It has been an exciting year for us here in the Showizala household. Recently, the Seattle area broke the record for the wettest month (November) in its recorded history, and the month ended with an unpredicted snowstorm (see pics here). On the evening it started snowing, it took Ken 2 ½ hours to get home from Microsoft (typically a 25 minute commute) and he had to abandon his car about a mile from home. He walked home in the snow and ice carrying 3 bags of groceries. Harrison, Isabella and I met him partway down the hill with our sled and pulled the groceries home (of course, then the kids wanted to be carried!). :-) The kids did enjoy the snow and we had a few snow days to stay home and play. And as we write this, most of the Seattle area - including us - has been without power for 2 days due to a windstorm that took out pretty much the entire grid. The power outage is not quite as fun as the snow was - temperatures are in the 30s, and it gets dark at 4pm - but hopefully it will be over soon!

Harrison, 4, continues in his pre-school program at Early World, which he enjoys a lot. Recently he has taken to playing “football” with his friends at school. They run around the playground with a pretend ball, pass to each other, hike the ball, and even do huddles. He also is doing a great job with his writing and is doing some good (simple) reading. He gets an allowance now for helping to clean up and says that he is saving his money to “buy a car”. Yes, a real car. Some of his other favorite activities are making traffic jams with his toy cars and trucks, doing art projects, riding his bike and of course playing with Isabella.

Isabella, 2, loves to play with her baby dolls and also loves the computer. She also loves going shopping, which is very convenient for us! Some of her other favorite activities are to run or dance in circles and sing “Doe-a-deer” from the Sound of Music. She is very talkative and likes to check in with what everybody is doing, and she gets a kick out of telling us which relatives could be occupying any and all empty kitchen chairs. She is also doing a great job with her puzzles and letters, and just generally keeping up with Harrison! She is working on being potty-trained and for the moment is mostly wearing just underwear during the day. Very exciting.

I also have been keeping busy. I left my counseling job at Youth Eastside Services in June, and that same month, my friend Molly and I opened a new business together called North Star Offices. We created an office space of both private offices and shared workstations that we sub-lease to others who need flexible or part-time office space. I have also started working on a camp version of my North Star Girls Group Curriculum that I will start to market to summer camps (via Scott, my brother, of course). He has already hooked me up with the Girl Scouts in Iowa who will be piloting the program at their camps this summer. I have really enjoyed working on this, and it has been a ton of fun to also work with my brother professionally.

Ken recently took a new job at Microsoft in the Expression group, where he is the architect for the Expression Web product (a.k.a. “xWeb”). Expression Web is a new website authoring program targeted primarily at professional designers but also useful for hobbyists and other casual users. Ken seems to be enjoying working in a group where he is very interested in the product space itself, and has the opportunity to work with interesting new people and fun new technologies.

We will be traveling to Tucson, Arizona for Christmas this year to spend it with Ken’s brother’s family (Adam, Lijie, and Arwen, 5 months old) and his parents (Granddad and Nana). We were also able to see my parents for Thanksgiving and my brother and his fiancée for a few days in December.

Wishing you joy and peace this holiday season.

- Heidi, Ken, Harrison & Isabella