Thursday....... December 11th....... 2008

Our Christmas Newsletter:

Christmas 2008 Dave and Linda Wood

Merry Christmas to all….may you have peace around your family and life this Christmas.

This is truly a special Christmas for Linda and Dave. It wasn’t but a Christmas ago that we were struggling with serious health issues including lung cancer and all the chemo and radiation and fears one could humanly deal with. There was also the anxieties associated with this and the appearance of high blood pressure complicating things.

We have come a long way in this year….focusing on the present and living life more spontaneously. We have grown closer when it didn’t seem possible to be any closer. We are more real with each other and more patient and more watchful. We also understand the movement into the “60’s” as an additional set of issues all of its own.

What is the outlook down the line…we don’t know..and we have committed ourselves not to be suppressed by this unknown. We understand “it is what it is”. For a more clear understanding of our journey, catch “Linda’s Journey”, a BLOG tracking our experience since finding Linda had cancer. It is located at http://www.linda-lou.blogspot.com/ .

What have we been up to?....a lot! We have just spent two months at our home in Florida, sitting in the sun, resting, being with friends, bicycling, walking, taking cruises, etc., etc.. This past year, we finished working as fan ambassadors with Champ Car open wheel racing series. We had an impressive run, but the series merged with the Indy Racing League, the competitor just before the start of the new season. We did one last race in Long Beach and then that was it. We missed it…but realized how much work we had put into it…which turned after a period of time into wonderment about how we did manage to do it…As a side note, we are lining up to do a limited schedule of 4 races next season for the IRL being involved with a private media service associated with racing.

In May, we decided to give Hawaii a try to celebrate Linda’s great post treatment CT scan. We took a 7 day cruise to see all the islands and then spent 7 days on Maui. It was quite an experience ….. if we didn’t have other homes and a motorhome, a move there might have been an easy thing to do. We had a beautiful time and look forward to future trips there again.

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While hiding out on the MacKenzie River in a secluded B&B, we got word that grand daughter Jillian,had been seriously injured horseback riding. To make a long story short, she broke her jaw in three places…and looked like she had been in her first bar fight and lost. The doctors at the children’s hospital in Portland fixed her up good and as a grand trooper, she healed quickly.

Linda’s cousin Ruth Ann, Came from Nebraska and spent some quality time with us…we enjoyed seeing her and showing her a little of beautiful central Oregon.

We spent a lot of time in the motorcoach this last summer including a week at the coast and then 3 weeks in California…it was very nice to get to spend time in the coach after limited use the previous year because of illness. In California, we went to a NASCAR race, Disneyland, visited Mary, Linda’s good friend, and other friends from times ago.

We did get a week in Alaska to visit brother Darron and sister in law LaVelle….a nice trip with no fishing which we missed but got to visit more which was nice.

Both of us particpated in the Wings Personal Growth seminars this year…Linda joined Dave in the Crossover Seminar after an absence of many years. Both particpated in Listening Heart, a couples seminar dearly loved. That involved another two weeks along the way in the RV..

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And…we found time to spend a week in Mexico…in Puerto Vallarta…a trip missed last year to son Jim’s wedding to Jenn because of the cancer treatments. Our airfare needed to be used so we flew down and stayed in the same place we were to stay last year….

That’s about what we remember. There might be more, but folks wonder how we are always able to do so much in so little time..so we won’t try to stress folks out by listing everything.Our family is doing well. There are still two grand daughters…no new ones to report…both are smart as can be and surely will be very successful in their lives. Sons and daughters are doing well…each is focused on his/her desired professional life. We did put our Sisters home on the market, hoping to move to the Portland area when it sells to be nearer the family.

That’s about it…like we said, if you want a day by day narrative of what we did this past year, review the Linda’s Journey Blog..it is exhaustive in detail and pictures.

We finish by wishing each of you good health and loving relationships…..not knowing what tomorrow brings and recognizing life as each of us knows it can change in an instant, please live in the present, be current with your loved ones, and don’t leave anything unsaid. And as we signed off in the Blog yesterday:

Life is short. Break the rules. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollaby. Never regret anything that made you smile.

Dave and Linda