Dear Parents,

Well, here it is the first day of winter, sunny and warm. What a follow up to the stormy end of fall! Tomorrow Linda and I will be making our annual trip over the sound and through the pass to my parents' house in Spokane. Although we don't have a horse to pull a sleigh, we do have a Toyota Rav that should get us there okay. Each year we look forward to about 10 days that we get to spend with family. My parents, my grandmother, my sister and her family, and at least one of my sons all get together to spend the week just after Christmas in a small cabin on Davis Lake just north of Spokane. We have a grand time skiing, snowshoeing, ice-skating, reading, playing long board games, and laughing a lot. There's no television or cell phone service, we simply have a good time being together as a family. In many ways it is just like my life in the classroom, the people and children I see each day at school feels just like family to me - in fact that's about the best description of who we are, the Swan School Family :-)

As many of you may have heard, we are having to say goodbye to one member of our school family. Sarah, our violin ensemble instructor, is moving to Leavenworth (her husband just got a new job there). We all wish her well as she begins a new adventure on the eastern slope of the Cascades.

Sarah's departure of course opens our doors to welcome a new member to the Swan School family. Gary Fredrick comes to us with tons of experience, a passion for music, and a love of children. Gary visited the ensemble class for two days prior to the start of our winter break and everyone who met him (students, staff, and parents) had nothing but great things to say. He plans on taking up where Sarah left off and building on everything that the students know so far, including reading music. Gary also hopes to include a number of "mini concerts" for the students to perform for various audiences all over the community. I guess he'll get his first chance when we have our rescheduled fall Harvest Concert on Friday, January 19th at the Baptist Church; just one of the many events in our sure-to-be-busy January.

Well, I had better get to packing for that trip to Grandmother's house! I hope that your holiday is both fun-filled and peaceful; and I have to say that although I am anxious to get together with my relatives, I'm also looking forward to January second when our school family will be back together again!

Russ