Happy Holidays!

This year’s letter is brought to you by three of us. Each family member was required to write their paragraph by close of business on December 10th; however, Tina was busy decorating the house and wrapping presents, so I am taking one for the team and writing her section. It also gets me out of decorating and wrapping, so it is a win-win for me. Since I like to reward timeliness, the order of the paragraphs is by submission order.

Quinton

Dearly beloved, I’m sure you’re wondering why I am actually writing a paragraph for the Christmas letter considering my anti-Christian beliefs. Some of the relatives probably don’t know who the youngest offspring of Craig and Tina is, making this entry complicate their early onset dementia diagnosis. Well, to answer both the long-time family friends and the 15 cousins three times removed, I was forced to illustrate this past year of my life. I’ll attach an image (see below) in case the font is too small or the vernacular is too articulate for the older Trump-loving audience. In summation, this year of 2022 was my busiest: falling in love with a public health major (she believes in mask mandates and vaccines, for our smaller-minded readers), moving to Colorado with the aforementioned love interest, and turning wrenches for a salary that forces me to pay more in taxes than liberal arts majors make in a year. We adopted a dog. He is a black Lab mix named Banks – as in Coors Banquet, or Banks, as in the trusted institutions that rob us of our true pursuit of happiness. He’s cute, but loud and gets in trouble a lot. Anyway, I’m sure that censorship-loving Craig is going to edit this paragraph (like CNN editing the election results). Love some of you, but don’t remember most of you. Quinton.

Craig and Tina

Shortly after writing last year’s holiday letter, Tina and I sold our house in Las Vegas and completed our move to Carson City. We still visit Las Vegas every couple of months for work and now question how we lived there for so long. We miss our friends, but the traffic and crowds everywhere ensure that we will never move back. The sale of the Las Vegas house meant that Tina could go into super duper remodel mode at the Carson City house and we spent most of the spring remodeling the kitchen, bathroom, floors, painting (lots of painting), and turning the backyard cabin into a bar (which still needs a few finishing touches, but it is otherwise ready for a party).

Tina is still a goddess and continues to work for the Nevada Department of Education. She oversees the statewide teacher evaluation system and spends quality time explaining to educators that, if they used it properly, they would love it too. She also recently became the Executive Director for the Nevada Association of Career and Technical Education (my old job). It’s a part-time gig, but it allows her to travel and network with other educators from across the country while advocating for providing students with relevant learning opportunities. Tina is also part of a book club (appropriately titled The Overbooked Book Club). I thought being in a book club meant  7 women meeting monthly to discuss a book. I was wrong; the Overbooked Book Club has additional responsibilities such as joining a softball league, attending summer concerts at the Brewery Arts Center, and going scorpion hunting. Yes, you read that right. Tina played softball this summer. I now know where Tazia got her softball skills and also where Tazia learned how to ignore the 3rd base coach when running from 1st to 3rd on an overthrow. Tina is still crafting and is looking forward to our next big project – building her a greenhouse from the chicken coop area (see last year’s letter).

I am also still with the Nevada Department of Education, but I am currently serving as the Interim Deputy Superintendent of Educator Effectiveness and Family Engagement. It is a fun and interesting challenge, especially as we get ready for a new legislative session in February. I am still geocaching, hiking, biking, and playing with Legos. Carson City is great for those activities. I join Tina on her extracurricular book club activities and additional excursions that she finds through the fantastic Carson City Parks and Recreation Department. We went on a bike ride along the river – which Tina signed us up for before she even had a bike (she now has 2), did a ghost walk in the cemetery during Halloween weekend, and toured Silver Saddle Ranch. I am sure that Tyler from the Parks and Rec office is tired of seeing us.

Our adventures were not limited to the Carson City area. In February, we traveled to the Oregon Coast for a long holiday weekend. We had a great time traveling the coast and dodging rainstorms while we hiked. Tina’s trip to Washington, DC in March to visit Tazia and her cousin Dayna was one of several that each of us made for work or fun during the year (Tazia put Tina to work decorating her new apartment). While I am sure that Tazia was thrilled that we were visiting frequently, we were really continuing to visit so that we could get invited to the infamous game night at Jihad’s house. I tried to get Jihad to write his own paragraph on the illustrious history of game night, but he begged off… maybe next year. 

The big adventure was our 10-day trip to British Columbia and Seattle for our 30th wedding anniversary – also the 20th anniversary of our 10th wedding anniversary trip to the same area. The whole trip focused on seeing beautiful scenery, going on hikes, whale watching, and visiting with Aunt Marie, Uncle John, Rhonda, and Kayla. It had nothing to do with Geowoodstock being outside of Vancouver, Canada, and the 20th Anniversary of Geocaching event. It was a fun trip and we visited some small towns that we saw while watching Still Standing (Amazon Prime) including the town where Rambo was filmed (Hope, BC) and the mural capital of Canada (Chemainus, BC). We spent time at Marie and John’s house, and [successfully] converted Rhonda and Kayla into geocachers after taking them on a 7-mile round-trip hike to find the famous Ape Geocache outside of Seattle.

Since the kids are busy and traveling to Reno by plane can be inconvenient, Tina and I decided to go to Monterey, CA for Thanksgiving. It was fantastic! We (mostly Tina) did not have to grocery shop, cook, or clean up Thanksgiving dinner. After a 6-mile hike in Point Lobos State Park, we went to a bar for turkey dinner. For $35 per person, we got a full turkey dinner without having to do anything other than order it and watch football. After dinner, we made a short trip to the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary – it is migration season and saw thousands of butterflies. We had a great time driving up and down the coast for a few days. We have decided that destination Thanksgivings are the best and this may be our new holiday tradition, especially with the kids now living in other states. 

Tazia

When Craig requested that each family member draft their own paragraph, I initially sent one sentence:  Tazia still lives in DC, still works at the SEC, still has two cats, and is still single. That narrative was rejected, so here is a more fulsome 2022 autobiography.

Near the start of the year, I moved apartments to be closer to work; I am literally across the street from it now. Tina visited shortly thereafter to help me decorate. Her interior design skills have resulted in at least one guest commenting that my apartment looks like it could be included in Good Housekeeping. Tina and Craig both visited me multiple times this year, likely because they now have a separate guest room to stay in. I am eagerly waiting for Quinton to come to visit, so hopefully, his love interest (see supra) will successfully convince him to make the trip.

I still work as a Senior Counsel at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. I love the work that I do, but love being able to enjoy frequent vacations even more. This year, I went on domestic trips to Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, Florida, Nevada, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. For my birthday, I went on an 11-day trip to Ireland and the United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland) with my friend, Leigh. Our itinerary was packed full of activities; some trip highlights were seeing the Cliffs of Moher, taking a black taxi cab tour of Belfast, exploring the Tower of London, and attending a live Peloton class with my favorite instructor. When I am not working or traveling, I enjoy spending time with friends, spoiling all the family pets (my cats, Taz and Sage, and Silver and Banks), and going on dates until Netflix eventually casts me in Love Is Blind.

Silver 

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(This is Silver’s paragraph. We are working on his typing skills, but he says the river is fun and we should take him there more often. He also loves catching snowballs. And Tazia buys him the best toys.)

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If you made it to the end of the longest Statucki Family Holiday Letter ever, congratulations! You don’t win a prize, but I am sure the joy and entertainment that we brought you was worth the effort.

Wishing you and yours a wonderful new year!

Craig, Tina, Tazia, Quinton, and Silver