2004 Christmas Greetings from
The Green Family!
Happy Holidays from the Green’s!
As I begin writing this letter, I am
perched in my recliner with my laptop computer. Christmas isn’t a
one-day event in the Green household, and this year is no exception.
It is November 29, and we just started the first of what will
probably be many Christmas videos over the course of the next month.
Haley is perched in the bean-bag chair, bowl of popcorn in hand,
ready for The Grinch who stole Christmas to start. Kay and I
shake our heads, as living in a house with teenagers makes her look
and act like a pint-sized adolescent more each day.
For my
small-in-number-but-extremely-loyal Christmas letter “groupies,”
allow me to apologize in advance for a rather normal letter. There
is no Dr. Suess rhyme, multiple choice quiz or fill in the blank
sections this year. Just a simple letter that gives you a glimpse at
what happened in our home over the past year . . .
Angel the Wonder Dog passes
 The
day after Christmas was a very sad day. Regular readers
of our annual letter will recall our black lab Angel
“The Wonder Dog.” Angel went to doggie heaven that day,
the result of some kind of an allergic reaction,
probably from a spider bite. After a brief period of no
dogs in our family, we took corrective action by
purchasing a brown seven-pound Chesapeake Bay Retriever
that we named Chocolate “Ginger” Lovin’ (thanks for the
name, Jordan!).
Ginger certainly fills the void left by Angel, and is in
her Wonder Dog apprenticeship as we speak. Her tiny
frame has expanded to 60 pounds so far. I have been
working with her on retrieval skills for future hunting
excursions, and recently purchased two videos to aid in
the training. Kay asked me how many times Ginger has to
watch the video before she is ready to go hunting . . .
hmmm.
Helicopters and heart attacks
 February
found me spending a week in Reno, although not for the usual reasons
associated with this city. My father experienced a heart attack
while on the road in Nevada. After a helicopter ride to the
hospital, bypass surgery was immediately scheduled. My mother,
sister and neighbor to my parents (he drove dad’s truck back to
Springfield) made a fast trip to be by his side. Through the marvels
of modern medicine, I saw my parents off at the airport for their
trip home only five days after the surgery!
We’re going to Disneyland!
 At
the risk of being too chronological, March saw us flying south to
Disneyland. The doctor gave dad the thumbs-up to fly, so my parents
were able to join us for the fun. Jordan’s class schedule only
allowed him to join us for the weekend, and Matt and Melissa also
made the trip. Haley celebrated her fourth birthday while visiting
Mickey and all the Disney princesses.
And speaking of Haley and
princesses, our resident “girl-wind” has fallen prey to the blitz of
advertising by Disney. Accordingly, her parents, siblings and
grandparents oblige by opening our collective wallets to avoid
causing our little princess to feel deprived: a Princess Jasmine
outfit and princess fleece while in Disneyland; a collection of
nearly every Disney
 princess
video (I had no idea there were so many!); and a complete
transformation of her bedroom into the princess “suite” as a
Christmas present. I draw the line on the pink Disney princess
television/VCR unit she picked out for her room! Now if we can only
get the smell of spoiled kid out of our house! Haley is enjoying her
pre-kindergarten class two days a week, gymnastics class, attending
church and spending time with her friends. She enjoys playing with
Ginger and working with daddy in the yard.
In May I spent some time in
Washington DC, attending a legislative event with our national co-op
association. In between legislator visits I worked in visits to the
many monuments and the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum. I flew in
and out of Baltimore to get lower air fares, which conveniently
(wink wink) allowed me to catch a Baltimore Orioles game at Camden
Yards.
Graduations, retirements and
visitors from Nebraska
 Graduations
kept our early summer busy, with Allison (age 17) and Katie Looper
(Jordan’s girlfriend) receiving their diplomas. Speaking of Allison,
she obtained her driver’s license, got a job at Subway, and plays
piano in worship bands at church. In a recent piano recital, she
tackled an eight-page David Lanz piece (I have no idea who Mr. Lanz
is, but I could tell by all those notes on the page that he didn’t
write “Chopsticks”). This fall she began working on her transfer
degree at Portland Community College. She has this thing about
England and anything British, although I hope that doesn’t include
her yet-to-be-purchased first car, as any car guy will tell you that
British cars are always in the shop! In the meantime she uses one of
the cars from the family fleet.
With our Disneyland vacation already
behind us, our summer was spent close to home. My softball games,
Vacation Bible
School for Haley, and camping at the coast and Odell Lake with
family filled the summer. Also, the kids put together a 25th
wedding anniversary party, complete with Matt and Melissa doing
their best imitation of a 1979 version of Kay and Russell!
 One
highlight of the summer was the visit of Haley’s Nebraska family,
with Grandma Kelly, Great-grandma Eldora and a Great-aunt coming to
Oregon. We were happy they were able to see Haley for the first time
since her birth.
