December 20= 03

Greetings of the season to all!

Once again, I’ve procrastinated until past Chris= tmas to send greetings (whether letters or cards). No excuse, except my internal deba= te about whether to do it at all, do it by email, or post it on our family website. I think this year I’ll do all three – so some of you will receive this by snail m= ail, some by email, and all of you will be able to visit our website at http://grfamily.net

And, of course, the beauty of having the letter on the website is that you can access it at any time, now or in the future (if we leave it on indefinitely) – in case you misplace the hard copy!! Think of all the space (and trees) we’ll collectively save! We’ll try to post news on the website from time to time. Who knows, maybe the year-end lett= er will become obsolete.

Highlights of the past year: not too many, actually. We’re still in our same jobs= , so far weathering the twists and turns of the economy and government budget de= ficits. We started and still haven’t= finished a limited remodeling project (won’t give you the details, but it̵= 7;s odd how these projects cost more and take longer than one anticipates).

We spent two weeks in California – a week in Car= lsbad in February and another in San Francisco in August. While in Carlsbad, we took a day t= rip to the Getty museum (beautiful setting and an interesting mixture of art). It was raining that day, but the m= useum provides umbrellas to use to go from building to building. While we were in= San Francisco, we visited Carmel/Pebble Beach/Monterey and Sonoma/Napa Valley wineries. Again, the weather = was a bit cool, but we had a great time. We plan to spend a couple of weeks in Pa= lm Springs in February.

We had a wonderfully warm, dry summer (though it actua= lly became a drought before it was over, making farmers and those of us who were trying to put in some new landscaping quite unhappy). We’re giving up on trying to “predict” the weather. Seems as if all of the “normal” weather patterns are changing – in all seasons.

Hope all is well with you and those dear to you. Have a great 2004.