Christmas greetings 2017!

Dear friends and family,

We had a very good 2017, and we hope you did as well.

Dan continues to work as a Program Manager in the Data Center Group at Intel.  He completed a new Intel® Xeon Phi™ product, targeted for machine learning.  Dan's business travel has been infrequent, but his one major business trip this year was very long distance, to Penang, Malaysia.

Dinner with Dan's co-workers in Penang, Malaysia

Nancy's volunteering continued at the Union Gospel Mission's LifeChange for Women and Their Children program. She contributes several days a week by cooking, assisting with the women's education, and otherwise helping the program.  She also continues to participate in projects with Women of Vision, an affiliate of World Vision.

Our year started with a record-breaking Portland-area snow & ice storm.  Snow is infrequent and generally light here, so there is no infrastructure to plow streets, spread salt, etc. Our East Coast relatives would be amazed at the week-long paralysis which resulted from about a foot of snow and ice....

A sheet of ice to start off the storm....

Record-breaking Portland-area snowfall!

We have continued to explore our state of Oregon. There is always more to see and do, from the mountains to the coast!

Mt. Hood from Mirror Lake

The beach at Pacific City, Oregon

The Portland Japanese Garden on a fall morning

The Gordon House, designe by Frank Lloyd Wright

We haven't had to go far to enjoy nature. There is plenty of wildlife in our neighborhood; even just behind our back fence!

A young buck in the green space
behind our house

A Great Blue Heron on one of
our regular running routes

A hawk on our back fence

Another hawk; this one behind our house

We continued to enjoy the culinary riches of the Portland area. While we dine out frequently, we don't repeat the same places very often, because there are so many good restaurants, and new ones to try are opening up seemingly every month!

Russian tea service on New Year's Day, by James Beard award winning chef Vitaly Paley

Our personal travel included our annual trip to Park City, Utah in February, a visit to the Washington D.C. area during Memorial Day weekend, a vacation to the big island of Hawaii in September, and our annual Pittsburgh trip at Thanksgiving.

The Park City Mountain Resort, taken while we were
cross-country skiing on Park City open space

The Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The Waipi'o Valley on the big island of Hawaii

We continued our running this year.  Dan has been plagued by poorly-organized half marathons for the second year in a row:  This year, he ran the "Run Like Hell" half, a Halloween-themed race.  But the course was laid out to only 12.1 miles, not the planned and certified 13.1 miles!  This resulted in a personal best time, but also significant frustration....

Nancy running the Portland Shamrock Run

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a great 2018!
  -- Dan & Nancy