Christmas greetings 2013!

Dear friends and family,

We had a very good 2013, and hope that you did as well.

Our big news actually came near the end of the year, when Intel asked us to move to the Portland, Oregon area.  We’ve very much enjoyed our 14 years in the Olympia, Washington area, but we’re looking forward to new experiences and adventures in Oregon.  We’ve already found a new home there, and we plan to load up the covered wagon and complete our move around March 2014. 

Our new home-to-be in the western suburbs of Portland

We’ll miss the wildlife show which has been in our backyard in recent years.  We were witnesses to the birth of a new fawn right in our backyard in the spring!  Our new house borders a protected green space, and we’re hoping for interesting wildlife there as well.

Doe and just-born fawn, right in our back yard!

Dan’s job at Intel will be about the same after the move.  He’s completing his last Xeon E3 platform, and he is starting a microserver platform using the next enterprise system-on-a-chip to be based on the Intel Atom architecture.   Nancy has recently left her microbiology position at Capital Medical Center to work on our move.   She spent a lot of time during the year volunteering for World Vision and cooking dinners for Thurston County Community Youth Services, and she is looking forward to finding new charities in Oregon.

Nancy’s mother Marie passed away in March.  She had almost 90 good years before several months of decline.  We miss her of course, but we are thankful for her long and full life.

We enjoyed our annual trip to Park City, Utah in February.  There wasn’t a lot of snow there at the time, but we still enjoyed getting away and having time for snowshoeing and snow hiking.

Park City Mountain Resort in Utah, looking back from the Round Valley trails

Our adventure vacation for the year was a trip in early May to Bryce & Zion National Parks in Utah.  We had wanted to visit them for years, and they didn’t disappoint.  There was amazing natural beauty, and it was another great opportunity to escape high tech and our busy schedules to get back to nature.

Hoodoos at Bryce Canyon National Park

Prickly pear cactus in bloom at Zion National Park

The Zion Lodge, inside Zion National Park

Much of our extended family traveled to Hawaii in September for the wedding of Dan’s cousin Angela to her new husband Bryce.  It was a great family reunion, a beautiful wedding, and a great tropical escape.

Sunset on the beach at Ko Olina, Oahu, Hawaii

In the little spare time that remained, we continued to pursue our hobbies of running, cooking, seeing sights in Washington State, and going to restaurants.  Dan finally got a “real” DSLR camera, and is working on improving his photography as time permits.  He got some good practice and some decent shots in our nearby Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge.

Bald eagle soaring at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge

Dan’s running has further improved, and he ran his first half-marathon in Olympia in April.

Dan running in the 2013 Capital City (Half-)Marathon in Olympia

Best wishes for a merry Christmas, and a healthy and prosperous 2014!

-- Dan & Nancy