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A very Merry Christmas from our house to yours and best wishes for the New Year! As for us, we will remember 1998 as our first full year of parenting. What a joy it has been. Hunter is 15 months old now- he is walking, talking, and… stalking. He investigates everything, and it is now our full time job to keep him from destroying anything important, most notably himself. I thought it would be appropriate to open this year's letter with a little about the Travelin' Man. (And as an incentive to read this entire novel, I will tell you that there's some Very Good News on this same theme at the end. But don't cheat, read on.)

You may be surprised to hear that Hunter is already speaking fluently, albeit in a language that neither of his parents has ever studied. He will often make long orations on one subject or another and with great passion. But since there doesn't seem to be even a single text on this language, we have resolved to continue teaching him English in the meantime. His lessons are going well - he already has the basics: "Mama", "Dada", "Uh-oh", "Hi", "U(p)", "Dow(n)", "Ba(t)h", and the all-important "No" (which may mean either "no", "yes", or "I don't care, don't bother me", depending on inflection). This last should not be confused, however, with "No-no-no," which, Hunter has learned, is the name of every electronic appliance less than four feet off the floor.

Hunter's non-verbal skills are progressing as well. In addition to the traditional pointing and waving, he has learned a host of other tricks, mostly thanks to the tireless efforts of Lori's Mom, Caprice. Soon Hunter will know as many tricks as Skye, who is Caprice's dog of about the same age. Hunter seems to be learning faster than Skye now, and we see this as a good sign and hope this trend will continue. Hunter has also learned at least one trick that Skye has yet to master. We call it his "Remote Patrol" trick. This is where Hunter walks into a living room (any living room), immediately finds the TV remote control (which sometimes has eluded the rightful owners' for days), turns on the TV, and then proceeds to change all the various settings, leaving the television in an irreversible state of disrepair. We haven't watched TV ourselves in months.

It has been a great year of learning for Lori and me as well. We have learned, for example, that a young child will copy whatever he sees you doing. Sometimes this is cute. The other day I took out the trash, which I normally do by carrying around one small trash can and collecting garbage from all of the rooms in the house before taking it all outside. When done, I came back inside to find Hunter carrying an empty trash can (not much smaller than himself) all around the house. Very cute. Sometimes this behavior is not so cute. Let me illustrate. Hunter has a strong affinity for anything electronic, and whenever we operate some appliance (the microwave, the computer, the VCR…) he will watch intently, and then if at all possible, and usually when we have turned our backs, he will try it out for himself. But he doesn't feel obliged to restrict himself the way we might. He doesn't discriminate between a VCR cassette and, say, a small wooden nickel. Both are small, both can be grasped, and both fit easily into the VCR. $200 later, we can now go to Blockbuster Video again (which is good, because we can't otherwise watch TV).
As I write this, as if on cue, Hunter has appeared by my side to demonstrate my point, reaching up and groping the keyboard with all his effort. (Maybe he just wants to tell his side of the story.) In any case, I can no longer be responsible for such luxuries as spelling, On my 300. mile jogg htis mkorning, I was thinkqing3 about wha t I shOULD tell yyou about Hunter. ZI guess jthis abboutw s ays it all./

We did a lot of traveling this year, just the way we like it. There were numerous trips to Denver to visit Lori's mom and her husband, Bill. (Hunter liked that since he got to have two 1st birthday parties - one in Denver and one at home in San Jose.) Then in April, I went off to Maryland for my Air Force Reserve duty. Lori and Hunter joined me there for sightseeing in Washington and visiting friends in Bethesda. On the way back home we stopped in Texas and Louisiana to visit family and introduce Hunter to his kin. We had a wonderful family reunion in Lake Charles - many Crawfish were eaten by all. We hope to make this trip every summer so that Hunter can be subjected to the same abuse by his cousins that his father was growing up. Other trips were to Baja, Mexico and the Hawaiian Islands - more about those later.

