The Mika Times: Christmas 2008

Dear Ones:

Let me begin with a sincere apology for the lapse in Christmas letters. I’m painfully aware that it’s been three years since my last one. I did write them (and in some cases re-wrote them for sending out at other times of the year…St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, 4th of July, etc.), but for whatever reason, I never quite got them out the door.

My mom always told me that time goes by more quickly as we get older. I never really believed her until I had children of my own. Now in the blink of an eye, it seems, 2008 is nearly over. Natalie turned 13 (a teenager!), Leland is 9 (and 11/12 J ), and George and I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary!

Natalie’s in 8th grade—her last year at Buena Vista Middle School. She has become a terrific reader and is in the "Million Word Club" in her English class. With a friend, she entered the Science Fair with a project titled, "Mouth Microbes and You," which examined whether spearmint or cinnamon worked best to destroy bacteria in one’s mouth (the results were inconclusive, by the way, but she enjoyed doing the gram stain procedure and working with the microscope). She’s still playing the flute in concert band, and she’s looking forward to trying out some other instruments in the new year.

In the Spring, she ran track for the very first time and really enjoyed it. She won some heats and placed in some races during the season. At first, she wanted to concentrate on the shorter lengths (50m, 100m), but as she got into it, she found that she liked the 200m. The big surprise came at the championship meet when her coach asked her to run the 800m, and she got a third-place ribbon for her efforts!

Last year, while Natalie "made" the soccer team, she got almost no game time at all. She loves soccer, though, and wanted to give the team another try this Fall. In the first game she played only about 5 minutes, and in the second not at all. That night she asked me if she could leave the team after the third game if she didn’t get to play. I told her that would be okay with me—I couldn’t stand another season watching her sit on the sidelines.

The very next day, Natalie stayed late at practice to run some extra drills.

The coach must’ve liked what he saw, because he told her, "Now, I can show you off!" Sure enough, at the next game, Natalie played the entire game, and she did great as a defender. After the game, the normally taciturn coach came to us and asked what we thought. We told him that we were thrilled to see her play. He said, "In practice yesterday, something just ‘clicked’ and she got it." I smiled, bit my tongue and thought in my mother’s heart, "No, something ‘clicked’ and YOU got it!"

It was truly a pleasure to watch her skills

grow as she played in the rest of the season’s games. Her team won their playoff game. And even though they lost the championship game this season, it was still victory for Natalie. At one point, the opposing team was doggedly trying to score a goal. When their forward was thwarted, her teammates yelled at her "Why didn’t you take the shot?" And the forward yelled back, "I couldn’t—she was on me." That "she" was none other than my own Natalie! I was so proud.

Natalie has continued in Girl Scouts, and she has earned her "Creative Cooking" Interest Project Award (aka "badge"), trained as a Program Aide and acted as an assistant counselor at a summer day camp. As a troop, we’ve gone on a numb

er of outings, visiting Winchester Mystery House, learning about the science of scent at The Perfumer’s Apprentice and walking in the Salinas Parade of Lights. Cookie sales start in January, so stay tuned!

During Lent, Natalie started Confirmation classes with our Priest, along with the Pimentel girls. And Natalie, Alex andra and Olivia were Confirmed in a lovely service in September, presided over by the Bishop. George and I were delighted to sponsor Alex and Olivia on this important day, and we were blessed to have Kathy & Rick Pimentel and Tim & Alice Knapp sponsor Natalie.

Now all about Leland: he’s in the 4th grade at Spreckels Elementary School. His favorite subject is still Math, and Science is a close second. He loves to ride his bike and skateboard, and when he’s not outside, he’s gaming on his DS or the Wii. He also became an Acolyte (aka Altar Boy) at church.

With his affinity for numbers, it’s not surprising that he’s not so fond of writing. Because he’s so formula-oriented, he takes instructions pretty literally. One writing instruction sheet said, "Your opening paragraph should tell: who, what, why, where and when." So he began his essay something like this:

My Trip to Elkhorn Slough.
Who: Leland. What: Field Trip to Elkhorn Slough. Why: Because we had to.
Where: Elkhorn Slough. When: October 17, 2008.

I tried to no avail to explain to him that the opening paragraph should contain sentences that include all that information. But he wouldn’t budge—he was certain he’d followed the instructions to the letter. He turned in the paragraph as shown above and was crushed when he didn’t get his anticipated "A." Since then, he’s learned to trust his mom when it comes to writing!

And how could I have forgotten to put this in the Christmas letter I mailed: Leland got braces this summer! He was very excited at first, but after wearing them for six months, he's getting tired of all the extra work they require, not to mention the foods he can't eat. Here's a "before" picture, and I should have an "after" picture sometime before the Fall of 2009!

Leland played baseball again in the Spring. He advanced to player-pitched ball for the Toro Park Yankees. It was a big shift from having a coach pitch right to him to facing a pitcher from the opposing team who was trying to strike him out. His speed served him well, though, helping him get to first base before the ball! And he’s already looking forward to playing in the Spring of 2009.

In the Fall, Leland played soccer again, and George helped coach. His team had just enough boys to field a team, so all the team members were on the field for every game—fun but tiring for the boys. He played forward a few times, but for the most part, he played his favorite position: goalkeeper. And some games were a real workout for him.

Leland is now a Webelo Cub Scout, and George is not only his Den Leader but also the Assistant Pack Master! Into his fourth year, Leland has earned so many sports and academic belt loops that he can’t fit any more onto his belt! He’s helped plant trees for the City of Salinas, helped beautify a trailhead in the former Ft. Ord on National Public Lands Day, and enjoyed summer day camp, marching in the Spreckels 4th of July Parade, Pack overnights at Toro Park, and a night on the tall ship Balclutha in San Francisco.

Work, thank goodness, is steady for George and me. George is approaching his three-year anniversary with HSBC in Salinas, and I’m in my 13th year with XL Insurance. With both of us in the financial services sector, it’s been a little disconcerting lately. And although there have been layoffs at HSBC, there’s no shortage of credit card statements to print, so George’s job seems secure for the moment. There’s also been a rumor in the financial press that my company is up for sale. The rumor has been neither confirmed nor denied by my company. So we’ll just have to wait and see what comes to pass.

With such a big vacation last year , we didn’t do much travel this year—much air travel that is. Instead, we invested in a new 5th wheel trailer! Our 1984 trailer [See the "Christmas 2006" blog for a photo-reminder!] had given us its all but was beyond repair. So just before Memorial Day, we picked up our 2007 Montana Mountaineer. It has a great floorplan, with a bunkhouse in the back for the kids, a bedroom up front for us and lots of living space in-between.

We hauled it to Casa de Fruta just outside Hollister for our shake-down cruise on Memorial Day weekend. Then we took it to Relay for Life so that we’d have something comfy to sleep in. We went (twice) to Wine Country RV in Paso Robles, which is conveniently co-located with the Firestone Winery and just across the street from a water park. For our big vacation, we traveled to the Benbow RV Resort for a week. George and Leland golfed while Natalie and I enjoyed tea and scones at the Benbow Inn next door. We swam, toured the giant redwoods and had a great time. George’s parents even joined us for a couple of days. We also had a wonderful trip to Columbia, where we met up with a bunch of family (14 of us in all). We’re starting to plan our 2009 trips. Who wants to go camping?

We did manage to sneak in a little trip to Disneyland in October with my sister, Vicki, and her grandchildren. We were privileged to share Jaden and Autumn’s first visit to the Magic Kingdom. It was awesome to see the park through their eyes.