December  8, 2007

 

Happy holidays to all from Dan and Gail Lester

 

This year has not been nearly as crazy as last year, with one exception.  On New Year’s Day, we were in Phoenix to watch our Boise State Broncos play the Oklahoma Sooners in the Fiesta Bowl.  I assume everyone on the planet, at least those that follow sports, knows the outcome of that game.  We beat Oklahoma in overtime on a couple of tricky plays that made the national news over and over throughout the year.  ESPN voted that game the best football game played in the whole year!  It was an incredible experience to have been there.

On the left is a happy lady after the game. The whole trip was wonderful.  We had gone down right after Christmas and spent 6 days in the Phoenix area, visiting places from Dan’s childhood, plus things like Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West and Paolo Soleri’s Arcosanti project out in the desert.

 

This summer we flew into Chicago and drove to Ann Arbor for my family reunion which was held over a long weekend.  It was great to see everyone, as usual.  Dan stayed in Chicago for a few more days to spend more time with his family, but I came on home.  At least I got to see everyone briefly except Andy and Amy and Quinn.

 

Our major trip this year was in September.  We spent 3 weeks in Maui.  Cinda and Henri were with us for the first week, so we did a lot of the touristy things we haven’t done for a while, like snorkel trips, driving to the top of the volcano, the road to Hana, and so on. I did something I NEVER would have considered on my own.  We took a five jump zip-line excursion over the canyon and mountainside of Haleakala volcano.  It was the most exciting thing I think I’ve ever done! The weekend between our 2nd and 3rd weeks, Dan ran in the Maui half marathon.  It was his second of three this year and it was purely a coincidence that we were in Maui when it was going on. Gail did the 5K the day before.

Dan ran his first half marathon, the Run to Robie Creek, in April in the mountains north of Boise. It is billed as the toughest half marathon in the Northwest. It goes up and over 4800 foot Aldape Summit and back down the other side in the 13.1 miles.  The picture on the right is of him finishing Robie. Obviously, this is a new activity for Dan and he really loves it.  We have joined a running and walking group that gets together once a week and have made some neat new friends.  Dan also participated in the Sawtooth Relay which was a team of 6 people running a total of 63 miles over 9000 foot Galena Summit from Stanley to Ketchum (Sun Valley), Idaho.  I didn’t go with him for that, but they really had a great time.

 

Our big news at the moment is that we have set our retirement date and have both given our official notice at work.  We are both retiring on October 31, 2008.  In early November we will be heading out on a 2 ½ month trip which includes two cruises and will take us to New Zealand, Tasmania, Australia, Tahiti, Pitcairn and Easter Islands, Peru, Ecuador, the Panama Canal, Costa Rica and Ft. Lauderdale.  We had always talked about going to Australia, but we saw the cruise from Tahiti back to South America first and the whole trip just grew from there.  This may be the only retirement trip we will ever be able to afford, but we decided to do it right away while we are still young and healthy enough to enjoy it.  This also means you shouldn’t expect a holiday letter next year.

 

Dan’s daughter, Susanna, just presented us with a new grandson last month.  Zander Luke Domme was born in Albuquerque on November 3rd.  Dan and Cinda went down and spent 5 days with everyone there.  They spent Thanksgiving Day with Dustin’s family. (Zander’s daddy)  I just returned from spending the holiday with my sister in California and all her family.  Her move to the Bay area a year ago was a very good decision.  She has a large apartment in a nice complex and she has made a ton of new friends.  She is busy all the time and she loves being so close to her kids and grandkids.

 

Chris bought a house in August and he and Joy are busy fixing it up.  It is out in Nampa, about ½ hour from us.  It is an older 3 bedroom on a large lot with tons of potential.  Chris tells me he has already done a lot of updating since we were there in September. 

 

We keep busy with all our sporting activities, the run/walk group and bridge whenever we can.  We have both been going to Weight Watchers this year.  It helps to keep us on track, although some times more than others.  Dan is a lay minister at church and we are ushers about once a month, including the coming 11:30 pm Christmas Eve service.  That is always a real pleasure.  We will have Chris and Joy and kids over for our traditional prime rib dinner some time that week.  Otherwise, we are just going to be home and hanging out for Christmas this year.   We will go to the Humanitarian Bowl on New Year’s Eve at Boise State’s Bronco Stadium.  The Broncos will play in the Hawai’i Bowl, which we will watch on TV.

 

We hope everyone has a happy and peaceful holiday and new year.