Merry Christmas and Happy 2009!

What a year it has been! We're really looking forward to 2009.

Kyle (7½) is now in 2nd Grade at the neighborhood school. He enjoys math and has done really well on abacus. He has also been working on regrowing his front teeth.

The twins (5) have started kindergarten. They are both doing well in classes. Sean, the older twin, continues to be the "serious, silent, secret learner" and has a nice ability to focus. Bryan, the younger twin, is an "expert reader" who is reading at Kyle's level and a very creative soul - who can't sit down for more than 15 minutes. Their favorite movie this year was Wall-E.

Kirk is setting up the quality system at Palmaz Scientific, which is a company developing novel medical interventional technologies. He continues to sing in the church choir again and enjoys his Thursday music nights practice (where he goes off for sushi before practice). Kirk is also a TNT leader at Awana, and goes with the boys every week.

Jas has had a busy year on both professional and personal fronts. She was burning too many weekends and traveling way too much professionally; while working hard on her Berkeley evening/weekend MBA program. She'll complete her MBA after her January international trip in Brazil, and then kicking off her new post-MBA startup in 2009. She's also glad to have completed a phenomenal year-long term as President of her MBA program, and her 3-year term as vestry member at St Luke's.

Kirk and Jas celebrated the new year on Copabacana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. It's their first honeymoon / vacation after 9 years. Grandmas Jenny and Margaret were really troopers hanging on to the 3 kids while they were away.

As a family, we've continued to be part of a lovely, little Episcopalian church in Los Gatos - and we love the community there. We are very grateful for all the grandparents (esp. Jenny and Margaret) for their help. Bernard was here over in October, while Jenny went back to Singapore, and it was great!! Over the year, it was really nice to have lots of family time together as we had visits from Sherry, Charles, Sharlene and Jack too. We're also delighted to have niece Tiffany studying closeby at Stanford and cousins Simon and Ping (who moved from Texas) to help babysit the kids from time-to-time too.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all! ;-)
Kirk, Jas, Kyle, Sean and Bryan

2007 Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

What a year it has been! ;-) We have continued to grow as individuals and as a family this past year.

Kyle (6½) is now in 1st Grade at the neighborhood school. He enjoys math and reading - his personal goal is to read more chapter books.
- He learnt to play chess from his classmates - and does nifty moves like en passant (his mother had to wiki to check legality), so we sent him for after-school chess classes to play more.
- He learnt to play "Twinkle, twinkle little star" and asked for piano classes - and so he started. Now he loves to perform "Old MacDonald had a farm" everywhere there is a piano, to persuade us to buy a real piano for him.
- He started Tae Kwan Do classes this year - he is thrilled he was awarded the Gold Medal for best student for December in his recent Green belt trials.
- He has been going to weekly Mandarin classes, and he has been reading and speaking more Mandarin at home now (Thanks to Grandma Margaret to her persistence in finding the school, taking him there and doing homework with him!)
- He is starting to lose his milk teeth. He lost one in the bottom row last week and will probably lose another one before the end of the year. (The tooth fairies were internally disputing the market rate for tooth these days - one offered $0.50 per tooth, the other $5)

The twins (4) are still in pre-school, but will probably start Kindergarten in Aug 2008.
- They are a lot more articulate now and have interesting opinions about everything.
- They have moved from loving "Cars - the movie", to "Transformers - the movie".
- Sean, the older twin, has been developing a particularly strong personality. He continues to be the "serious, silent, secret learner" but has been coming out of his shell this year and spends a lot of time building lego planes.
- Bryan, born 11 minutes after Sean, is enjoying being the older child in pre-school now and apparently has become the teacher's favorite because he helps out with all the other little kids - "busy, bossy and boisterous". They are both chatty and loving (generally) - and follow Kyle in everything he does.

Kirk is enjoying managing quality with DFine - a promising medical device startup that has been operating in stealth (they don't have a website yet). He's been busy working on numerous certifications and audits, and is looking forward to new challenges... this is probably the most intense stint he has had - he leaves home when it's still dark, and returns when it's dark.
- He has also joined the church choir again and enjoys his Thursday music nights practice (esp. when he is able to drop in for sushi before practice).
- He has also discovered the joy of Youtube - and has spent countless hours listening to obscure performances (e.g of Bach's Cantata 54 "Wieder Stehe doch der Sunde", Cantata 179 "Liebster Gott" and "Ich habe Genug".)

Jas continues to run a business unit at an Intel-backed award-winning GPS/RFID software company.
- On the personal front, she is enjoying her Berkeley evening/weekend MBA program specializing in innovation and strategy; she was recently elected Class President for the program's 2008 year and is already plotting a bunch of programs/ideas. In school, she also had fun working on the Nokia-Berkeley business plan competition - which her team eventually won.
- As for updates on her previous entrepreneurial pursuits, the social venture for post-mastectomy products has moved into a new level of scale and will be distributed by a major industry player in several major global regions.
- Her mini-publishing company is working on their 4th book, and it's by a new author so she's been having fun personally editing it.
(As you may have guessed, she has some form of ADD and doesn't sleep much.)

As a family, we've continued to be part of a lovely, little Episcopalian church in Los Gatos - and we love the community there. Kirk enjoys singing there, Jas still serves as a vestry member and we all enjoy the artwork the kids create from Sunday School.
We are very grateful for all the grandparents (esp. Jenny and Margaret) for their help. Bernard was here over Winter, while Jenny went back to Singapore, and he was amazing!! (The kids fattened up quite a bit when he was here.) We're also delighted to have niece Tiffany studying closeby at Stanford to help babysit the kids from time-to-time too... the boys LOVE playing with their princess cousin.

Merry Christmas to you all! ;-)
Kirk, Jas, Kyle, Sean and Bryan