2012
Merry Christmas everyone!
It’s way past time to get started on this letter. With the girls out of the house, you would think that there would be a lot more free time to sit at the computer and crank out Christmas letters. I should have 2015 done by now. But I don’t. It’s the middle of March and I’m just starting on 2012. But before we get started, I did want to point out that this is a special letter. This is the 21th edition of our Christmas letter. Technically, last year’s should have been the one to commemorate, but I just did the math and figured it out 10 minutes ago. Anyway, the headphones are on, Joe Bonamassa is cranking it up, let’s get this letter on the road!
January
January was kind of special in Indy this month. Besides Emily’s 24th birthday, the city was also getting ready for the Super Bowl. Everyone in town was doing something special because of the game, so I figured this would not be a good year to buy that pony for Em. Maybe next year sweet heart!
February
So Super Bowl weekend finally arrived. The weather was global warming-ly unseasonable. It was great. We spent all sorts of time downtown just getting a taste of everything. There were concerts and zip lines and tons and tons of people all having a great time. Indy put on the best Super Bowl ever. We had a great time, and it ended on a high note, with the evil Patriots getting beat. And just to make it extra special, Emily won a hat. No really. I’m not kidding. She won this hat in a drawing from a fancy department store that was having a fur sale because they thought that when rich people come to big winter events in Indy, they buy furs as souvenirs. And these furs didn’t even have a Super Bowl logo on the back or anything! But that’s OK, Emily won a hat. I think it ended up being the only fur hat she won all year.
March
I lost the calendar again this year, so the only way I can remember all of the highlights of the year is to pull up all the photos on the phone and computer by the date taken. Other than Sarabeth celebrating her 19th birthday, of which I don’t have any photos, it looks like the excitement for the month was captured on film (figuratively speaking) on the 8th. Scout stretched and looked weird enough to warrant a photo. So I’ll use the rest of this page to let you know that Sarabeth was working on her second semester at IU around this time. Looks like the she is going to follow her sister and become a teacher. She seems to be enjoying her classes. I am constantly getting updates about her progress in bowling class. I’m sure that the parents of her future students will be happy to know that Sarabeth is proficient in picking up the 10 pin by going cross-lane over the center arrow. She must be much smarter than me. I didn’t get to take bowling in college until my senior year. I sure am glad that the tax payers of Indiana are paying her tuition. Sarabeth just reminded me that she turned 19 this month. I think we had a wild party and six people were arrested. I can’t remember for sure.
April
Listening to Dean Martin right now. He makes it sound so easy. I’m sure that something fun and important happened in April but I got nothing. Let’s just skip to May.
May
This was a much more exciting month. Jane started a new job this month. She is still a part of the IU Health system but moved from the monster facilities downtown to a smaller regional hospital on the west side. It takes her a little longer to get to work but it is worth it. See that nice generic office on the left? That is where Jane gets to start and end just about every working day now. When she was downtown she had 2 offices and 3 classrooms in 3 different buildings. She usually spent the last 10 minutes of the day trying to remember where she parked her car. She is liking the new job! The other big deal was a college reunion. More of a dorm reunion actually. Jane and I were joined by Barb, Jill and Jenny & Alan. We had a fantastic time. We met up with Blackketter the first night and laughed for hours. Then we sat in the courtyard and watched “Breaking Away”. After that we decided it would be fun to go drink. So we went to Nick’s and Kilroy’s and a couple of other places. We were a fun attraction for the college kids who have never seen people our age in a bar at 2 in the morning. They all wanted to dance with the old folks. We obliged. The next day we wandered the campus, went canoeing, dinner and a short program at the dorm, sent Jill home so she could preach Sunday morning, posed in some wedding pictures and finished real late at Waffle House. What is it about a college campus that brings out the young and stupid in a person? I don’t know, but I like it.
June
Not a lot happening this month. Now that doesn’t mean we don’t have a bunch of pictures from June. Between the four of us we have tons of June photos. It’s just that with an iphone in your pocket at all times, you seem to take pictures of things that seem cool at the moment, but later on you look back at them and wonder why you wanted to record that little slice of your life for posterity. Dog sleeping on the couch, cats sleeping on the love seat. Emily sleeping on the couch. Flowers and a jar of mayonnaise. But we did go to a baseball game. Squirrel!
