Holiday Letter

#2014inSelfies

12/14/2014

Best wishes to you and yours during this holiday season!

As like other years, this year has gone too quickly and was filled with lots of great moments, great travel, great food, great explorations, great opportunities, and great family time.

It’s hard to fathom that Evan is in the 5th grade this year and finishing his last year of elementary school. Evan continues to enjoy all the things we’ve shared in past letters (playing soccer and flag football, going to school, playing the trumpet and sleepovers), however, this year he has also become interested in expanding his art portfolio. He has started learning how to create sculptures, use Adobe Illustrator (computer graphic program), and design a personal website. Earlier this year, Evan decided to run for student body president. He organized his own campaign, wrote his campaign speech (a heartfelt plea to end bad language at school) and stumped for votes. Although he didn’t win, we were very proud of him, him message, and his effort.

Much to our amazement, Sophie is finishing her last year of middle school and loving every moment. We’ve enjoyed watching her grow up, develop BFF-style friendships, hone her unique style of witty humor, and become an independent young lady. She still enjoys all the activities we’ve shared in past holiday letters (reading, playing the saxophone, reading, sleeping in, and of course reading), however this year she added acting to the list. Earlier this fall, she auditioned and earned a roll as a one of Ariel’s sisters in a community theater production of the Little Mermaid. She will make her on-stage debut in January.

Last June, Genevieve accepted a new position with CSU Channel Islands as the President’s Chief of Staff. This was an unexpected, yet welcomed change as it provides her with the opportunity to see higher education from a different perspective. She is relishing this opportunity as it complements her strength of building collaborative relationships to facilitate progress of the university. In between all the new CI challenges, Genevieve was hired to co-write and facilitate a new leadership institute for the Alpha Phi Fraternity, which is aimed at seniors who are about to embark on professional careers. In addition, she was asked to serve as the keynote speaker at the upcoming Alpha Phi Leadership Conferences being held in California, New Jersey, Texas and Illinois in January/February of 2015. Although she is very nervous, I know she is going to do great!

Most of my days are still spent in the adult beverage industry, through my podcasts with local/regional brewers and spirit makers and website content, all with the desire of spreading the love of a good drink. I am currently writing a book about beer pairings and have finished five of the planned 20 chapters. I have done some fun graphic design projects this year that included designing and illustrating the workbook Genevieve used for her Alpha Phi leadership institute, creating infographics for a local car dealership, and producing studio quality YouTube videos. I’ve also rediscovered my printmaking roots in the past few months, in preparation for my application to the Master of Fine Arts program at California State University Northridge in February.

As a family, we have done a lot of traveling through the Southwest this year. Genevieve and I like to pick destination races, meaning we use half-marathons as an excuse to travel and see new parts of this beautiful country. In March, we visited Zion National Park in Utah with a short side trip to see hundreds of petroglyphs in Arizona. This past November, we visited the Valley of Fire in Nevada with a short side trip to see Hoover Dam. The kids are kind of ambivalent to the whole “Let’s See America” thing but they do love the hotels, mostly because of the cable.

May your holiday season be filled with rest, rejuvenation, and rejoice!

Curtis, Genevieve, Sophie and Evan

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Happy Holidays and Beyond (2013)

1/5/2014

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Happy Holidays Family and Friends!

We hope your year has been filled with great joy! Our year has been filled with lots of great moments, including using our annual Disneyland pass, camping amongst the Redwoods near Santa Cruz, watching my sister Libby graduate from CLU with her MA in Counseling, traveling to SD and IA to visit fabulous family and friends, discovering new wineries in Ventura County, attending lots of fantastic dinner parties, and learning new skills (like how to make soap, throw a football, learn to ski/snowboard, or knit in a circle).

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One of the more extraordinary events of the year included experiencing the Springs Fire this past May. The fire consumed 28,000 acres and burned a complete 360 degrees around our campus and housing community. It was surreal, unnerving, yet calming knowing that when we evacuated campus (and not knowing if we would return to a house) we had everything that mattered…the safety of our family and friends.

Evan is in fourth grade and his time is consumed with a lot more homework. He is doing much more reading and for the first time he found a book, which made him feel like the main character…a pretty cool discovery! Outside of school, Evan is participating in soccer, swim team, flag football, Lego league, and playing the trumpet. His all-time favorite thing to do is to have sleepovers, eat popcorn, and play Minecraft. Evan has been eager to learn how to knit (since he sees Sophie knitting all the time) and was happy to learn from Grandma Kathi when she and Terry visited this past Thanksgiving.

Sophie is in seventh grade (ahh…middle school! Where did the time go?!) and is growing into lovely young lady. She continues to be a voracious reader and is in honors English and History. I am extremely proud of Sophie, as she wasn’t originally placed in these classes, but rather she gathered her courage and asked her teacher to consider adding her to the honors English class. Before the end of the day she was switched into two honors classes. Outside of class, Sophie plays saxophone, participates in swim team and Girl Scouts (and had her first week-long, overnight Girl Scout camp this past summer).

Curtis continues to explore and expand his beer empire. He still enjoys co-hosting a weekly podcast show called Happy Hour with Joby and Curtis, where he interviews brewers, distillers, and wine makers…and, of course, tries their tasty beverages. In May, he and another friend started a new podcast series called Pints & Pairings, where they educate listeners on the tasting nuances found in beer and discuss complementary food pairings. This past fall, Curtis was asked to coordinate the judging for a local beer festival and looks forward to organizing a similar judging events in the future.

I continue to work at CSU Channel Islands and enjoy the continuous challenge of working at a ‘new’ university. This past year, I was honored to receive two distinctive awards; one from the CI students and one from the Division of Student Affairs; each denoting their appreciation of my leadership, teaching, and teamwork. In 2013, I participated in a program entitled Leadership California with 70 other women. Through this program, we learned about the critical issues facing our state and gained additional insights into the nuances associated with women’s leadership. As a bonus, I was able to meet one of my women’s leadership idols …Sally Helgesen (a rock star in the women’s leadership research J).

Over the next 12 months, we hope you check something off your ‘bucket list,’ enjoy many lingering dinners, experience the great outdoors, learn new skills, gain new knowledge, and laugh until your stomach aches.

Much love to you and yours,

Genevieve, Curtis, Sophia and Evan

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