2006

                                                                                                 December 13, 2006

Dear Family & Friends,

The Year in Review

Bowling in Lihue

One of the interesting things about a marriage is how each partner will have different family traditions they bring to the relationship. Like vacation planning. In Suzanne’s family they believed vacations should evolve spontaneously - plan each day as it comes. In my family Dad would plot out every rest stop – six months in advance. So when Suzanne and I started taking our own family vacations we blended those traditions and did it Suzanne’s way.

When we land in Lihue, Kauai for a one week family vacation, I have been so converted to the Sawada planning approach that I haven’t bothered to rent a car. It’s an island, I figure we can walk everywhere. Turns out the island’s not that small. All I can find to rent is a Jeep Explorer, which has enough room for four adults, or Nicole and her luggage. But when I tell the Avis lady that I have a wife and three kids and that two of those kids are teenage girls, she finds me an SUV – no extra charge.

On the fifteen minute ride to the condo there are several, uh discussions, on what we are going to do for the week. I have a mathematical epiphany: five family members, five days, so everyone gets to plan a day. Stephen signs us up for snorkeling off Brennecke’s Beach, Nicole plots a road trip to Pu’o Kila Lookout, Suzanne gets Stephen and me to join her on a helicopter tour of the island (while the girls shop) and Christie decides we should go bowling.

                                                                                                                        Christie strikes!
Nicole Leaves Home – sort of

During spring break, Nicole, Christie, Suzanne and I visit three of the four art schools where Nicole has been accepted. On Sunday night we fly to New York so Nicole can interview with Pratt in Brooklyn the next morning. After a fifteen minute interview, she tells us she doesn’t want to go there. We fly to LAX for her Tuesday morning meeting at Otis School of Design. Otis doesn’t make the cut either and we fly on to San Francisco to check out the California College of Arts.

San Francisco looks like it could be a beautiful city if it ever stops raining and they get rid of the traffic on those bridges. After two hours at CCA and six hours on the Bay Bridge we fly home. Nicole decides to go the School of the Art Institute in Chicago.

In September we load the car and drive to her dorm on the corner of State and Madison, across from Marshall Fields. It only takes six trips to get her unloaded. She returns home every two weeks to get more stuff. She wants to be a fashion designer so she needs lots of clothes.                                                                                 Nicole Graduates

Christie Home Alone

Christie is sad to see Nicole go, but has moved into her room by the time I return from the Art Institute. Her third year starts off smoothly. We don’t get any calls from teachers about her failure to hand in homework until well into the second week. She continues with cross country and has approved for general distribution the picture shown here.

                                                                                                                                                                                               Christie 22nd from the right.

Riding Home


In July I decide to ride my bike from Columbus, Ohio to my parents’ house in Skaneateles, New York. I train for the five hundred mile journey by taking a spinning class at the Y two days a week. Too late I learn that riding a stationary bike for forty-five minutes in an air-conditioned room to the beat of Prince and Donna Summer is not the perfect preparation for eight hours on a road bike in the middle of summer while sharing narrow highways with tractor trailers carrying timber and gasoline.

A week before I leave I discover my racing bike can not be equipped with a frame to carry all of my gear. My son suggests I ride with a backpack, like all the kids do. After one day on the road I know that’s a very bad idea. I lash the backpack to the rear of the bike with bungee cords. The bike now looks like a deformed camel and has no stability on the downhills. There are mountains in Pennsylvania, but fortunately they are all uphill. On the third day I make a wrong turn and go twenty miles in the wrong direction. Then I fall off my bike and gash my elbow. It’s the low point of the trip until I fall off again in Auburn, five miles from home. I fix the bike and bandage my arm. An hour later I roll into my parent’s driveway. Seven days, five hundred miles - perfect planning. I fly home.

Stephen the EBAY Mogul

Stephen is in his fourth year at the University of Chicago. He discovers there’s a market on EBAY for all of those trading cards he collected as a kid. He buys extra cards to complete the sets. Conducts hundreds of auctions. Actually makes money. He leverages this experience and buys large quantities of DVDs and puts them on the auction site. Anyone with a hankering for a cheesy action flick from the 90s should let him know. He still has a few hundred.

Having completed all of the tough literature classes, he is now coasting through his final year taking biochemistry, physical chemistry, organic chemistry and for fun, neuroscience. He also works as a lab assistant and as an instructor for the MED CAT exams. After he graduates he may join Teach America for a two year program teaching in inner city high schools.


                                         
                                                                     Discussing BioChem with sisters

Susanne M. Sawada (1920 – 2006)

Suzanne’s mom died in August, right after we came back from Lihue. She was a great lady, who lived her faith every day. We all miss her, especially Suzanne, who was a loyal and loving daughter. She and her mom talked all the time (they both liked talking). Suzanne was always looking out for her mom – sending her tapes of sermons or finding skirts in the shops of Chicago that had the tiny sizes her mom couldn’t find back home. I know her mother was very proud of Suzanne and all that she has accomplished. And, of course, Sue loved all her grandchildren.

                                                                                                                            Grandma Sue & Nicole
We hope you all have a great Holiday Season.


Len, Suzanne, Stephen, Nicole & Christie

******************************************************************