Merry Christmas!

Christmas Letter 2010

Merry Christmas all!

The Leeb family is soldiering on, in the face of stiff opposition. John’s plans for a quick transition to a new career has taken an unwelcome turn, but after a year at JC Penney, things are looking up recently. Jenn continues to work at Disneyland and loves it. Recently she attended a breakfast commemorating her first year anniversary. Around the dinner table that night, she explained her chagrin to discover it consisted of only a glass of orange juice and a Danish in a wrapper. I mentioned that hot breakfast is really the way to show someone you care. Claire took it one step further, “Here’s how you make breakfast,” she paused dramatically with one hand poised over the table, “first, you kill something!” and she performed an air karate chop. We all started laughing, so she amended quickly, “Not just anything…whatever you want to eat.” We’re not savages after all—killing things in some early morning ritual to appease our pagan gods. “Then you cook it and eat it. That’s how you make breakfast.”
One of our daughters is nearly a vegetarian. Claire is not that daughter.

In April’s Easter break, Holly took Emily and Claire to Utah so the girls could get some snow time with Uncle Paul and Aunt Kim. They snowboarded, ice-skated and played in the back yard snow. Emily woke up one night to watch the snow fall, decided it was worth waking up Claire too, and they pressed their noses against the window just like they’re supposed to.

We’ve spent the last year enjoying Disneyland. With Jenn working there, the price is right. Emily loves the thrill rides (especially if her shorter sister is not allowed) and so we have spent a lot of time at California Adventure. My parents also purchased Knott’s/Soak City passes for all of us and we made the most of it during the summer.

Emily has a good friend with Leukemia (complete remission) and decided to donate ten inches of her hair to Locks of Love. A week after the cut she dressed as Amelia Earhart for a report at school. For this kind of planning I get no credit--she takes after her mother.

I was asked by my good friend Karl Bertain to perform a wedding service for him and his new wife Margarida. My utter lack of credentials seemed to bother neither the couple nor the state of California. A Universalist church was happy to take my $8 and send me a wallet-sized card saying I could perform weddings. It was a brief but lovely ceremony among the pines in the Sierras above Bishop. We made it a weekend camping trip and visited the Bristlecone pines, thousands of years old.

My brother and his daughters, Magdalen and Natalie, came to visit in July. They went to the beach and Emily said afterward, “It’s like having cool older sisters.” What more can you ask for?

Jenn’s high school reunion was in August. She found it hard to imagine that so much time has gone by and wondered if it would really be worth attending. The answer was absolutely yes! She got to spend the day with her 3 BFFs reminiscing as they looked at yearbooks, old letters (yes the handwritten type) and photos.

The tyrant mouse wouldn’t let my wife have two weeks off during Disneyland’s busy summer season so we went to Wisconsin without Jenn. Frogs, deer, tubing, canoeing, picnicking and all-purpose adventuring. We especially enjoy the time spent with Michelle, Jason, Zach and Mara.
Since Garden Grove Unified starts the Thursday after Labor Day, we had two more days of summer vacation than most and elected to visit the Getty Museum. We stayed about three hours, or two hours more than I thought the girls would tolerate, and they said they want to return to see more.

I had two fatherhood dreams come true this year. I coached Emily’s soccer team, the Fighting Flamingos, to a fantastic season (but a less than stellar record). Claire developed very quickly on her team, Pixie Dust. Soccer was great fun for us all. Also, we went rock climbing in Joshua Tree over Veterans’ Day. Good friends, stories around the campfire, star gazing, scrambling and hiking. We set up a rope on a steep slope and had fun struggling up and rappelling down. We even saw a desert tortoise! I lived in Yucca Valley for 2½ years and never saw one, but we spotted a juvenile alongside a trail to an oasis.

Emily chose to learn the violin at school and has already performed in a group recital about two weeks ago. Mary Had a Little Lamb is rarely played by a string section of forty: sounded good though.

If any of you have ever asked for directions to our house, you know the last phrase has always been, “You can see our five palm trees from a half mile away.” That is no longer the case. We have had them cut down—a thrilling and terrifying, and strictly vicarious experience. The tallest was 85 feet and this guy climbed up with three-inch spikes on his insteps and a harness with a loop of chain attached. Then, once he was at the top, he would haul up the chainsaw, start it, and the bombardment would begin. First surprisingly heavy palm fronds, then sections of trunk that THUNKED into the yard so deeply we felt it even while standing on the driveway. Once the wind picked up and the trees were swaying five or six feet, they decided to hang it up each day. There are large pieces of the bases left. If you know anyone who needs 300 pound sections of palm tree trunk, let us know. We won’t deliver, but we can help lift.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Leebs