Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Tina had complained that my first draft of the holiday letter was not funny so hopefully I can redeem myself or all of you will have to read a letter written by Tazia – and she is rarely funny.

Since Tazia will be leaving us for college next year, we are torn between celebrating her departure as she goes off to conquer her next challenge and being depressed about the fact that we will be spending a lot of money on her education. Tazia is a busy bee considering that she is now the HOSA state president, an award-winning editor of the school’s newspaper, a member of the school board student advisory committee, works with Paula at an internship for the Make-a-Wish Foundation, and is in National Honor Society. She has spent more time travelling than the rest of the family including trips to Reno, Anaheim, and Washington, D.C. Tazia is in the midst of her college application process. What a difference a year makes – I was looking at last year’s letter and none of the colleges she was looking at then are on the current list. The most recent list includes Georgetown, George Washington, University of Washington, Washington State, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Nevada-Reno. Once she gets accepted to one of these expensive schools, we will put her up for adoption. Any takers can email or call us directly.

Quinton is now in the ninth grade and has started to demonstrate his athletic prowess (and his lack of it). Quinton spent the spring playing lacrosse at Del Webb middle school and improved dramatically throughout the year. He played indoor lacrosse in the summer against players four years older than he is. He was all set to play fall lacrosse when he had an unfortunate event. He was running backwards in PE class, tripped on his own untied shoelaces, and broke his wrist. How does someone get knocked on his butt by a senior fifty pounds heavier than he is in lacrosse and not get hurt, but trips over his own shoes and breaks his wrist? Quinton is also responsible for a new addition to the family. In January, we lost Batman to old age and Quinton got a boxer-lab mix puppy named Silver for his birthday in June. Silver is definitely Quinton’s dog because he follows Quinton wherever he goes and starts to whine when he is stuck with the rest of us. Wait, Quinton follows us wherever we go and starts to whine when he is stuck with us. Quinton and Silver share the same personality and they can both clear out a room when they pass gas.

Tina is still the dean at East Career and Technical Academy. Based on her stories this year, she is spending more time dealing with discipline issues at work. I am not sure if this is because Tina is getting meaner or the students are misbehaving more. I’ll make sure that Fox News does a “fair and balanced” investigative report on this and report the findings in next year’s letter. Tina’s new catch phrase at home is “that dumb dog” because she utters it every time the cat teases the dog and the dog starts chasing the cat around the house and gets himself into trouble.

I am still the program leader for the digital game development program at Southwest Career and Technical Academy. Due to Quinton’s daily lacrosse schedule, I have started a new hobby – geocaching. Geocaching is like treasure hunting, but for small, worthless items. I typically don’t trade items, but just enjoy trying to find the caches. I am still cycling, but have been spending more time geocaching lately.

We didn’t take any long Griswold vacations this year due to everyone’s busy schedule, but we did take a few smaller trips. We took the trailer out to Laughlin for Spring Break with Shawn, Jenna, and Levi. During the summer, we visited my parents in Colorado and Tasha’s family in Washoe, attended a conference in Lake Tahoe, and took the trailer to Cathedral Gorge State Park and Duck Creek, Utah. Silver is a fixture on the majority of our trips because he likes to be outdoors and will swim in any lake to try and catch fish like Quinton (although Silver is still afraid of our swimming pool).

We wish everyone the best for the upcoming year and a happy holiday season.

Craig, Tina, Tazia, Quinton, and the pets