December 2017

Greetings from Friendswood, TX

It's our annual tradition to recap the year, and here we go: (Here are the Photo Highlights otherwise the hyperlinks in the letter lead to previously posted photo galleries)

Phelan is now 3, his favorite color is red, and his favorite toys are still go-go's (aka moving vehicles). His favorite go-go is a bus. And his favorite food is "called chicken". He's started Bird Buddies program offered by the Houston Audubon Society.

Megan is 10.5 and this year she's really gotten into lizards, she has acquired a Bearded Dragon and a Leopard Gecko. She is also into ants. This is on top of the hermit crabs, and fish she already has, and not to mention the colonies of feeder food (mealworms, dubia roaches, and crickets). She has finished reading the Harry Potter series of books, and is working on the Hobbit and the Lord of Rings, she has also started Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This year's Christmas Recital pieces were Come all ye Faithful and Good King Wenceslas. Megan also participated the FIRST Lego League Robotics Competition.

Hunter is now 15 years only and is starting to show his age, now when he escapes from the backyard, he just goes to the front porch rather than wander endlessly around the neighborhood. Hunter had an eye irritation for quite a while this year, but is better now.

Our cats Pakhet and Pepper are fighting less, and can often been seen cuddling in warm spots around the house.

Winston is still working for Boeing on the Space Launch System (SLS) program, the heavy lift rocket he's helping to design is scheduled for a first launch in 2 years. He still traveling a fair bit to Huntsville, AL but less than in years past. He was honored with two separate awards by NASA for his contributions to the manned space program. The Team Space Flight Awareness Award as part of the SLS Groundhog group dealing with Higher Order Cavitation and the Silver Achievement Medal as part of the Ball Strut Tie-Rod Assembly Flow Induced Vibration Assessment Team. Also Winston is really proud that he's lost about 25 lbs since last November.

This year has been especially tough on Julie. After starting to have slurred speech late last years and going to see several different doctors throughout the year, she was finally diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The bad news is that this is a degenerative disease and there is currently no known cure for this. It is a nervous system disease that weakens muscles. In Julie it has most greatly affected her speech (to the point that verbal communication is nearly impossible) and upper body strength. The good news is that we are very determined to beat this disease, she has her lower body strength and is able to communicate via IM and text to speech on her iPhone also she is being treated at the Houston Methodist ALS Clinic, a world class group of medical professionals of various disciplines all focused on helping Julie fight this disease. Dr Stanley Appel is the director of the clinic and is Julie's doctor. The therapies and medications Julie has been prescribed are significantly slowing/halting the progression. Fortunately Boeing's Health insurance is top notch, and our medical bills are manageable. There are several promising treatments and cures that are on the horizon and in clinical trials, including one being worked on in Dr. Appel's lab. If you wish to help, and please don't feel obligated in anyway, you can find directions in the postscript of this letter.

Travel wise we had four trips this year:

The first was actually late in December 2016 where we went to South Padre Island and Corpus Christi. We got to ride our bicycles on the beach and see lots of birds and turtles.

In early March we flew up to Virginia Beach to help Julie's brother Joseph celebrate his 50^th Birthday, and we also visited the Virginia (Norfolk) Zoo, Virginia Living Museum, and Portsmouth Children's Museum.

In late March in conjunction with a business trip, we drove to Huntsville, AL via Memphis and their zoo with Giant Pandas, and back with stops at Rickwood Caverns State Park and Cameron Prairie National Wildlife Refuge. While in Huntsville, AL we visited Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, the US Space and Rocket Center, and Rainbow Mountain Trail.

Our fourth trip was to San Antonio for the week starting 4^th of July. We took an Amtrak train and stayed for 4 nights/3 days. We visited the Alamo, the Riverwalk, SeaWorld and the San Antonio Zoo. Phelan really enjoyed the train ride.

We also visited Brazos Bend state park a couple of times and Anhuac National Wildlife Refuge and the Wallisville Lake Project as day trips to see wildlife.

Winston's cousin Connie visited us in February and we got to go Strawberry picking. And Winston's Parents visited in early December and we took them to see Repticon. Julie's cousin Regina visited also visited in early December and made anise biscotti and cheesecake.

We had the opportunity to volunteer several times this year helping clean our waterways, washing dogs at the local animal shelter, helping at the Houston Food Bank, and plant trees and help at the Earth Day celebration at Exploration Green.

Three major meteorological events happened this year in Houston. We had Solar eclipse on August 21^st ,(In Houston it wasn't a total eclipse, just a partial, still very cool though). Just one week later we had the deluge that Hurricane Harvey wrought. Fortunately our house did not flood, but the water did come close. And finally earlier this month, it snowed!

Megan's 10^th Birthday Party was at a local park and the highlight was a pretty extended water balloon fight.

Phelan's 3^rd Birthday Party was at a nice Italian restaurant where they served what Phelan had stated as a requirement: Tomato soup.

For Phelan's 3^rd Halloween he was a train, and Megan was a Were-cat. Winston carved both of them as pumpkin portraits for Megan-o-Lantern XI and Phelantern III. Megan-o-Lantern XI was entered in to the Pumpkin Decorating contest at work, and won 1^st place with 96% of the votes. Megan carved a likeness of her Leopard Gecko named Lunar Eclipse.

Christmas and New Years was just chilling at home, we're looking forward to a long road trip to Phoenix, for Winston's cousin's wedding in February, with plenty of National Parks on the agenda en route.

And so passes another year here in Texas, where we're thankful for our friends and families. We look forward to next year, and wish you and yours the very best.

With Love,

Winston, Julie,Megan, & Phelan

P.S. As always, we will try to post more photos at http://basil2.homeip.net/~basil/Photo.html

P.P.S. Megan's joke for this letter: "What do you call a fake noodle? An impasta.

P.P.P.S. To donate to Dr. Appel's Research and Clinic at Houston Methodist for ALS please go to: https://securepayments.houstonmethodist.org/Donate-to-Methodist-Foundation . Under "Please designate my Gift to:" select "Program or Initiative" and from the drop down menu select "ALS fund".