2006 Christmas Letter

December 14, 2006

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

2006 was another year of many changes for us, but this time around it feels so much more rewarding.

As most of you know, at the beginning of the year we had already started on our cycle journey through Southeast Asia after finishing our “tour of duty” at the South Pole. We continued on our bike trip until early April when we finally returned to the United States. (You can read about our cycle adventures abroad and see pictures in the archives of this blog). What a banner way to start a year! It was by far the most memorable experience of our lives. We came back home to Denver, Colorado tired and anxious and proceeded to move our lives to Buena Vista, Colorado.

Buena Vista is a small mountain town located 2-1/2 hours southwest of Denver. Kirk grew up here so it’s a special place to him. We are surrounded by the beauty of several 14,000 foot Collegiate Peaks so the view everyday is spectacular. Buena Vista has world class kayaking (and rafting) on the Arkansas River that runs through town, skiing is a mere 45 minutes away and the mountain biking couldn’t be better. This is definitely a wonderful place to be and is the fulfillment of a dream that all started 3 long years ago when Kirk and I were first married. Needless to say we have had a marriage full of much change and many adventures. However, the end goal was always in sight which was why we purchased a 3 acre lot outside of Buena Vista to build our future home. We just happened to find it 2 years ago in January while back in the States for 6 short weeks between Antarctic contracts. It really helped solidify our goal and gave us something to dream about through the longest winter.

Anyway, back to our recent history….we were finally actually able to live on our land this summer in a most unconventional manner. We lived in a tepee which is something that I never thought I would say about myself. It was great though and it provided shelter for a fun filled summer of camping everyday, enjoying the outdoors and living quite simply.

As you can read about in our earlier postings we were chased out of the tepee by a bear. Fortunately we had the opportunity to move into a wonderful winter house sitting situation. We are currently about a mile from town and often walk to work everyday. It’s very convenient for us and a lovely place to live. We feel very fortunate. We are also very blessed right now with our business. Kirk and I opened our own mechanical engineering consulting business back in 2001 while living in Denver. We had the opportunity to do some moonlighting on the side of our full time jobs. It turned out to be the best thing we ever did because we kept the business active while we were in Antarctica and are now self-employed full time at our company, JK Mechanical Design. We have been going pretty non stop for the last couple of months and it’s been most rewarding. We love the flexibility and the chance to really sell ourselves. I’ve never seen Kirk beam so much while working!

The business has been keeping us busy enough that at this point we think we may just have to hire contractors to build our house in the spring. We’re looking at options on that front and will post the progress on our blog. We’re just trying to remain flexible about our lives since change seems to be ever constant.

So that about sums up 2006! It was a good one and I can’t wait to see what is in store for 2007. Happy holidays!

Love,

Jodi and Kirk