The very astute will notice from our Christmas picture that Lori has finally gotten her braces off. Hallelujah! After three long years, we can finally kiss again without having flashbacks to Junior High. Lori is elated to be able once again to eat apples, popcorn, corn on the cob, and the like. Oh yes, and bubble gum. The day she got them off I think she cleared the aisles of Bubble Yum at Walgreens (causing stock prices to triple). Meanwhile Hunter is still trying to figure out how Mommy's tongue can get so big. Lori has truly taken to being a full-time Mom. She is fantastic at it. Add that to her many other domestic talents and you'll see why I've gotten the entire West Coast convinced that I married Martha Stewart. This Christmas finds us equipped with new, individualized, hand-knitted stockings, which are right now hung above the hearth. (Martha.) Our kitchen has, in the last month, produced more sizes, shapes, flavors, and sheer numbers of cookies than the entire staff at Keebler. (Martha.) And most of our Christmas decorations were made from scratch this year from bits of fabric and scraps of paper and little knick-knacks whose purpose I have yet to determine. (Once again, Martha.)

Lori has also taken up genealogy as a major hobby. Thanks to previous research done by family members, Lori has been able to build a database of nearly 2,000 family members from the Wagner, Churchman, Takahashi, Schelhaas, and Kroonenberg families (just to name a few). Our goal now is to add our own original research, survey living family members for more information than names and dates (especially stories), and finally to put the tree on the internet (password protected where appropriate). Email correspondence will really help here - please be sure to email us so we have your email addresses. And if you'd like a report on your part of the family, write/call/email us, and we'll send one to you.

I spend most of my conscious hours working on the company. Fourth Planet reached a major milestone this year: we released our first enterprise software product, nScope, which is a 3-D visualization tool for computer network management. Now all we have to do is learn this so-called marketing stuff, so we can sell a few copies. (In marketing meetings earlier this year, we discussed targeting the "curious rich." If you know any of these people, have them call us.)

Besides the business, I've been keeping busy flying. I finally got my pilot's license finished in June, and I've been flying Dad's V-Tail Bonanza quite a bit since. To celebrate my new wings, Dad, my brother, Derik, and I joined two of my good friends who are pilots for a boys' trip to Baja. ("Baja" was, I believe, named from the sound the Mexicans make when they see crazy gringo tourists leaving the comforts of California for this God-forsaken desert.) The Wagner's flew in the Bonanza and Butler and Scott flew in a Cessna Skylane. On the agenda there were just three simple items: Flying, Diving, and Drinking. Now you're probably thinking that these activities don't go together so well, and, strictly speaking, you'd be right. But somehow we didn't let better judgement get in our way, and we managed to cram in quite enough of each… lots of the first, a little of the second, and FAR, FAR too much of the last (Six months later and you'd still be hard pressed to find a Baja Boy within a half mile of a lite beer… and please don't even mention the "T" word).

After recuperating from the Baja Safari, we finished up the summer with a family trip to Hawaii. Thanks to the timeshare condo provided by Scott (yes, that's Baja Scott), we were able to stay on Maui rather affordably, and we could use our arms and legs for other expenditures. The highlight of the trip for me was the diving. Scott and I made a number of dives on Molokini and each had our first Manta Ray encounters. If you've never been surrounded on all sides by blue water with Very Large Animals magically appearing out of the abyss, then you really haven't lived (and if you have and your Very Large Animals happened to be the sharp-toothed variety, then you may not have lived either). Other Maui activities included visiting Lori's cousins who live in Makawao, and making the 3-hour, 50-mile-each-way drive to Hana, where Lori got carsick despite the fact that she was driving. Finally, the three of us hit the big island for lots more hiking, driving, and yes of course, diving. Lori and I were thrilled to see an active lava flow as we hiked across one of the relatively recent flows on the island's south side. Hunter was thrilled to at last get out of the car.

Okay, that's the year in review. We hope to hear from you all about your events and adventures (and likely already have, since we're so late getting this out.) Now, if you've made it this far, then you've earned the right to hear our Very Good News (and if you just skipped to the end, then go back to the beginning and start over - there will be no cheating). And the news is… we are expecting another visit from the Stork in June. Lori and I are understandably ecstatic. Hunter is stockpiling his toys for the coming invasion.
Love and Peace to all of you this holiday season.