardwalk traffic - which was enhanced by coeds on spring break from California's Junior Colleges!  We attempted to reverse the signs of aging by going on daily bike rides and long walks along the paths and boardwalk.  Another highlight was renting a mid-size sail boat and traversing Mission Bay several times.   Others (including Susan) performed brain calisthenics everyday by working Sudoku puzzles - often for hours at a time - until the 2" paper stack brought by Keith was nearly depleted!  We seldom get a chance to enjoy our friends over an extended period of time, which made this vacation special.

The June wedding in Indiana allowed for a lengthy visit with Susan's family.  Her brother Alan and wife Lori adopted a little girl in late April, and this was little Caitlin's 1st introduction to her many aunts, uncles and cousins. It also provided an abundance of caring help for her parents.  Another brother, Steve, and Lita, hosted a barbecue where Susan had a chance to play with their 1-year old grand children.  Yes, Susan loves those babies! 

We also met with Susan's college friends Rosie (who teaches Theology at Xavier University) and Evelyn (who does Pastoral Care at the Franciscan Community).  Their lunches always end up being 4 hours long!!

Early July took us to Salem for a weeklong Hopkins Family Reunion.  The occasion was in response to Rich's brother Ron and wife MaryLee arriving from Florida, along with young daughters Erin and Jennifer.  The time was busy.   With all of the family gathered, everyone helped clean out Mom's basement storage room and tackle some yard projects.  Everyone took a mid-week break and spent a day at the Oregon coast, passing though Oregon State University (Rich and Ron's alma mater) on the way there.  We had a picnic by the beach, toured an aquarium, and played in the sand.

Later in July we spent a week camping at Baker Lake.  This was our 19th year.  It is an annual reunion, attended by a regular crowd of friends and relatives (about 50 people this year).  Events include excessive eating, swimming, kayaking, bicycling, hiking, card games, campfires and fighting mosquitoes (usually all day long)!!  This year the Anderson participants included 4 generations (ages 0.3 to 81).  We also had a guest visit by Robert and Deedee Baugh, who drove their RV all the way from San Diego.  I guess we can't be too old if we are still willing to sleep on the ground in a tent for a week- surrounded by everyone else's RVs!  However, the amenities of an RV got considerably more discussion this year.  But aren't RVs just another sign of aging?  Or as Susan points out, a great opportunity for comfort.



VISITS FROM OUR ELDERS
When your parents come to visit, there is a special gratitude for the extra time spent together.  Susan's Mom and Dad delighted us with a visit in September.  As it becomes harder for them to travel, Susan had thought a flight from Indiana would be too tiring, so was surprised when they announced that they wanted to come to Seattle. 

Her Dad wanted to keep a manageable pace to the activities with days of rest in between.  A big hit was a trip to Tillicum Village.  It included a dinner featuring alder-smoked salmon.  It had been almost 20 years since they had seen Mt St Helens, so we visited its new tourist center, which puts you directly in view of the crater created by the eruption in 1980.  Her Dad lent Rich moral support while he was upgrading our rental house bathroom! 

In early November we arranged for Rich's Mom to join us in celebrating her 80th birthday.  All the Seattle relatives gathered for a party.  We also took her to Eastern Washington to visit her niece, Susan Thorson, and husband Murray.  An extra day visiting with Rich's aunt and uncle in their new home made her trip complete.



MORE SIGNS OF AGING!
Susan saw the musical "Menopause" twice and each time she laughed until her face hurt!  Anyone facing, or in the midst of this lovely state, should see the play.  Hot flashes, forgetfulness, relationships, physical changes-nothing escapes the humor captured in the play and of what we women endure!!

In an attempt to relive our youth, we attended our 1st rock concert in ages, "The Who".  As the guy behind us said, "If the noise bothers you, then you are probably getting too old to go to concerts."  We were on the verge!!  We did enjoy the music and watching people even older than us perform on stage.  But in our younger days, we would  have laughed at rock stars that were nearly bald - and an audience consisting mostly of parents and grandparents!

Susan's main activities haven't changed too much.  She continues her ESL tutoring working with more adults from Muldova and Asia.  She has begun her 6th year with her Mentee who is now in grade six.  She enjoys the conversation and Nitsa's areas of interest.  She is quite a good artist, so Susan wants her to design some cards for Christmas that will be made into cards for both of them. 

We continue our gym membership to ward off arthritis and other aging maladies.  We try to convince ourselves that it is preparing us for more cross-country skiing and biking outside of the gym.  We will see how those goals pan out in '07!
We look forward to reading your cards and letters, which  share a part of your year. 
We pray again that joy and peace may touch and grace you in this blessed season!