Christmas 2005

 

Dearest friends,

 

Our pre Christmas Season - Advent - is again marked with travel preparations. The anticipation of celebrating Christmas with Alexander and Summer seems to give us wings!  Last January, they bought a lovely and spacious house in Bellevue, WA that is close to both their respective workplaces and a very good school system and we look forward to joining them for the first Christmas spent in their new home.  Both are keeping busy with their challenging jobs, Summer with Boeing and Alexander with Microsoft and they still hike and climb as much as possible in their spare time.

 

On the 26th it’s off to Carolina’s - to Cactus Country.  She, too, has had quite an eventful year.  Last January we had visited her to help her through a major crisis.  It is truly incredible how many wonderful friends also aided her (often over long distances) through that very dark time.  She is gradually changing her life, has set many new goals, and even took on American citizenship a few months ago.  She currently attends night school while still working at her job of many years.  Additionally, she started her own business as an independent wedding officiant, in which she is able to combine her creativity and love of language to develop truly innovative ceremonies.  If you like, you can see her “in action” at www.mystical-rites.com.  Our New Year’s Eve with her will truly be a joyful one; celebrating both her  new direction and as well as her accomplishments over the past year.

 

As for us…  You can imagine how closely our well-being is tied to that of our children.  As long as they are doing well, we are content.  Of course we are no spring chickens and do hop a bit more slowly now, especially Peter with his hip trouble.  Luckily, it has not gotten any worse, so he has been able to postpone the pending operation.  His consulting activity has been somewhat dormant. Nevertheless he is still professionally active and goes to lectures frequently… and in his “spare” time, he continually tries to organize Maria’s creative chaos…

  

Maria has taken a break from her art classes to work on her own for a while.  But somewhere between housework and her Italian studies (at the Italian Cultural Institute around the corner), something always seems to draw her away.  We live so ideally in the 3rd district - close to the inner city, concert halls, theaters, coffee houses, museums, the Botanical Gardens - even the Opera is within walking distance… it’s difficult to get any serious work done amidst all these glorious cultural temptations!

 

Of course we are very much looking forward to reading the reports and thoughts from all of you, our beloved friends.  If it works with your timing, you could send them to the kids so we can read them for Christmas.

 

We’ll be:

 

From Dec. 16th - to 26th           From Dec. 26th - Jan16th 2006

 

Alexander Krawarik                  Carolina Krawarik

 

E-mail, of course, reaches us anywhere.

 

As always, we wish you lots of Love, a Beautiful, Blessed and Merry Christmas and a Healthy, Happy and Peaceful 2006!

 

Peter and Maria