We looked back at the archive of holiday letters and the first one was way back in 2005 which means that this is the fifteenth edition! We were initially reluctant to write a holiday letter back then and include it with our holiday card so we settled for the electronic version and just figured that those who were interested could read it if they wanted and here we are fifteen years later! We hope you enjoy the fifteenth edition of the holiday letter!
We Got Rid of Noah!
Well, kind of. Temporarily. Noah is on the adventure of a lifetime as a Rotary foreign exchange student in Eger, Hungary. After being a host brother to Gaby from Chile, Marie from Germany and Sebastian from Poland over the years, he is now on the other side of the trade! He left at the end of August and is not coming back until June. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to visit him this year but we plan to go back in the summer of 2021 to visit his host families and our other European exchange students that we hosted.
Interestingly, Hungary was only the fourth foreign country to which Noah traveled this year. He went to Ireland over the mid-winter break in February, to Guatamala for a Rotary service trip at Spring Break and he made a few trips to Canada both for his exchange program and for his dragon boat racing. His passport has been well-used this year!
We had Thanksgiving without him this year which was not too bad but it will be odd not having him around for Christmas. If you are interested in following his exchange year, check out his blog, his Facebook page and his Instagram feed (noah.flick). His first host family, the Pribeli family, is taking great care of him and he is having, as far as we can tell, an excellent adventure.
“Do you miss Noah?” “No.”
If Natalie gets asked any one question most often of late, it is whether she misses Noah. There is usually not much pause for thought as she answers emphatically “No!”. (Don’t worry, they chat and talk on WhatsApp all the time and the feeling is mutual.) As Wendy always says, “Let there be spaces in your togetherness.” Natalie is quite happy with the space that she has this year as the only child. She is doing very well in Eighth Grade, her last year of middle school, and preparing for high school next year. Natalie is playing for Tides Basketball and will try out for her school team in January. She also plays the Clarinet in band which means that she is one of those involved kids!
This last summer she went to several weeks of Camp Seymour as well as, after being nominated by her teacher and selected from a pool of applicants, to TekTrek (which is an amazing program sponsored by the American Association of University Women). She also went to Washington, D.C. with a group from school.
Lulu is Terribly Mistreated
Lulu would like you to know that she is terribly mistreated at Tinkleflick HQ. Her job as Vice President of Pet Operations is a real grind and she is looking for work elsewhere. She just cannot keep up with her quota of naps and, because of just a few accidents, she sometimes is confined to her cubicle (a dog crate). The food is terrible and nobody listens to her helpful reminder whenever the doorbell rings or another dog walks by on the street. It’s really a tough life for Lulu and her New Year’s resolution is to dust off her resume, refresh her LinkedIn page and look for another position that aligns with her work ethic and values.
World Class Athlete Wendy Flick
Two time Dragon Boat gold medalist, Wendy Flick, was able to spare just a few moments to sit down with tinkelfick.com and share her amazing story of athletic prowess and perseverance. Wendy is a proud member of the Gig Harbor Dragons. The team entered several races over the summer, including some in Canada, and performed quite well. Wendy is often in the front of the boat as the stroker which means she can boss other people around (something that is totally unusual for her). In her spare time, she continues to work at Heritage Distilling Company as the Chief Compliance Officer and she still finds time to travel making trips to Ireland with Noah, to London and Victoria, B.C. with her girlfriends.
Did Anybody Say Anything about Sailing?
No, Ralph, nobody said anything about sailing. That, however, does not usually stop Ralph from talking about sailing. If he is not sailing, he is usually thinking or reading about sailing. He occasionally finds time to teach business law and human resources courses at Pacific Lutheran University and, yes, he still has his law practice on the side. Ralph traveled quite a bit this year also but mostly for work attending academic conferences in Connecticut, Florida and Montreal. But, when the weather is reasonable and the winds are nice, you can find him out on the S/V John Marie in Sinclair Inlet in Bremerton sailing where the winds take him. One day, in the not too distant future, he’s just not going to come back!
That’s All For Now!
There you have it! The fifteenth installment of our holiday letter. We wish you a happy holiday season and a very happy New Year!