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Dear Family & Friends

    Once again, we hope the year brought you good health, prosperity, and happiness. We look back at the events that punctuated our year and wonder how we stuffed so much into twelve months. All this is made more impressive by the endless time spent at work, particularly by the now legendary workaholic known to us as Cindy! Young Eigil, mid-sixteen and with a driver's permit, has found schoolwork more to his liking... well, we've seized control away from the school system & have him on independent study. We can now make not doing his work less palatable to him, so his grades are up.

    If it seems I'm using the noble guise of a Christmas letter to bore you to tears with our family album, you are only partially right. My intent is to let all whom we've shared this year with see the photos we've taken together. 

    Our yearly saga begins after our last Christmas letter. Christmas Eve last year we traveled to Pennsylvania to visit Cindy's family. We spent Christmas there & were treated to wonderful Nor 'eastern that blanketed the area in snow. We enjoyed seeing Cindy's family, as well as driving up to see the Statue of Liberty and catching the Rockets Christmas show. We were also able to take a number of photos of the World Trade Center well before this year's tragedy.

    2001 started with a vengeance. In January, as far from our normal fire season as we could get, we woke to sirens and a strange orange glow on the horizon. The Viejas fire, fuelled by strong Santa Ana winds, raced to within a few miles of our home & saw us packing our family albums before it was all over. 

    February I rode the back trails of Baja between Tecate and San Felipe, while Cindy entertained her brother at Disneyland's new theme park. My run down Baja was a spectacular 200 miles one-way, with two thirds of it in driving snow, sleet, and rain. Cindy was more fortunate, with the threat of rain keeping the crowds down to nothing.

    March Eigil graduated to a full size Motocross bike & marked the end of his daddy's dominance on the trail! Eigil & I also spent some time with Dennis and Laura at the San Felipe 250 off the road race held in Baja California. Sadly, Cindy left that week to Pennsylvania when her mother passed away. She remained there for a couple weeks to help settle the family estate.

    April saw us active camping in the desert at Superstition mountain with Will & Lora, Eigil racing his first downhill mountain bike race at the Sagebrush Safari, and we all rode with Mark at Hacienda Santa Veronica in Tecate, Baja.

    May we attended my godson Daniel's first communion in Los Angeles.

    June saw Jake, Eigil's long time buddy from northern California, spend three weeks with us in San Diego.

    July was as busy as they get. After parties at Will & Laura's, Bryan's, and racing at Big Bear, we managed to take Jake back to Northern California. On the way up we enjoyed stops in Sequoia NP, Moro Rock, and Kings Canyon NP. We dropped Jake off in Vacaville & headed north, but not before we rode Stonyford with Mark & celebrated Mark's birthday. We stopped in Cottonwood to see Tony & Vicky, & headed further north to see Burney, Burney Falls, and Lake Britton. Finally, we returned to southern California & spent the last weekend of the month just north of Yuma, Arizona, on the warm Colorado river (page 1, page 2) with Will & Laura.

    August, Mike and Elena visited us and we spent time at Sea World, fine dining, and Kayaking on San Diego Bay. Eigil continued with the Big Bear race series, and entered his first motorcycle desert race close to Superstition Mountain.

    September was another busy month. We enjoyed a beach party with Bruce and Michelle. Cindy's brother, Bill, came to attend Cindy's Navy retirement party & spend a day at Sea World to check out the baby killer whale. Eigil Joined the big boys on his first long range motorcycle run to Saw Mill, Baja. We took Tom, Cindy's reserve chief for his first run to our local desert, and enjoyed the maiden run of Dennis's class-1 pre-runner buggy at Ocotillo and Anza-Borrego.     

    October brought more camping at Ocotillo with Dennis & Laura, and Will & Laura.

    November we took time off to enjoy a visit from Darrel and Julie. We then Headed south to catch the Baja 1000 race just north of San Felipe. We capped the time off with a visit to Mike and Elena's place in Apache Junction, Arizona. Eigil scored a second place finish in Fontana. Finally, we spent our first Thanksgiving out in Superstition Mountain with Dennis and Laura and a sea of humanity.

    December we've stayed home, and for a good reason. After six plus months of planning and hand wringing, our pool project is finally underway! We did have a little time to enjoy Greg & Mary's Christmas party (page 1, page 2, page 3).

    In all, it's been a very busy year for us. We can only hope your was as good & we wish you a Merry Christmas and an even better New Year!.

                                            Jeff, Cindy, & Eigil