2007 Christmas Letter

Executive Summary:
Big house remodel, had twins, launched a new on-line grocery service for Amazon called AmazonFresh and Tracy’s sister is pregnant.

Details:
2007 has been a very exciting year for Tracy and me. It started with us loosing about 25% of our roof in the ‘big wind storm of 2007’. It was actually quit scary, the winds hit about 80 mph, having never through a hurricane or a tornado it was amazingly noisy, at somepoint during the evening,Tracy and I ended huddle in the corner in the basement.

As a result of this storm we lost power for six days. It is amazing how adversity can bring people closer together, Matt and Anna and then Mark and Melissa were kind enough to host us for a couple of evenings, so we did not freeze in our 45 F house. Matt was kind enough to spend the better part of two days helping me patch the roof, towards the end Mark showed up to ‘help’, his first act of kindness was to throw the good shingles off the roof. At this point we gave Mark a hammer and sat him in the corner.

Soon after this Tracy and I decided that we should move forward with remodeling our house. The roof and gutters were trashed and it seemed pointless to replace these on a house that we knew we wanted to remodel. So after three years of me playing around with different designs for the house, we were finally going to be able to realize my true vision for a home. I thought this was going to be so much fun…

Soon after we made that decision we got the most exciting news of the year, Tracy was pregnant and then soon after we found out that news we found out she was pregnant with twins!!! This was clearly going to put my project management skills to the test. We had a truly ‘hard deadline’ with my limited knowledge the only thing I was sure of was that the gestational period was fixed on the long end and could be significantly shorter – gulp. With all of this and trying to launch Amazon’s foray into the home grocery business we took the plunge.

There is no reason to regale everyone with home remodel stories, anyone who has been through one knows how they go and everyone knows someone who has been through them, let me just say that the house was not done by the time the babies arrived and we are still trying to get things finalized. I am truly amazed that an industry can operate with the level of incompetence that seems to be pervasive, but I digress.

I have to say a big thanks to Anna’s mom and dad (Mr. and Mrs. Phillips). They were kind enough to let us stay in their apartment while the house was getting finalized. The only rule was no giving birth in the apartment, which was a rule to which we were able to adhere.

Clearly, the biggest news for us this year was the arrival of Owen and Ava (check them out at http://owenandava.blogspot.com/). I was (and am) very excited to have twins, it is interesting to note that all of my father’s brother’s (he is one of three brothers) first children have all had twins. Owen and Ava are now 11 weeks old and starting to smile, coo and generally interact with the world. They are very cute, but a tremendous amount of work (I totally under estimated how much work). Our families have been out to meet them and my mother has been out for almost six weeks since they have been born she has been a tremendous amount of help, she claims it is a labor of love, which is great!!!

I don’t think that our lives will ever be the same again, I have been told that we will in fact sleep and that it does get easier. We have a made a new group of friends that we fondly call ‘the people we meet at the University of Washington multiples classes’, which we have shortened to the ‘dub club’. If you are interesting in more of musing about being a parent check out their blog.

As if all of this excitement was not enough Tracy’s sister is due in May. After having waited to become grandparent Tray’s parents will be grandparents three times over in less then a year. So not only did we become a Mom and Dad we will also soon become an aunt and uncle.

There you have it, a whirl wind update of our lives. Many of you we see on a regular basis and many of you we don’t; we love you all and wish you all a very happy holiday season.

The Clarkson’s (Ian, Tracy, Owen and Ava)