This is an expanded version of our Christmas letter, with additional details and photos!
Another year has flown! We hope this letter finds you and your family well, happy and savoring the joys of the season. And in that spirit, we’d like to share a little bit about our lives with you.
Our greatest joys are our children. They’re growing up too fast, of course. It seems like it was just a moment ago that we were moving into our Las Palmas home…Leland was a chunky, rambunctious, almost 2-year-old, showing nary a trace of his premature birth; Natalie was 5, in kindergarten, inquisitive, sparkly and excited about her new room. Now, 9 Christmases later, Natalie is in high school (and still inquisitive and sparkly *smile*), and Leland, at nearly 11 years old, has lost his little-boy roundness but not his zest.
Since our last letter, Natalie has graduated from Buena Vista Middle School. BVMS was such a small school—only 300 kids for 6th-8th grades. It was like a safe little cocoon.The school's library is the Monterey County Free Library branch. Natalie became a regular in the library early on, and the librarians helped her countless times with research, photocopies and obtaining books not in the library's catalog. It was cute when, in Girl Scouts, she had to give advice to younger scouts about to enter middle school, she told them, "Make friends with the librarians, they can really help you out!"
In the spring, I chaperoned her 8th grade trip to Washington DC and New York City. It was a whirlwind trip packed with monuments, historic sites and lots and lots of walking. DC was fun, in an educational sort of way, and it was in April--and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. But Natalie’s favorite part of the trip was seeing Wicked on Broadway and being in Times Square at night.
Natalie did a great deed, just before summer. She had her hair cut for "Locks of Love," an organization that makes wigs for children with cancer and other diseases. Each year at Relay for Life, there is a hair-cutting event for this cause. However, our vacation prevented us from attending the event, so Natalie made arrangements to have her hair cut before we left. I'm so proud of her.
Natalie made good use of her "cocoon" and emerged a beautiful butterfly ready for high school (she was certainly more ready than I!). Natalie has an awesome counselor at Salinas High(shout out to Leslie Bowling-Gomez!) who helped her get a great slate of classes and teachers. She has PE (1st period PE is, apparently, a freshman right of passage), Applied Physics, Geometry, Spanish 2, GATE English and Band. Natalie started marching band practice the week before school started, and it was a nice way for her to make some new friends and get comfortable with the campus before the first day of school.
We had a lot of fun going to the football games at "The Pit" and watching the marching band perform field shows. It certainly brought back a lot of memories for me—I remember marching on that field, albeit in the North High Vikings’ blue and red. I have to admit that it was a little bit strange to sit on the "home team" side of the stadium. But all things considered, I’m adjusting to being the mom of a Cowboy!An avid reader, Natalie consumes books like a starving person at a buffet. She’s run through the gamut of teen vampire fiction (she’s "Team Jacob" if you were wondering) and is currently immersed in the legal thrillers of John Grisham. She opted out of soccer this fall but is looking forward to joining the track team in the spring. She’s still going strong in Girl Scouts—and cookies are coming in January!
In the spring, as a 4th grader, Leland did the obligatory "Mission Project," writing a report on his own about Mission Santa Clara and building a model mission with a group (he "won" the raffle and got to bring the mission home to keep).
He also really enjoyed learning to swing dance his dance Bernadette. They were proud to be the "alternate couple" representing their class in the dance assembly.
In sports, Leland played another season with the Toro Pony League Yankees this year. He had fun, and George helped in coaching. Leland is so fast; once he gets on base, it's almost a guarantee that he's going to steal. He's on the fence about whether to play again in the spring. We'll just have to wait and see.
Now a 5th grader, Leland is at the top of the food chain at Spreckels Elementary. He has the same teacher as Natalie did, which is nice. Math continues to be his favorite subject, and it looks like he’s finally caught the reading bug (Whew! Thank you, Cornelia Funke).Using George’s Alto Saxophone (Thank you, Grandma and Papa for storing it all these years), Leland started band this fall. So we're looking forward to concerts and, hopefully, marching band one day!
Leland, too, took a break from soccer in the fall, but he’s looking forward to playing for Buena Vista Middle School next year. It’s hard to believe that our little guy is almost out of elementary school.
Leland is in his last year of Cub Scouts. His Webelos 2 den adopted the patrol name of "Lightning Wise Guys." They’re a good group of boys, and George is enjoying his time as den leader and assistant pack master. They’ve hiked, camped, raced, geo-cached and more. Leland is on track to receive the Arrow of Light in the spring, after which he’ll transition into Boy Scouts.
Leland is still an enthusiastic gamer, playing DS, Wii and PC games as much as we’ll allow him! The Legend of Zelda games are some of his favorites. In fact, Leland went to great lengths to dress as Link (the main character in the games) for Halloween. With his grandma, he made a green hat and tunic (the character looks a little like Peter Pan in my opinion). And with his dad, he made Link’s triforce shield out of styrofoam and plaster. My contribution? I bought pointy Spock ears to round out his costume.
Our "furry children," Mister and Missy continue to bring us joy as well. These wonderful cats have been in our family for 7 years (the SPCA thinks they were about 4 when we adopted them). But they’re starting to have some health problems. And still, they give us their loving devotion each day. We hope and pray that their conditions respond to treatment and that we get to enjoy their company for many years to come.George is approaching his 4th anniversary with HSBC. He’s still a Unit Manager in Statement Processing (they’ve cut down the staff in card issuance, but statement processing is still going strong—after all, they’ve got to collect that money!). George had a 3-month stint on the day shift for a special project, which was wonderful, but he’s back on graveyards now. Keep your fingers crossed for a more permanent shift to a "normal" schedule next year.
I’m in my 14th year with XL Insurance’s Design Professional group. I continue to create risk management education materials for architects and engineers, and I’m excited to be developing online courses now. Despite the rumors circulating last year at this time, the company was not sold; and, in fact, since then our stock price has risen from less than $3 per share to over $18 per share, demonstrating our stability. George and I both feel very grateful to have jobs during these troubling economic times.
We camped out at Spirit West Coast again this year and had fun listening to the awesome music and making new friends. Leland won a dance contest and got 2 tickets to be seated on the K-Love stage during Jeremy Camp’s concert, and he chose a friend to join him. Not to be outdone, Natalie entered a drawing and won 2 tickets to meet-and-greet the band Kutless 
at the Air1 Stage that same night. What are the odds? She chose her dad to accompany her, leaving me to enjoy the music on my own.
To celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary this year, George joined me on a business trip to Baltimore, and we then spent a couple of extra days at a cheesy little resort in the Poconos. It was a wonderful trip. The fall colors were waning, but they were still impressive to us. And, yes, there were giant champagne glasses involved *smile*.Perhaps the highlight of the year was our family vacation—an RV tour of the southwest that included:
- 3,268 miles
- 336 gallons of diesel
- 9 National Parks and Monuments (Grand Canyon, Walnut Canyon, Petrified Forest, Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands, Mesa Verde, Arches, Bryce and Pipe Springs)
- 8 campgrounds 6 states (California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Nevada)
- 4 family members
- 1 awesome truck and 5th wheel trailer rig
We’re looking forward to catching up with all of you. You can find us on email at fourmikas@comcast.net, and I’m on Facebook as well (Diane Pogue Mika). As I close this letter, I wanted to share a line from one of my favorite Christmas hymns:
Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His Gospel is peace.
From "O Holy Night"
His law is love and His Gospel is peace.
From "O Holy Night"
In Christ’s love,
Diane and the rest of the Mikas:
George, Natalie and Leland
Diane and the rest of the Mikas:
George, Natalie and Leland
