Holiday Letter 2008

December 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

Having just completed our fifth year here in the Pacific Northwest, we had a very busy and fulfilling 2008! Our crazy year was punctuated with bittersweet endings and many new beginnings! Our family experienced many new and unusual events as well. Here is a brief over view of this wonderful year!

Rachel:

From traveling many miles to achieving many milestones, this was a BIG year for Miss Rachel! In February, she traveled to Europe with her synagogue youth group. They toured Budapest, Prague and Amsterdam in a jam-packed ten days. They explored the Jewish history of Eastern Europe—past and present. She had a blast! In April, she traveled to Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio for a Jewish youth leadership conference. Learning great skills in how to be a more effective leader, she would go back to HUC in a heart beat... maybe even for Grad School!  In June, the whole family celebrated Rachel’s graduation from high school! Grandma Shirley, Grandpa Art and Aunt Sue flew to Seattle (for those that don’t know, that was really a FIRST airplane flight for both Shirley and Art!) and they stayed with us for nearly a week. We all got emotional watching Rachel accept her diploma on the field of Quest Stadium; it was a very touching commencement ceremony and Rachel was honored to receive three scholarships! As fall rolled around, Rachel packed up lots of new goodies and moved into Nash Hall to start her freshman year at Western Washington University in Bellingham. She plans to major in history and earn her teaching credential! Rachel is very involved at Western; she is already the Vice President of the Hillel program on campus! She loves Western and looks forward to her years there!

Alyssa: 

Alyssa had an awesome year as well. She traveled to Washington DC with her youth group in February. She attended the Religious Action Center youth program, a Jewish lobbyist group. She enjoyed seeing the fabulous sites of our nation’s capital as well as meeting with our local and state Congressional representatives! She completed her sophomore year of high school in June and accepted a spot in the National Honor Society. Alyssa also tried her hand (well her bat) at softball this year. Alyssa enjoyed Confirmation through the synagogue in May; she was honorably chosen to chant Torah for the class. She did a great job! This year also marked her sixteenth birthday and she earned her license. Proudly, (and a bit scarily,) she is now the fourth driver in our household! Alyssa also attended a Hebrew Union College leadership weekend in Cincinnati in November. This program focused on “Going Green the Jewish way”. 

Both girls work for the synagogue as Religion School teacher assistants. Rachel taught the second and fourth grade classes last term while Alyssa taught the third grade class. Currently, Alyssa helps in the sixth grade class and Rachel fills in when she is around. Dan is now following in the girl’s footsteps by teaching his own fourth grade Sunday school class. Rachel “helps” him out as needed!

Dan:

Dan had an awesome year working at Microsoft. 2008 marks the launch of his new book Listening to the Future. He is busy doing viral marketing on the web to get out the word about the book, so don’t be surprised to get an e-mail from him about it (ok, learn more at listeningtothefuture.com). Dan has been on the road speaking at a number of industry events and spending time with Microsoft’s customers. This year he went all over the US, to the Netherlands and to the UK. The Microsoft Executive Briefing Center awarded him with their One Microsoft speaking award. He also continues to write poetry and a new poem was in Seattle’s Drash. And of course, Dan can’t just concentrate on one or two things, so this year saw him accept an advisory position with the National Workforce Center for Emerging Technology and he continues to lead research at the Institute for Innovation & Information Productivity (www.iii-p.org). In his spare time he is working on his next book. Keep your eyes open in January for a new Microsoft People-Ready Business advertising campaign which will feature many of Dan’s papers on the web. If you can’t wait until then, you can find many of his papers on the Forbes visionaries website at http://www.forbes.com/2008/02/14/biz-viz-celebs-oped-cx_daa_0214bizlede.html.          

Janet:

This year, Janet decided to re-enter the workforce—for pay that is!  In addition to being Household CEO, chief cook, laundry mistress and all-around best shopper, she launched herself into a full time, outside-of-the-house job working as the Membership and Programs Coordinator at our synagogue, Temple De Hirsch Sinai. It’s been a challenging transition, trying to get everything done as usual, (with little or no time!), but overall it has been very rewarding to be part of a new team with tremendous impact upon our Seattle Jewish community.

Indiana Jones:

Now three years old, Indiana Jones continues to run around the house chasing his toys, guarding his domain and loudly barking at dogs passing by. He sneezes, gives high fives, rolls over, speaks, bows and does many other tricks. He really is a great dog and is very tolerant of all the antics the girls put him through. He looks as cute and scruffy as ever!

We hope this gives you a sense of the 2008 we experienced. We hope you also experienced a wonderful set of learning and loving experiences in 2008, and we look forward to sharing in many future moments with you and your families in 2009!

All the very best at this holiday season.

Love,

The Rasmus Family