Asmundson's Christmas Letter 2008

Merry Christmas, everyone, and Happy New Year!

Where did the last year go? It's been a crazy year. Crazy, but good. And really all the craziness stems from one small being: our newest family member Zypher Vigfus James Asmundson-Wild. He arrived to much fanfare on the day of the California Primary Election, June 3rd, possibly the only day that all of his aunties (except Irena) could make it to the birth.

Lola (aka Mom aka Ruth) has managed to shoehorn much baby-time in between her international jaunts and mayoral duties. She took the oath of office again this summer and has been working on making Davis a safe place to drink water, light fires, buy specialty foods, ride bicycles and promoting alternative transportation. Davis was awarded twice in a row a Platinum rating from the League of American Bicyclists and no, she has not learned to ride one yet. Ruth continues to feel the pull of Asia. Early this year she traveled to the Philippines, visited again in August, and the celebrated sister-cityhood in Wuxi, China in October. Currently she is living with her grandson at 1030 Fordham while her kitchen and bathrooms and pretty much the whole house is gutted and rebuilt.

Alinia and Omen, in addition to welcoming Zypher into their lives, marked 10 years of marriage on July 4th. Just as they can barely remember a life before Zypher, so too is it hard to remember a time when they didn't love each other. Alinia is still working at Intel and enjoyed the summer off courtesy of their maternity leave program. She enjoyed going back to work even more, ruefully admitting that motherhood is harder than program management. Although pregnancy and motherhood took most of her free time this year, she carefully scheduled her labor just after her last treasury form was due for Sydney Vergis' City Council campaign. Omen was and is the supportive father. His bike commute is now twice as long since he drops off Zypher at "the office" (Chavez Bilingual Daycare in North Davis) before heading back south to the UCDavis Datacenter. He also joined the Board of Directors for a local non-profit TreeDavis and has enjoyed planting trees, buying art, and critiquing database design for the cause.

Irena continues to work for the IMF, which lets her travel almost as much as she would like, with stops in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. This year, when back stateside, ran her first half-marathon and completed a triathlon this summer. Being the only auntie not in the greater Davis area, she relies on Skype to keep up her Zypher addiction.

Wil has been expanding his retail experience within the Apple Store in Corte Madera by moving out of his administrative position in the repair room and into the stock room handling the store's inventory. While he is missed with the old team, he is welcomed widely with the other and he is excited to learn new skills and looking forward to new possibilities the position will offer. Although he hasn't been out golfing as much this year, he did attend his annual Bay Area University of Arizona Alumni Association's golf tournament in Walnut Creek and won "Accurate long drive," by hitting a 260-yard tee shot within 6 feet from the center of the fairway. The $25 prize went to purchase a new golf shirt. Sadly, work and the economy has kept him from working on his long (!) awaited home renovations.

Vigdis is in her fourth year of teaching at St. James. In addition to teaching the 6th grade, she also teaches social studies to the 7th and 8th grades. The recent election was particularly exciting as she had her students watching and discussing the debates in conjunction with their American History classes. She is looking forward to attending the inauguration in January with Ruth and Irena, and hopes that it scratches her travel itch at least for a little while. She regularly nags her older sister to climb at the UCD ARC wall and even occasionally succeeds in dragging her out. She added chickens to her household as well this year, from chicks hatched in the lower grades last spring. Unfortunately, three of the four turned out to be roosters, so she is down to one lonely chicken.

Jonas had a busy year in pursuit of higher education. In June he went head to head with Zypher as the event of the week, when he graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is now a certified master of education with an concentration on arts in education. An intense one-year program culminated in Jonas being selected as a class marshall for which he received some hardware (pictured at right). He spent the summer singing at Tanglewood before heading south to watch Irena's house and continue the job search. He recently accepted a position as Director of Programs for Chorus America working on sustaining and promoting the art of choral singing in all forms.

Both Sigrid and Tyler are now working and carpooling together. Tyler finally tired of making Sigrid cappucinos every morning before waving her out the door and now drives her to work instead. He has been working in the BBK corporate automobile division for the last few months. Sigrid has risen in the ranks at BBK and is now the counsel for the Consumnes something-or-other District. To the horror of the Davis residents, they are contemplating moving to Woodland where a couple of their friends have houses. At least it is slightly closer to their nephew, who seems to have changed their mind about sticking with their (again) single cat Puma.

That's the rundown of the Asmundsons! Plenty more adventures await! We hope that you are doing well and that we will hear from you soon! Rumor has it, Facebook is the place to be, so see you there soon!

Love,
The Asmundson-Wild's

This file last modified Wednesday, May 6, 2015.