Merry Christmas to One and All!
First Motorola Bag Phone, first Apple Macintosh computer, Space Shuttle Challenger is launched on its tenth space shuttle mission, first Poppa John’s Pizza, Apple Computer unveils its Apple IIc portable computer, Manheim Steamroller, first megabit chip is made at Bell Labs, Russia and the Soviet block boycotted the Los Angeles Summer Olympics, Pete Rose becomes the first player in the National League to collect 4,000 hits, Michael Jackson’s hair caught fire during a Pepsi commercial, Mary Lou Retton wins two gold, two silver and two bronze medals, the term cyberspace is coined by William Gibson in his novel “Neuromancer”, movies were Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Romancing the Stone and stonewashed jeans were introduced. Why the history lesson? All these events occurred in 1984-25 years ago. The same year as we got married!!
The highlight of our year was our trip to New Zealand to celebrate our anniversary. Our travel companions were Martha’s long time high school friend and her husband. They also traveled with us to Ireland a few years ago. The flight was a killer, even though it was overnight, we didn’t sleep but 10 winks.
Upon deplaning we crossed a decorative Maori threshold. We toured both north and south islands; Auckland, Christ Church and Queenstown. We participated in many fantastic activities and our favorites were:
- The Auckland Zoo, where we saw the tuatara, which is a reptile endemic to New Zealand which, though it resembles most lizards, is actually part of a distinct lineage, order Sphenodontia. The two species of tuatara are the only surviving members of its order, which flourished around 200 million years ago. We strained our eyes to find the Kiwi’s (New Zealand’s national symbol) in their nocturnal habitat.
- In Christ Church toured the city’s namesake Church, took the Trans Scenic Train and punted down the Avon River.
- In Queenstown we took two Lord of the Rings Tours (no we searched high and low and could not find Frodo) and the plane ride; in a 10 seater plane to Milford Sound for the boat ride on the Sound. You could almost touch the mountains!!
 Maori Carving |  A Rare Tuatara |  Cathedral Square in Christchurch |
 Riding the Railway |  'Punting' on the Avon River |  The Kiwi House |
 Lord of the Rings Tour |  LOTR Tour goes thru the River |
 Flying over the Humbolts to Milford Sound |  Mitre Peak Meets Us On Our Cruise |
In July we took our annual trip to Estes Park, CO with Martha’s parents. The animals were plentiful this year. Elk stopped traffic by sauntering across the road in the middle of the afternoon. One afternoon Martha even saw a bear close to town. Since she was by herself, nobody else was could collaborate the story, so it didn’t count. It seems that the bears are being seen more often and sometimes in the middle of town during the middle of the day.
Thanks to a friend we were able to attend the Sir Paul McCartney concert at the year old BOK Arena in Tulsa. We thoroughly enjoyed the show and we reminisced about our high school days. We also were lucky enough to see the Billy Joel-Elton John concert in the same venue; an Elton John concert was one of our first dates.
We celebrated Thanksgiving at our house with both families. Katie and her husband Darin and two children Taiya and Riley were able to come to our celebration. We were delighted that they were able to join us. Katie’s almost six month old daughter; Riley was baptized the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
To get us into the holiday spirit we heard Manheim Steamroller before Thanksgiving and Trans Siberian Orchestra a few weeks later. To top that off we made a quick trip to Kansas City to see the lights at Country Club Plaza.
Other special family events this year included:
- Eddie (Martha’s sister Beth’s oldest son) became an Eagle Scout and graduated from high school as a valedictorian. He started OSU and is a member of the President’s Leadership Council.
- Joey (Dan’s nephew) and Sarah became first time home owners.
- Darin participated in a competition bike marathon in Leadville Colorado; (Lance Armstrong was also participating) and Darin finished in the upper third of the competition.
- Martha took her dad to his 60th class reunion over the Memorial Day weekend. They met her uncles in Hollis, OK at the reunion, visited the farm, the stained glass window at the First Methodist Church, the cemetery and stopped to see if any tumbleweeds would blow by. We spent the night at the Quartz Mountain Lodge, a special Labor Day reunion location for the Miller family.
- Beth took their mom to a family reunion in Norman the first weekend in December.
Dan and I joined the 21st century [speak for yourself Martha] and became “texters” for the first time. Dan also has a Facebook page; Martha hasn’t taken that leap yet!! We also got a gas grill; Dan is practicing and has already mastered hot dogs and hamburgers.
We are still supporting Dan’s Alma mater with season football tickets. This year we both assisted our Sunday School Class Presidents by executing different tasks, Martha is serving as Chairman of two different committees (silly girl maybe some day she will learn to graciously decline these opportunities).
