[Ivy]<Sweet>Personal>Xmas.81!1

This Christmas slipped up on us, as it doesn’t seem like a year has passed already. This is the time of year that we eagerly await the mailman bringing news from each of you. It helps us end the old year and start the new one with a sense of renewal.

If we thought 1980 passed quickly, it must have been to prepare us for an even quicker 1981! In many ways, we are thankful 1981 is over and hope 1982 will be better.

Emilie (age 7) and Marjorie (age 3) are delightful, but are as different as night and day. Emilie is in second grade in private school and loves it. We hadn’t realized what a parental commitment extracurricular activities can demand until this year with Emilie in dancing class, Brownies, church choir and a YMCA program for fathers and daughters. All have had activities this holiday season (often on the same day)!

This summer Marjorie announced "It’s not fair that Emilie gets to go to school and I don’t." In the fall she started to Buttons ’n Bows Montessori School, of which Emilie is an alumna. She adapted quickly to "school" and loves it.

This has been a real challenging year for our work. The Xerox "Star" professional workstation was announced in April and was the hit of the National Computer Conference in May. "Star" is the first product to bring to the marketplace the ideas that Dick has been working on at Xerox since 1972. In another 6 months or so, Janet figures Stanford will have finally implemented or negotiated accomodations in requirements resulting from the government cost principles issued in March, 1979. Hope you taxpayers feel you got your money’s worth as Stanford and other educational institutions with Federally sponsored activities implement the accountants’ "full employment act!"

We were blessed with a number of visits with family and friends this year. Our family took two wonderful trips as well. Around Easter, we took the children to Disneyland. What a happy place, made even more wonderful as our 10 year old niece Kirsten joined us there. In July, we went to Texas for a visit with family and friends and for Janet’s 19th high school reunion (held jointly with the next class’s 20th). It was our first reunion, but hopefully not the last. It certainly didn’t seem like 19 years since we had last seen each other, but in most cases it was. Wish we had had longer to catch up.