2013 Christmas Letter

You know how you tend to purge the clutter in January? Well, we started last January, and have been doing it all year. We had a little water seep in the dining room walls, damaged the carpets, & had to put in gutters outside to re-route the water. Which led to ideas of downsizing. Sound like the book "When You Give A Mouse A Cookie"? Then we carted our antiques down to Walla Walla to an auctioneer, repaired the walls and carpets, and now have empty clean rooms in the front of the house.
One project done!
Alex entered his 1st Flame Off competition in April with a friend of his. They placed 3rd place and ended up selling the piece for @ $800. He is still selling his glass marbles and pendants on Garvie's Glass on Facebook. He was also published in the Aug./Sept 2013 issue of the Glass Line magazine. www.hotglass.com
 He did a tutorial on how to make a jellyfish pendant. He and his friend Andy moved to a duplex in Richland about the same time. In Sept., he turned 21! He also got a promotion at Sahara Pizza- is now the assistant manager. Now he's thinking about buying his 1st house! Wow! Now we have 2 more empty rooms.
Dirk turned 16 in June, got his drivers license and passport. As soon as school was out, he went to British Columbia to a Young Life camp for a week. This is his Junior year in High School and just brought home an academics award. He also just started his first job at Chuck E. Cheese! I guess we will be having lots of pizza in our house!
We went to Seaside, Oregon for our family vacation in August. I've never seen a week there with sunshine every day! It was nice and relaxing.
When we came back, we started helping Paine's brother Bob pack up to move to Austin, TX.  He is now on the kidney transplant list and can live anywhere near an airport.
Another room cleaned out, office furniture moved back in, Paine finished painting the downstairs rooms and bathroom, and new carpet came into the den. Project #3 checked off the list.
We'll wait a while to start on the upstairs rooms. The plan is to build our retirement home after Dirk finishes college and then Paine will retire.  It's a few years away, but we will be ready.
 I'm still volunteering with the local youth teaching jewelry at the Juvenile Justice Dept., Ignite Youth Mentoring, New Horizons School, and Teen Challenge in Pasco. Also, still managing Tapteil winery.
Paine is still working at Hanford, golfing (more this year than ever), and has started hiking up Badger Mountain on the weekends he's not golfing. His annual boys golf week was in Mesquite, Nevada this year. It was his 60th birthday. He got an exciting hole-in-one in Tacoma, too. We are hoping to ski together with Dirk this year.
I've been mall walking again since Bob left and am up to 4 laps/ miles a day and am down 15 lbs so far....
We are looking forward to Christmas Day with my parents, grandma, Bruce & June Gillespie, and the Robinson's. Alex may even come home to spend the night! I have to bribe him with good food....:>)
Blessings to you and your family this Christmas and throughout the year.
Gayle, Paine, Alex, & Dirk