Dear Family and Friends,

May your holiday season and the year ahead be blessed with as much providence, happiness, and good health as you can possibly imagine. 2000 has been an incredibly bountiful and volatile year for us. We have all achieved many emotional, physical, and professional milestones that will make this an unforgettable start to the millennium (or precursor, if you believe that there are 1000 years in each one).

Frankie started kindergarten at the same school that Dianna attended for first through eighth grades.  After her first week of classes, she commented to us that “I don’t get to go back until Monday.”  Since then the reality of the daily ritual has caused school to lose some of its luster.  She now looks forward to days off, especially when accompanied by mom and dad’s days off of work. She’s starting to read and that has us all excited. Frankie is playing soccer again.  She loves it.  I need to work with her a little more on some of the finer points of the game. She’s still missing some of the big picture (like the object of the game and how the ball actually goes further when you kick than it does when you just look at it), but she really enjoys getting out there with all of her little friends. Her passion for art is still as strong as ever.  She’s big into mixed media.  That means that if a project requires glue, tape, string, sewing, nails, welding, or, especially, scissors, it really holds her attention. I never cease to be amazed by the creativity of that product of an engineer and financial analyst.  I expected her to be able to do math but not art. She now says her career aspirations include ballerina, zoologist, archaeologist (but not paleontologist), nurse, financial advisor, and big sister.

Dianna has had a big year as well.  Just when we thought that maybe it was time for her to consider going back to work full time, she got pregnant.  We’re still not sure how, since our schedules conflict as much now as they ever did when we had traveling jobs.  The doctor assures us that the usual things caused it but we’re completely baffled as to what that could mean.  We have had several sonograms so far, just to be sure, and our expected due date is late March.  We don’t know the gender yet and plan on waiting until the blessed event to find out.  She also reached a major chronological milestone this year.  I’m not at liberty to explain further but it has something to do with being born in 1960.  In addition she is as beautiful and wonderful as ever.  She has also been a real asset to the business this year as she is my bookkeeper, computer person, personnel director, and all-around focus maintainer.  Every day I’m more amazed with how lucky I got that fateful night in the East End of Cincinnati.  I figure a second child at least doubles the odds she’ll keep me around for a few more years.

My year was nothing short of amazing.  I worked my ass off, both literally and figuratively.  Dianna’s dad “retired” in March and sold me the practice.  I finished my second full year as a financial advisor third in the nation for second-year advisors at AXP. It sure is a great thing to know the right people.  The hours are long, but it is really a great experience helping people get what they dreamed about. Along the way, I took out an insurance policy to pay for the practice in case something happened to me.  When they weighed me for the insurance, the rotten scale said 196 pounds.  After verifying that I had not achieved my life long dream of growing to 6 feet tall, I realized that I was dangerously close to violating my personal roundness border condition.  I decided to do something about it. So I did my usual pseudo-intellectual thing and bought a book.  The book is “Body-for-Life” by Bill Phillips (if you’re interested check out www.bodyforlife.com).  I read it the same night I watched “Deliverance” and “the Shawshank Redemption” on TNT (I don’t know that there’s any connection between rednecks, prison, and bodybuilding, it just happened to be what I did that Saturday night from 11 PM to 3 AM). I started the program the following Monday.  Twelve weeks later I weighed 175 pounds and had reduced my body fat by about 50%. I am still holding at about that same weight (178 lbs. this morning) even though I have relaxed my diet since Thanksgiving.  If you’re looking for a way to regain some of the vigor of your youth, I heartily endorse this program.

That about does it for Y2K. I want to thank everyone for being a part of our big year and for reading this far.  Watch this space for next year’s news.  We hope you have a joyous 2001.

Much Love,
             Chris, Dianna, Frankie, and ??? (email us!! Russick(nospam)@att.net)