July
This was our vacation month. We set this date way back early in the year. You see, Jane was just sure that the girls were getting older and this might be the last time just us four could spend a vacation together. It was a sweet sentiment, but I figure anytime we offer to pay for a week’s vacation in some exotic locale, the girls could probably find a way to work it into their schedules. So we had a week off, but in typical Willis fashion, we didn’t have any idea where we wanted to go. So Jane decided to take advantage of our AAA membership and stop by to get some ideas. A few hours later she came back and said we were going to Cozumel. It seems the lady at AAA just came back from there a week earlier and loved it. So she told Jane about it and she loved it too! So much so, that we hijacked this lady’s vacation. We stayed in the same hotel, went to all the same attractions and ate at the same restaurants. This lady had blazed a trail and we stepped in every footprint she left on that island. I am really glad she had such a good time, because we did too.
We stayed at The Hotel B. It is what is known as a “boutique” hotel. I thought boutique was a French word, but apparently it is Spanish, and means expensive. But it was worth it. Walk right out our room to the pool and then down to the lagoon to snorkel. From there it was straight to the hot tub. Actually, it was to the bar and then to the hot tub, but you get the idea. When we weren’t at the hotel we were all over the island and on the mainland. That is where we visited the Mayan ruins at Tulum. We hired a guide and had a great tour. I started the tour by taking a bunch of iguana photos. Neat looking animals, but I eventually figured out that they are just Mexican squirrels and they all look alike anyway. It was a very interesting place that sparked Jane’s interest in anything Mayan, which meant she spent a lot of time watching documentaries right before the world ended. Or was supposed to end. That’s really why this letter is so late. I didn’t think I was going to have to write it. Here’s a nice photo from the ruins. There is probably an iguana in the background.
We spent a day at Chankanaab National Park. One of the attractions there was a replica Mayan village. Once again, we hired a guide, a nice guy named Michael that taught us all about the Mayan culture and how the temples were designed to serve as giant clocks and calendars. Really neat stuff. A few minutes into the tour, Michael asked us if we would like for him to take a photo of the whole family. Sounded like a good idea. But it seems that Michael fancied himself to be quite the photographer. Over the next hour we had 15 minutes of tour and 45 minutes of posing. The guy never gave me the camera back. He took over 100 photos. And he had a favorite little trick of putting some foliage or a flower in the foreground. He was soooo proud of that little trick! Thought he discovered it! He even told us how to frame the photos and group them on our wall at home. We don’t have any on our walls.
One of my favorite memories was jewelry shopping with Jane. We went into this little shop, just to see what they had. Well the salesman there wasn’t going to let Jane out of there until he sold her something. And she found a ring she liked. The salesman complimented her on her keen eye for design and told her she was lucky, that this particular ring was on sale for $1200. And then he brought me a shot of tequila in a pornographic shot glass. Jane told the guy that $1200 was too much. He suggested an even thousand and brought the girls their own porno shots. So we left Jane and the salesman to battle it out. Jane kept looking at me for support and I just kept drinking tequila. The more they negotiated, the funnier it got. At least I thought it was funny. Jane ended up getting a nice $65 ring for about $120. But it was worth every penny.
It was a great vacation. We did all the stuff we wanted to do and still had time to lie on the beach and do nothing. The girls had a chance to be silly. Jane and I had a chance to do the same. Don’t we all look happy? Well deserving of a page and a half of my Christmas letter.
August
Listening to Nelly now. How did that happen? Listening to Harry Manx now. Indian Blues-Grass. You should give it a listen. Well not much happened this month. Made a big trip to IKEA one weekend. The next weekend we took Sarabeth to IU so she could start her sophomore year. She is out of the dorm and into an apartment now. I spent the entire weekend on my knees looking at instructions without words, building an entire bedroom suite with a screwdriver and an allen wrench.
September
This month was a whole lot like the last month. Nothing exciting enough to take a photo of. Jane had a birthday this month. She turned a year older. No big party though. We learned our lesson back in March about wild birthday parties.
