The Price's Newsletter 2000

'Tis the season. Happy holidays from Krey, Lindy, Jaedin & Cam! This is actually our very first "Christmas" letter (we didn't have any weddings or births this time to use as an excuse for procrastination.) We've had almost a year to adjust to life as a foursome now, and it's been a lot of fun so far. Cam is already closing in on Jaedin - he's within a pound of him now and may pass him soon if he keeps eating like he does (at dinner time he's usually still going strong long after the rest of us have had our fill and moved on with the evening.) Most of the time Lindy and I feel like we're tag-teaming as referees; Jaedin can't seem to build things fast enough to stay ahead of Cam's destructive tendencies, and when his things get knocked over, we hear a cry for justice on Jaedin's part. And if we respond too slowly, that is followed by retaliation from Jaedin and a cry for mercy on Cam's part. And then both of them look at us as if we're supposed to know who's right...

Family Fun. Right now we're gearing up for lots of traveling to Oregon and back over the holidays. We will be splitting the time between Lindy's family in Eugene and my family, who will all (with the exception of Kevin, who is finishing up his time as a missionary in Hungary) be coming out to stay in Leavenworth, Washington's pseudo-Bavarian village. My sister Kamber moved to Portland this year, so we have a significant majority in the Northwest now. We are slowly persuading my parents to join us out here as well - they may make it as far as Utah if a current job offer solidifies. We should find out for sure in the next couple of weeks. We're looking forward to seeing everyone again during the holidays, and to letting the little cousins play together and get to know each other better.

Nice break. We went an entire year with no surgeries for Jaedin. This will be the first Christmas season in a long time that hasn't involved hospital stays. Jaedin is doing very well - visits to the heart clinic have become less frequent, and his cardiologist couldn't be more pleased. Jaedin will probably have what's known as the 'Fontan' operation this summer. The Fontan operation is the last of the three 'Norwood' operations that most of the kids with his condition have to go through. That surgery may or may not be combined with another procedure to repair a leaking valve. The leaking valve is a result of the angioplasty he had at two days old, in an unsuccessful effort to avoid having to go through with the Norwood operations. For more details on his condition and the upcoming treatment, see the website we set up at www.leftheart.org. Jaedin has as much energy as any other kid his age, and we've been very grateful that his body has adjusted so well to the condition. We do need to be careful during the flu season, though. Jaedin gets RSV vaccinations each month, and that may have helped keep him from getting RSV despite Cam's bout with it last spring. All in all, Jaedin is a happy, normal kid, and now that his medications have become routine for us, we actually tend to forget about his condition.

The Inevitable Step. We became a bona fide family earlier this year when we traded in our sedan for a minivan-looking thing (the salesman sold it as a "hybrid SUV" and threw in a rack on top for further disguise). Lindy wanted to avoid the stereotypical minivan, but practicality ruled. That and the fact that I had to promise her a brand new Cherokee in three years to close the deal. And now despite our best efforts to keep it cracker-free, the interior looks very stereotypical for a vehicle with two car seats. But we've been happy with it so far, and it's a far more comfortable ride for any guests, who used to have to lie across the floor of our old car.

The Inevitable Travelogue. The year started with a trip to Utah for a friend's wedding and some skiing. In April Lindy and her mother flew to Fresno with both boys for her grandmother's heart surgery. The surgery went well and the three generations of girls got to do some bonding. And flying with both boys was reportedly quite an adventure. We've never tried it again, if that's any indication of how it went. Later in the Spring we got to use some frequent flyer tickets (finally some payback from our long-distance dating days) to take our first trip away from the boys. We wanted to go as far as Southwest would take us with the free tickets, so we decided on Florida. It was an early 3-year anniversary trip for us; we toured the Kennedy space center and got our substitute for a European vacation at Epcot center. It was nice to relax, but we had some trouble getting home, since our tickets got punched incorrectly. The ticket agent thought that even though we had originally chosen to fly back home to Seattle, we probably really intended to fly to Seoul and booked a flight to Seattle by mistake. We heard he lost his job and went to work for the County somewhere. His name was Chad, and he had huge dimples... and he looked pregnant... OK, I don't know when to stop. Actually things went smoothly, but we were fairly anxious to see the boys again, so we ended up returning earlier than planned. The boys stayed with Grandma and Grandpa in Eugene. They did very well without us - it's nice that they don't have separation anxiety, but sometimes it would be flattering if they at least looked a little bit disappointed to be getting rid of us for a few days.

Close to home. We also got to go to the San Juan Islands with Lindy's family over Labor Day. It's nice to live so close to Grandparents and to Cam and Jaedin's Godparents. The boys have been able to get to know their cousins very well. Jaedin and his cousin Alex love to play wrestle-mania. And Cam and cousin Madison try to crawl in on the action. Like everyone says, they all grow up too fast.

Road Trip. Our big adventure this summer was a trek to Michigan. The rest of my family had been planning on meeting up there for quite a while. We had just been there the previous summer, so at first we weren’t planning on going. As it got closer, though, we talked about how funny it would be to just drop in on everyone there. I ended up getting an opportunity to give a presentation for work in Ann Arbor, and we decided to go for it. We packed up the kids and headed out without telling my family we were coming. And we had lots of hours in the car to concoct a good surprise plan: as we got closer, we called my parents and told them that an old high school friend of mine would be stopping by in order to drop something off for me. "Oh, and by the way, he has two kids now!" We moved forward with the plan, and you can see my mom meeting my friend's daughters “Jaelynn” and “Pam” in Photo #1 at the right. I came out of hiding a few minutes later (Photo #2), and you can see by my Mom's reaction (Photo #3) that the surprise worked. The remaining photos show her realizing whom she's holding.

