Greetings from wet Seattle. Happy holidays and a wonderful New
Year!
This March, I got engaged to Alex Edelman. We're
planning the wedding for this coming August.
Alex is a wonderful man and I feel lucky every day.
Alex & I are still happily settled in the same house in Seattle. Our
neighborhood is changing almost weekly with 3 new coffee shops, an
excellent bakery, and two markets. Alex and I have continued to
demolish any semblance of lawn by building out a patio, re-working
our street strip into perennial bed, and
discovering the joys of automated watering.
In the spring, I moved from the buyer facing section of Amazon to the
seller facing side. I'm now working to help small folks run their own
businesses by selling
in our marketplace. Alex has taken an even bigger change in
direction. He left Amazon. He's now number 2
at findory.com. He and Greg are building personalized news and search. The
software rocks. You should check out
their website.
I'm still playing volleyball with friends from Amazon. Alex has taken
up fencing again. In
November, he made tournament finals along with 2 of the 3 members of
the US Olympic team. Owen's into capoeira, a brazilian dancing
martial art that makes him look like a monkey. His girlfriend Amy is
a founding member of the inFusion tribal bellydance
troupe. Dad's been golfing 3 times a week and winning tournaments at
the local golf club. Meanwhile, my mom has turned home decoration
into a full contact sport.
Puget Sound continues to be a hub for family and friends. In July, I
lured Swatties
out to my parent's house in Anacortes for a weekend. In November, we
celebrated Dad's
60th Birthday with the Abramski family and Mom & Dad's new friends
in Anacortes. We joined forces with the Abramski's to celebrate both
Christmas and the birthdays of Owen & Jupe (Owen's girlfriend's
brother-in-law). We had a huge family
Thanksgiving with Alex's Mom Babette, her fiance Terry, my uncle's
Don's family and the entire Wetzel clan. I'm thankful that our family
is growing with so many wonderful people.
Our friends are starting their families. My cousin Kevin married Rachel in
June. Paul Ham, who brought me into Amazon, married
Cat Kim with a lovely reception at Haverford College PA. Jonathan &
Liza Hauze were my first college friends to get married, and now
they're the first to have a child, baby Anne. Alex's former
web-dev-tech co-workers have been busy in the baby department. Jules
and Jessica gave birth to little Ian in July. Jon Swartz & April Lee
gave birth to Maya shortly after. Doug & Nancy Treder arrived late to
the scene with baby Finnegan November 18th.
Last January, Alex and I went to see the Mayan pyramids, flamingos and
warm beaches of the Yucatan
Peninsula. We're looking forward to a Hay family trip to Scotland this spring.
We've gotten to visit our friends and family this year. In the
spring, Alex and I founded a new tradition of visiting Babette in LA for
her birthday and Mother's Day.
I've gotten out to visit Elaine in Georgia twice as part of Amazon
recruiting. We also got to visit with my cousins Kerry & Graham in
Philadelphia.
I wish you a very merry Christmas, happy holidays, and
a wonderful new year.
Yours,
jordan
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