Happy Holidays 2009 from the Toku-Aulls

Merry Christmas 2008, 2009, and what the heck, help yourself to a Merry Christmas 2010 while you’re at it. Greetings from Chico, California at the foot of the foothills of the Cascades. We didn’t do a Christmas letter last year, because we went to Hawaii to participate in the Honolulu Marathon. Jon won and Masami came in second, but I’m sure you heard all about that. Since we were already there, we decided to spend the next couple of weeks camping, snorkeling, and sight seeing. Since we have spent the last two years away from home at Christmas, Theo was excited that we are staying home this Christmas, I guess so he can watch more tv. He won best of grade for the whole Chico area Science Fair last year for his experiment with plant stomata. He is a Yoyo whiz now, and lives for yoyo club every week at the National Yoyo museum in Chico (in a shop that coincidentally sells yoyos). He is in 6th grade, turning 12 at the end of January. He plays soccer every season (twice a year) and was the top lap runner in the jogathon in his class for the fourth year in a row. Unfortunately, on a trip to Monterey he was attacked by a giant mutant seahorse that sucked most of his brains out, with all his good manners. I guess this is something that typically happens to teenagers, but they got him early. Jon is doing educational programs at the Nature Center, has his wildflower photos on exhibit there, and is planning the exhibits for the new museum/interpretive center for Bidwell Park, which should be completed this spring. Jon and Theo went to Boston for brother Derek’s graduation with a master’s degree from Harvard. (See the picture of him looking really smart below). He has found the perfect partner and is getting married soon. Masami was promoted to full professor this year at CSU Chico and got a raise just in time for the statewide paycut. She won the USSEA Ziegfeld award for best international art educator in 2008. She helped organized the INSEA international art education conference in Osaka in summer 2008 for people from more than 50 countries. Her mother is in declining health with Alzheimer’s disease so Masami has been making many trips to Japan and will go again for a couple of weeks after New Year’s. We spent the last two summers in Japan, and this year Masami organized a number of events corresponding with the longest complete solar eclipse of the century, which was visible from her home island, Amami Oshima. She organized a comic art show and lecture series and a taiko drum concert. Unfortunately, the eclipse was eclipsed by clouds in a breathtaking metaeclipse, so no one got to see it except for 3 auks that were floating in the ocean 1500 miles east. Theo was in Japanese school for a month for his sixth year and will go back in March for the elementary school graduation ceremony. More on our summer travels at: http://aulljourney.blogspot.com/ Other than that, we’ve been traveling around California enjoying our beautiful environment and feeling lucky to live here. It’s another beautiful day for a walk, so we wish you all the best. Love, Jon, Masami and Theo