Last Look? It was nice to be back home with everyone, especially considering that might be the last time we visit the old house. We all ran a race together, swam in the pond, and did lots of other things just for old times sake. We finished our stay with a trip to the Silver Lake sand dunes. Jaedin and Cam both caught a cold in Michigan just before the trip back. So the trip itself was very long (we logged over 5,000 miles), but we took our time and broke it up with lots of stops. We did the Little House on the Prairie tour on the way back home. We both remembered the stories from our own childhood, and we read the books out loud to each other during the drive (in part to drown out the backseat noise from some increasingly fussier boys), so it was neat to see the same buildings and scenery that we were reading about. Other stops included Devils Tower and the Mall of America, where Jaedin got to ride his first roller coaster.

Jaedin. Jaedin just turned two, and he loves his toy trains. He began an obsession with trains a few months ago that hasn't let up in the least - it shows us how riveted he can get to something he wants. Everything trains, we've got it: train sets, train videos, train shirts, train posters, train hats, etc. He was in heaven when we went to a model train show a few weeks ago, and he even got to ride a real train down to Eugene last week. He can spot a railroad crossing from miles away and he hears the faint train whistles through any traffic noise. In other Jaedin news, he was forced to quit his bottle cold turkey a few months back - he went through serious withdrawal, but now he only occasionally mutters his discontent when he sees Cam getting a bottle. He has found the redial button on the phone and has managed to call me at work on occasion. He loves to pretend he's driving the van, and now that I made the mistake of letting him steer in a parking lot, he thinks he's ready to work the pedals and all. The other day when he wanted to go down to the basement with us, he ran and grabbed my keys and tried prying the door open with the keys. Jaedin loves the playground near our house and he will climb up anything fearlessly. Now if we could just get him to leave peacefully when it's time to go...

Cam. Cam is our sensitive, cuddly boy. He has been with us since February 3. We had actually decided to call him Taye at first, but we got too many "O-tay" comments, and had to revert to using Taye as a middle name. We decided on Cambren for a first name, but now we all just call him "Cam." He may be walking soon, but for now he's content chasing Jaedin around with his little walker. He and Jaedin have a strong bond despite their moments of disagreement. They absolutely love making each other laugh. Having them so close together in age is a lot of effort sometimes, but when we see them playing together nicely, it makes it all worth it. Cam can fall asleep anywhere, just like his dad. Cam had a minor surgical procedure to drain the fluid in his ears last month. It went quickly and smoothly, and now he seems to be much more alert, especially when Jaedin yells at him. For a few months, they say everything he heard sounded like it was underwater, so we're glad they caught it before it began to cause hearing problems for him. Cam is the next to be enrolled in the cold-turkey bottle quitting program.

Lindy. Lindy started working again, so we got to get used to switching off with the kids in the evenings. She's enjoying being a mother, but sometimes I walk through the door and she passes me on her way out with that "it's been one of those days" looks. She is looking into opportunities to work from home, but she is also considering taking some radiology classes next quarter, depending on how long we stay here in Seattle - we may actually end up in Portland next year. My company has an office there that is looking to expand, and moving there would get us even closer to both our families. Stay tuned for the results.

Krey. Work is going well. Most of our current jobs deal with watershed and streambed restoration. I presented the results of one of our dam removal projects at a conference in Oregon, and I hope to complete my licensing there shortly. In other activities, I've been working with the youth in our congregation. It makes me feel old taking them out for activities like rock climbing, but it's a good bunch of kids. Other things that kept me busy include the website for HLHS support at www.leftheart.org, and the website for Krey family members at www.krey.org. I've actually been able to find several thousand names to add to our family tree through the website. The internet is really ideal for that type of information exchange. I have also been serving on an advisory board for the Seattle Childrens Hospital expansion. It's a group that seeks to incorporate parent and patient viewpoints into the architectural design process, and it's been a good experience so far. And in keeping with tradition, this letter is not complete without an embarrassing moment of the year: The other day I was fumbling around in the closet getting dressed for work. It was still dark when I got to work, and by the time the sun came out, I realized I had gone to work wearing Lindy's way-too-tight-on-me sweater...

Wrap it up! So anyway, we hope this letter finds you and yours healthy and happy during this wonderful holiday season. We've got lots to be grateful for here, especially the opportunity we've been given to raise these two boys. One of the most humbling things in the world is to see them repeat things that we do and say. Sometimes we don't realize how closely they watch us, and how big an impact a good or bad example can have. Things we're not particularly thankful for are summer gas prices, speeding tickets that would have made flying to Michigan cheaper, hit and run drivers who smash your new minvan-looking thing, people who steal Christmas lights, baby seats(!), and everything else out of your garage, and people who complain about little things like that when there's so much else to be thankful for... things like bath time, renters insurance, interchangeable train sets, dustbusters, and of course, great friends and family like you!

Have a wonderful Christmas and New Years,

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Krey, Lindy, Jaedin, & Cambren

blue line - khp