been out of touch with the blog for a few months – sorry. The Miller house has been about as crazy as usual this time of year with back to school, four kids in soccer (think 2 practices x 1 or more games x 4 kids = 12 to 16 soccer events per week…), three kids in karate (all just got their yellow belts), lots of YM/YW activities, scouts camps, etc. etc. Sometimes it’s tough to remember what a calm night at home feels like, and Sundays have an entirely new meaning of “day of rest”.
Kari is almost finished with a book called “Ruby” that I’m excited to read after getting snippets here and there. It’s about a teenage girl from Seattle who loses both her grandmother and then her father in a single year, and when her mother loses the capability to deal with things, the family moves to stay with their somewhat unusual extended family in Georgia. It turns into a ghost story after that, but one with a lot of unusual twists. Based on what I’ve read, I think it’s going to be really good – she has a great grasp of dialogue and captures how 12 to 18 years olds would really act, plus her scene setting is incredible. She’s been spending a few hours a day on it for months, and I think she’s up to about sixteen full chapters now, and is mainly filling in backstory, character details, and plot consistency now. Someday she might let me and the rest of the world read the whole thing, but so far I’ve just gotten snippets.
Grace is growing up too fast – she is doing great at the International School, despite a very challenging curriculum. This year she (and Kari!) will either be going to London on a great authors tour, or to Italy for a great artists tour. I think I got gypped – I was the chaperone for the school trip last year, for the “Historic Northwest Coast Tour”. Hmmm… Ethan is doing well in seventh grade too, though throwing him into ninth grade Spanish is proving difficult since the teacher was not pleased with us getting him in there and has been taking it out on him by giving him horrible “citizenship” grades despite decent academic performance. However, he’s impressing me in his maturity this year, though he wisely chose to not do too many extracurricular activities given the schedule he’s in. If a slot opens up he may join Grace at the International School in the spring. Connor is playing king of the hill in sixth grade and has turned into a very quick wit this year – he somehow has developed the ability to come up with painful puns and plays on words that I naturally think are hilarious. I think he’s going to get big – his feet and hands have become enormous. Elsa has buckled down this year, and though she’s still very much the unbridled spirit she has decided to get 100% on everything at school, and for those of you who know Elsa, when she sets her mind to something…. it will happen. Period. We’re just happy that this is the thing she decided to do. She and Caelen have also become voracious readers, getting through the whole Harry Potter series (despite the author’s very disappointing attempt to revise her story after the fact to include certain unnecessary elements). Caelen is still our sweet little boy who’s in no hurry to grow up, though unfortunately he is. Legos, books, token homework (he’s pretty bored this year) and playing fairly harmless pranks on his older brothers seem to occupy most of his time. Then, there’s Vigo, who is now a toddler and has the whole family wrapped around his finger. He’s like Ethan in that he’s starting to run everywhere – never walks. It’s funny to watch his little sixteen month old body waddle around at high speed. He’s very sweet but definitely has an attitude, and has recently decided that waking up in the middle of the night is fun again too (after a year of good behavior no less). He’s quickly learning that there is little sympathy unless there’s something really wrong at that time of the morning, so hopefully that will change soon.
Work has been hectic, but I’ve built a team I’m very happy with. My partners are much smarter than me (one’s London School of Economics/CIMA/CFP/CHP and the other has double masters from Stanford, for starters), but that’s a good thing and it’s good to have things in strong hands if, for instance, I decide that I need to go fish for steelhead in the middle of Hell’s Canyon in Idaho with my sons for a few days. My elections company will be in the press quite a bit in the next few months, including at some congressional hearings and such… some of it might be controversial in certain quarters but there is a real plan to make the process better behind all of this. The basics will be on http://www.electiontrust.com/ . I’ve also been very busy on two non-profit boards – I’m going to be president elect of the Bellevue Philharmonic Orchestra (http://www.bellevuephil.org/) this coming season, which will be very interesting because Bellevue is building a new, massive concert hall for around $140M and the BPO needs to go from the a small pretty good professional orchestra (Seattle Symphony is the big dog around here) to a full orchestra capable of filling the new hall. The good news is that the current venue is consistently sold out for the entire season, and seats are hard to get, unlike just a few years ago. The bad news is that the new hall opens in 2010 with around 900 seats in its smallest configuration (2,200 in its largest with balconies open), and the current venue has only 450. Our work is cut out for us.
The other thing I’m up to is the Romney campaign – he is currently up by at least 5 to 10% over the next competitor in six of the eight Super Tuesday states, even though his national name recognition is still quite low. However, that’s fairly normal, Clinton used the same strategy in his first run to essentially become the front runner and then gain name recognition in the larger states, after winning on Super Tuesday with less money than the big states would have cost upfront. It’s amazing and sad how much money drives everything in politics – the frontrunners literally purchase their way to recognition, then (hopefully) the merits (or lack thereof) of the candidate get seen. However, by that time everything is so scripted and managed that the candidates are more images than real people. Despite that fact that I’ve become very jaded about the whole process (or maybe because of it) I’ve decided that this is one of the most important presidential elections that this country has seen in decades, if not longer. Both parties have been a pretty big disappointment by bowing to the demands of the loudest parts of the fringes on each end, and neglected some rather important issues that affect the remaining 95% of the population. That trend will continue and the world will be an even more dangerous place without the right type of pragmatic leadership in my opinion. 2008 might be more interesting than anyone expects....
I hope everyone is doing well; it would be great to see more postings from my sisters here!
CONGRATS JAMIE!
I decided to try to catch you up on what’s happened in our family during the past year. Some of you may already know some or all of it. However, since I am getting old, I don’t remember what I have told to whom!
