Christmas greetings 2015!

Dear friends and family,

We had a very good 2015, and hope you did as well.

2015 was our first full year living in the Portland, Oregon area.  We’re feeling quite settled in and happy in our new home.  (And sometimes, the Portlandia television series rings all too true!)

Dan continues to work at Intel, which was the objective of our move. He continues to manage platform development for enterprise-class systems-on-a-chip based on the Intel Atom architecture.  Dan’s work travel continues to be modest, which is fine with both of us, and is mostly to Phoenix, Arizona and Guadalajara, Mexico.

Nancy has expanded her volunteering in the Portland area.  She continues to volunteer with Women of Vision, an affiliate of World Vision.  Recently she has added a new activity:  She is helping to cook lunch once a week for the Union Gospel Mission’s LifeChange program, a residential program for women recovering from addiction.

Dan had his 8-week Intel sabbatical this April and May.  During this long break from work, we traveled to Maui, visited Pittsburgh, toured Vancouver, British Columbia, and made day-trips from home to see more of Oregon.

Beachfront on the Kaanapali coast on Maui

Seaplanes on the harbor of Vancouver, British Columbia

One of the many waterfalls in Silver Falls State Park, Oregon

Cape Meares lighthouse, on the Oregon coast near Oceanside

Wreck of the Peter Iredale, in Fort Stevens State Park on the Oregon coast

Prior to the sabbatical, we returned to Utah for our usual February winter vacation.  There was very little snow this year, and thus we hiked instead of cross-country skiing or snowshoeing.  Despite this, it was still a good break.  In October, we spent a wonderful week visiting Barcelona, Spain and the surrounding area.

2015 North America Cup women's bobsled competition in Park City, Utah

Gaudi's Basilica Sagrada Familia, in Barcelona, Spain

Both of us continue to run, and Nancy returned to racing this year.  Both of us are pathetically slow, so we race only to improve our personal-best times.  We both ran the half-marathons of the Pittsburgh Marathon and the Portland Marathon.

After Pittsburgh

On the course in Portland

Our annual family gathering at Thanksgiving, at Dan's mother's house

   
Dan’s photography hobby continues to drive the data storage industry, generating gigabytes of photos for every decent shot.

Mount Adams in front of Mount Rainier, on the approach to the Portland airport

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good 2016!

--  Dan & Nancy