The fall saw us celebrating the
retirement of Kay’s parents, who sold their security/patrol business
of 34 years. The kids returned to school, and I did anything but
celebrate college football as my Oregon Ducks stumbled through their
season.
Hurry, get the camera – it’s
Jordan!
 A
Jordan (age 19) sighting is about as frequent as seeing Sasquatch
these days. He leaves home at 6:15 a.m. to make it to a 7:00 a.m.
PCC class in Portland. He arrives at work around 1:00 p.m. and
usually works until at least 6:00, maybe later. A stop at Starbucks
to hang out with friends or to attend his car club meeting, and we
are lucky to see him at some point between 9:50 and 9:53. He hits
the pillow and starts over the next day. I told him that his
schedule makes him good management material! Weekends are spent with
friends, cleaning his room . . . (okay I made that one up!) seeing
Katie (if she is home from classes at Western Oregon), doing some
car club activity, or converting some meager Volkswagen into a race
car (a fete that us muscle car guys can’t fathom, but somehow he
does it).
 Katie’s
departure to school prompted Jordan to purchase a promise ring in an
effort to secure his long-term romantic interests. The ring was
happily accepted, although he will have to make a significant
upgrade on Katie’s finger hardware once he is done with school! God
forbid that anything bad happen in this relationship, as we would
miss Jordan terribly! Katie’s parents feel the same, but in reverse,
so I guess he would have somewhere to go.
You can’t give a fish a time-out
. . .
 Matt
and Melissa (age 22) celebrated their one-year anniversary in
October. Their schedule is very busy with Matt attending MBA classes
at George Fox University, work for both, caring for two dogs, two
cats and their “Love Fish” – the lone remaining beta from their
wedding table decorations. [As a side note, our two wedding fish
didn’t survive very long – mine lasted for several months in my
office aquarium, but Haley’s didn’t survive its “time out”
administered by Haley for alleged poor behavior. She reached in and
pulled it out the bowl, then laid it on her dresser until it
“straightened out.” The fish complied with surprising quickness.
Unfortunately Haley was no longer in the room to witness this
compliance, so the brother of Love Fish became acquainted with our
septic system! Occasionally I hear sounds through the toilet that
are strangely similar to Barry White songs, but maybe I’m imagining
things.]
We didn’t think you would
actually do it . . .
Matt and I set new course records
with our new Taylor Made golf clubs – his as a birthday gift and
mine for Father’s Day. Unfortunately, our course records are for
high scores, lost balls, and divots on the tee box, fairway and
greens! Hopefully that will change a little bit next year. During a
September golf outing with two of our pastors, Matt’s tee shot
failed to reach the short distance to the women’s tee box. Golf
“etiquette” requires the offending golfer to drop his pants, and to
the surprise of his golf partners, Matt obliged. Imagine our
amazement when his next shot was his best of the day! Nothing like
responding under pressure! No, nobody else felt the urge to
duplicate Matt’s example!
My
one-of-a-kind-precious-gem-of-a-wife continues to develop her
My Precious Kid line
of child safety products, and has nearly 100 sales representatives
across the country. Being an in-home business entrepreneur and mommy
keeps her very busy. In January, Kay will teach a small-group class
at church for new mothers – a topic for which she is very qualified!
No, it’s not a mid-life crisis,
just a new job
Possibly the biggest change in our
family, or at least in my life, is that after 25 years of working in
the electric utility industry, I am changing careers. In September I
accepted the CEO position at
Ruralite Services, a communications/publication company based in
Forest Grove, Oregon. We plan to stay in our home for now, but may
consider a move closer to town sometime next year
I worked for
West Oregon Electric through
October, and will assume my new duties January 1. While I will miss
the people at West Oregon, my new duties will keep me involved in
the utility industry – although I will no longer have to dread a
snow storm! In fact, the next good snow will not find me at the
office. Instead, you will find me doing snow angels with Haley or
building a snow man!
In the interim, I am working on
finding out how it feels to take a two-month vacation. A trip to San
Francisco in my father’s 18-wheeler, the aforementioned princess
suite conversion, helping Matt install a new floor in their home,
and many other projects made the first month fly by. The second half
of my time off will include some duck hunting (if Ginger memorizes
those training videos) and a much anticipated Caribbean cruise with
Kay in mid-December to celebrate our 25th wedding
anniversary.
That’s the latest from the Green
family. We pray this letter finds you and your family blessed by God
and all He has for you. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a
Happy New Year!
Russell
& Kay Green
Kay, Melissa (22), Jordan (19), Allison (17), and Haley (4)
 December
2001
 Easter
2002
 October
2003
To view other Christmas Letters go to
2003 /
2004 /
2005 /
2006 /
2007
Precious Kids - Adoption &
Homeschool / Kay Green Family
Site / My Precious Kid
Child Safety
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