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