October
Now this was a month! We started with our annual trip to Brown County. We did all the stuff we always do but this year we got to do some of it with my sister Teresa. Jane had a chance to take all sorts of nice photos. The one on the top is my favorite. And if you look at the one next to it, you may be able to recognize a certain technique she picked up from Mexico Michael. There will always be a little bit of Michael in that camera. We ate at the same places we always eat, shopped in the same stores and hiked the same trails. And we did some stuff we don’t normally do too! Teresa taught Sarabeth how to stand on a rock in the lake and do that “Karate Kid” move. That actually turned out better than you would have guessed. I’m so glad that she has moved back to our part of the world so that she can help nurture my children as they enter adulthood. It was another great trip to the hill country.
A week later I got to spend a few days in Vegas. It was a work trip but the first day was spent on a great golf course. The rest of the time was typical Vegas which was typically fun. Convention stuff during the day and vendors spending money on you at night. Always a winning formula.
Listening to Jethro Tull. Sitting on a park bench…..
The next big thing to happen in October will have repercussions in Christmas letters for years to come. For some reason, the rest of my family decided that Sarabeth needed a dog. Had I been given a vote I would have voted against it. Or at least abstained. After an exhaustive search, Sarabeth found Bam at a rescue shelter. Bam is a half Pit Bull, half Boxer mix. Cute dog with a big head. It’s been a long time since we’ve had to deal with a puppy. Same for Scout. Poor old Scout has become that old lady from across the street that would always yell at you for cutting through her yard when you went to your friend’s house. He just sits on the couch and barks whenever Bam walks through the family room. Bam pays as much attention to Scout as we paid to old Mrs. Harris. It is a lot calmer once Sara and Bam head back to Bloomington.
Listening to the Glenn Miller Orchestra now. By the way, I had a birthday this month. It seems life is rushing by quicker every year.
November
Jane and I had talked about renovating our kitchen for a while. One Saturday morning we were watching a DYI show on TV about kitchens and they made some suggestions. If your kitchen looked like this, new paint and window treatments would do the job. The next photo, they suggested the paint, and maybe re-facing the old cabinets. Three photos later, they showed a picture of our kitchen and said the only remedy would be to demo it to the studs and start over. So we called my buddy Scott. We picked out cabinets and tile and granite and all the other stuff. He started the demo as we went shopping for appliances. It was amazing how destroying that one room totally affected every other room of the house. It was really stressful for a few weeks. Good thing we had a baby Pit Bull with a T-Rex head running through the place every weekend! We celebrated Thanksgiving with Jane’s family at her brother Jon’s house. He had a functioning kitchen. We had great food and I had a chance to school a bunch of young kids in the art of Ping-Pong. It wasn’t even fair, but they learned a life lesson they won’t soon forget. And what more can you ask for on a Thursday holiday? We all woke up at a reasonable hour the next day and didn’t go shopping.
Listening to The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band now. Just thought you ought to know.
December
Sorry for the delay, but I had to run upstairs and take a photo of the new kitchen. And of course I had to clean the kitchen before I could take the picture. Scott did a great job and got it all finished before my entire family came to our house for Christmas. We had our basic Santa down the chimney Christmas with the girls and a few days later my siblings and siblings-in-law came to town, most bringing a couple of kids. But they aren’t kids anymore. They are all grown up. We had a fun time. We always do. And this year I found out that I like Scotch! Well, at least I know I like good Scotch anyway. Thanks Donn.
Listening to Eric Hutchinson right now.
A couple of days later we went to a New Year’s Eve party at Jason’s house. Had fun with a bunch of work friends. We did the big count down thing at midnight. And what happened after that…well, you’ll have to wait until next year’s letter to find out.
That’s all for 2012. We truly hope your year was as much fun as ours. And that 2013 is even better! If you’re anywhere close to Indy, let us know. We can get together and do something I can write about in next year’s letter. If you’re anywhere close to your computer, hunt us up on Facebook. Unless you found this letter while digging through your neighbor’s trash, we probably want to hear from you.
Listening to George Winston’s “December” CD as I select random animal photos to fill in some of this blank space. Merry Christmas!
Wayne, Jane, Emily and Sarabeth
