Yes, it's that time again -- time for another edition of the Bascom Family Update! (Astute readers will note the omission of any indicator of frequency or seasonality -- it would be too embarrassing to go into the details -- so we won't bore you with any lame excuses regarding such things...)

So, you ask, what's been going on in our corner of the world? Not much really, just the usual day-to-day stuff that happens everywhere. The kids are growing at an amazing clip (as you can see Julia is nearly as tall as Jami and Peter isn't far behind. I'm not sure where they get it from...) and are doing all sorts of wondrous things that we're quite sure you can't wait to hear about :-)

The big news for Julia is home schooling for third grade! It was a little rocky at first but Jami and Julia have settled in and it seems to be working fairly well. Dad even gets to help out with Math and History once in a while.

While we're on the subject of school -- Peter and Emily are both at Happy Valley School. Peter is in the Kindergarten & Enrichment program and Emily is just starting out with pre-school. Lately Peter has been paying an unusual amount of attention to letters and numbers -- he looks poised to make The Great Leap Forward soon. Emily is a precocious little three year-old who astounds her parents by the casual ease with which she announces the spelling of new words and makes pronouncements about numbers of various sorts!

Julia is still very much a "Prairie Girl". Her favorite stories are of girls growing up in the 19th century. She and her friends love to dress up in their prairie dresses (often sewn for her by Grammie) and re-enact the olden times through activities like cooking an old fashioned recipe (my favorite choice), scrubbing the floor, or washing clothes by hand!

This fall Julia auditioned for the Peterborough Children's Choir and was chosen to sing with the choir in two December concerts. Grammie came all the way from Arizona for a surprise visit to hear her dulcet voice! Both grandmothers agreed (as did all other parties...) that the concerts were a great success and that the children sang beautifully.

Of course Julia's favorite activity remains reading -- she devours the written word in whatever form she can find it. If there are books, magazines, newspapers, junk mail or even just loose scraps of paper with some sort of writing on them Julia will be perfectly happy. No written material is safe from Julia!

Peter is 100% boy -- he's very active -- he loves to ride his bike as fast as it will go and see how long a skid mark he can make in the driveway! Of course that occasionally leads to a skid mark or two on his shins but that's a small price to pay for so much fun. He's also VERY enthusiastic about and quite relieved that Santa got it right and managed to find a Jack Hammer (that's the Hero's name for those of you who don't follow these things...) to add to his collection.

Two big accomplishments for Peter this past year were learning to swim without a bubble and (finally!) losing two teeth!

When he's indoors Peter likes to watch videos with lots of action (he's intimately familiar with the fast forward button on the VCR), play computer games such as Freddie Fish and Spy Fox or build incredible creations out of wooden blocks, Legos or whatever else is handy. In his rare quiet moments Peter likes to have books read to him and play board games -- he's getting to be a pretty good Checkers player!

Emily is a delightful, loving, funny little girl, no longer a toddler, who loves to sing, dance and twirl around, ride her tricycle, swim, be tickled, chase around the house playing Rescue Heros with Peter (she's got her own collection going...) and dressing up her dolls.

In April and again in October, we visited Arizona where the polar bears of the family demonstrated that NH does indeed breed hardy souls! Grammie and Grampa may be of the opinion that the pool has to be nearly 90 degrees to be swimable but that's because they've forgotten the joys of plunging into the aptly named Cold River on a hot summer day! :-)

Of course no trip to Arizona would be complete without a trip to Everyone always enjoys the exhibits -- especially the real firetruck and turnout gear that they let kids climb on and try out!

Arizona is also horse country. Grammie's friend Kelly is always happy to have the kids over to ride her horses and Julia really looks forward to her visits with the horses!

Back home in NH, where the snow flies, all of the kids are (finally) enjoying sledding this winter. We've got some snow on the ground and enough of a hill so that they can get a good run in. If the weather cooperates and we get more snow we'll see about building a new and improved version of last winter's hugely successful luge run!

Tom and Jami went out to Spokane Washington in June. Jami's friend, Deslene, got married and Jami was in the wedding party. Grammie came out to NH to stay with the kids and we took a few extra days to scoot over to Montana and visit Galcier National Park. The park is beautiful! And not very crowded either -- of course it is about a million miles from anything else...

The other big news on the adult front is that Tom has a new job! (No, really this time...) In August he resigned from EDS and accepted a position as Vice President of Engineering with printChannel.com -- just in time for the Internet "bubble" to burst :-) Luckily (the goofy spelling is correct) is a real business with actual customers and (even better) actual revenue being generated. The company is, however, in San Francisco California (the programming team is in San Jose) so travel, while somewhat less frequent (at least in Tom's rapidly fading mind), is still part of the territory. Moving to Silicon Valley is NOT in the picture! (Even though they do have a whole street in San Jose named after us -- Bascom Avenue :-) and a couple of great donut shops that ought to provide a decent family discount...)

While Tom has been out West Jami has been holding things together at home, guiding Julia's home schooling, teaching Sunday school, practicing (and occasionally performing) with the local handbell choir and cooking up a new member of the family!

Yes, we have a cat now! Tiger joined the family in September. He's a very nicely striped tiger cat with a great personality. It's quite a treat to watch him bat toys around under the kitchen table or play "hockey" with a butter tub!

That's it for this edition of The Bascom Family Update!!! Until next time --