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Here
it is, Christmas 2007, and visions of the past year are dancing through my head.
Actually, visions of 20 years ago are dancing through my head as I recall the
technology I was using to write our Christmas letter then. We had just purchased a
Franklin computer from Sears and were so excited!
It came with a stack of about fifty 5 1/2 inch floppy
disks. No hard drives back then. The really amazing thing was that you could
change fonts! All you had to do was browse through the 50 disks until you found
the one with the desired font on it and stick it into the drive. Is that cool or
what? Of course there
was no mouse, no Windows, no color, just those easy to remember DOS commands like:
print a:\file.txt /a /d:lpt1
This code meant to print the current page to the printer
on port LPT 1. So simple to remember! The black and white page would come out on that continuous
perforated paper with holes along the side that you had to rip off once it was
printed. We felt so high tech!
Today
I'm using a system with an AMD 64x2 Dual Core Processor, 3 MB RAM, a 320
GB hard drive and I get impatient if a website takes more than 2.5 seconds to load.
I'm also rather irritated that I can't figure out how to adjust the size of the
snowflakes coming down in the photo above. Seems like they are a bit too small
and more of a random mixture would be preferred. Plus, why can't this lightening
fast machine write this letter for me at the click of a button? I still have to do
that myself!
OK, I'll get to the annual update on
each of us. Bryson just turned 5 on December 9th and is
in his second year at the Montessori Preschool just down
the road. At school he loves playing outside with "his kids", as he calls them. He
also likes to go to grandpa's shop where he can kick
back on the couch to watch TV, eat popcorn and drink pop
without his mom knowing. If asked what his favorite
thing to do is, he'd probably say something like, "I
enjoy being with my wonderful parents and watching
my amazing big brother."
Brae turned 11 on December 15th
and is in the 5th grade. He continues to do well in
school, plays soccer nearly year around and is just
starting on the school's basketball team for the first
time. If asked what his favorite thing to do is, I'm
sure he'd say something like, "I just like hanging out
with my wonderful parents and playing with my little brother who is
delightful 24/7".
Mike turned 50 on November 2nd, however, he is still able to continue
working, transport me to one appointment after another and drive Brae back and
forth to practices so he's doing pretty well for his age.
He's had a very busy
year. His digital photography students have gotten some publicity and
their work has been displayed in various venues around the area. The new Gig
Harbor Multicare Medical Center has a permanent display with twelve photographs
that are changed every few weeks. There have been articles written
about his class in the
Tacoma News Tribune, the Peninsula
Gateway and the Key Peninsula News. The photographs were
also featured in the world's largest photography magazine,
Popular
Photography.
As
for me, I'm one year older which makes me 40 something
and a 4 year lung cancer survivor. There were, however, some
bumps in the road this year
that made for an interesting ride. I took a two-week
trip to St. Joe's Hospital, visiting both the
oncology and cardiac floors. The pic-line they inserted
caused a
blood clot to form in my heart and numerous small
pulmonary embolisms to develop in my lungs, creating
significant shortness of breath. I give myself daily injections
of a blood thinner hoping that it will dissolve the clot
in the heart before it decides to travel.

I just had my 12th and last chemo
infusion and will be celebrating this Christmas drug
free, which hasn't happened since 2002. There is little
hair left on my head but no worries. I pulled out my bag
of head coverings and counted 32 scarves, 54 doo rags,
16 hats, and 2 wigs. I am well prepared, however, I
would like to find something that has red and green
twinkling lights on it. For those of you who want more
details, you can always go to
my website.
In spite of some not-so-fun times, there were
plenty of things to celebrate. In February we enjoyed a trip to Disneyland
where Brae and I survived the Tower of Terror, although
I'm not sure I would survive it again. In August we took
a quick trip to Leavenworth, WA and enjoyed the hot weather,
gelato and festive atmosphere. We are thankful for dad's
recovery from his
accident, and I just received word that I have been
approved for the vaccine trial and will be heading to Dallas on January 14th for my first of sixteen injections.
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Terri,
Mike, Brae and Bryson Hunziker
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