Tonight I put fingers to keyboard again for another annual Christmas letter.  Last year at this time, we had just sold our house in Albuquerque.  Debi and Candi were living in a hotel room in Albuquerque, and I had just moved into an apartment in Madison, Alabama.  I'm still working for the Missile and Space Intelligence Center at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, but we finally bought a house and settled in Fayetteville, Tennessee.

Because I will be retiring from the US Air Force next year, we took our time finding the right house.  We don't expect to move again.  After several months of searching, we finally found the right house.  The realtor found out about the house and showed it to use before it was actually listed.  We like the house, but I was considering 12 acres of land east of Huntsville.  The land was really pretty, but the country road you had to take to get there was treacherous, curvy and narrow.  We made a lowball bid on the house, and they accepted!  I think they really liked the schedule.  They were building a house in North Carolina, and didn't want to move out before their new house was finished.  As it worked out, their house was finished just two weeks before our lease expired on the apartment.

Our new home is about 2250 square feet downstairs, with another 1200 square feet upstairs that hasn't been finished yet.  The upstairs will be my project in the coming year.  The house sits on 6/10ths of an acre at the back of a small subdivision.  I wanted more land, but as my Father reminded me, I'd just have more to mow.  All the houses in our area have large lots, but several neighbors own more than one lot to keep the housing density to a minimum.  The woods behind our house are a mile and a half deep.  A wealthy family supposedly owns the property, and the land is deaded such that it cannot be developed.  Hopefully that will keep sprawling suburbia at bay for a while.  I have a long, 35-mile drive one way, but it only takes about 45 minutes.  I have a route that takes me on some backcountry roads through the cotton fields.  I avoid a lot of traffic and stoplights, and it's a scenic and relaxing drive.  Follow the hyperlinks in this paragraph to see photos of our new house.

My new truck arrived in February to replace the one that was stolen in Albuquerque.  I special ordered it to get exactly what I wanted.  I had the Mustang for transportation, so I wasn't rushed.  It's a silver, long-bed F-150 XLT just like my old truck.  The biggest difference is this truck has an extended cab instead of a regular cab.  This truck is just over 20-feet long, so it doesn't fit in a standard garage, and most parking spaces seem a little inadequate.  I got the biggest V8 engine and a special rear end with a higher gear ratio.  Of course, I ordered this truck before gas prices went up.  I don't think the price of gas would have changed my decision, but I would have thought about it a little longer.  Again, follow the hyperlinks in this paragraph to see photos of my truck.

My old truck was never recovered, but I did get back some of my irreplaceable mementos.  In late January, after we had settled into our apartment in Madison, two boxes arrived at the post office.  They were mailed from Hatch, New Mexico.  Hatch is about three hours south of Albuquerque on I-25, and only about an hour north of the Mexican border.  There's no doubt what happened to my truck.  My guess is the thief stopped in Hatch to clean out the truck before crossing the border.  Some Good Samaritan found my boxes and mailed them back to me in care of Kirtland Air Force Base.  Kirtland forwarded the boxes to my old home address, and the US Postal Service forwarded them to Alabama.  The return address was badly garbled.  I tried to decipher it and sent a letter to that address thanking them for returning my mementos, but the address was not good and my letter was returned.

Debi is now working two jobs.  She is a merchandiser for Bonne Bell Cosmetics, and works a district that includes northern Alabama, south central Tennessee, and a small area in northwest Georgia.  She is putting a lot of miles on her Blazer, but she really seems to enjoy it.  It doesn't pay as well as her job in Albuquerque, but she gets to set her own hours.  She also works part time for Hancock Fabrics in Huntsville.  The pay isn't real good there either, but she loves the perks.  In addition to discounts and getting first shot at discontinued merchandise, the store buys much of the fabric for her projects.  The only catch is, her project has to be a store display for six weeks before she can bring it home to keep.  So far, she's made Candi's homecoming and Christmas dresses, coats for Candi and herself, and a pants and shirt for Candi.  Debi has been sewing a lot since we moved into our new house.  She'll be glad when I finish my office on the second floor and she can have our currently shared office and sewing room to herself.

Candi had adapted well to all the changes.  Her new school isn't a one-room schoolhouse, but it is a one-hall school.  There are about 350 students ranging from 6th through the 9th grades.  She catches a bus in front of our house that takes her to the elementary school.  There she catches a shuttle bus to Flintville Junior High.  Next year she will be going to Lincoln County High School.  Lincoln County has a choir and a drama class.  To gain drama experience, Candi recently tried out for an improvisational part as a waitress for one of those murder mystery cafes and got the part.  She will be serving deserts and dropping hints about who-dun-it.  Candi likes to write stories and poems, and has added to her collection this year.

Singing is Candi's biggest passion.  She's a member of the school choir and enjoys singing every chance she gets.  She still enjoys playing the piano, but we haven't had the time or money to find her a piano teacher yet.  When Debi's Grandmother passed away at the age of 91 in October, Candi sang Amazing Grace at her funeral.  Although Candi had tears streaming down her face at the end, she finished without faltering and everyone said she did a good job.  Candi has also been active in the church youth group and will be singing “The First Noel” solo at the Christmas Eve service wearing the Christmas dress her mother made for her.

We don't hear a lot from Aaron these days.  He's still living with his Grandparents in San Antonio.  By day, Aaron is now working as a plumber's assistant for some old family friends.  By night, he works a part time job at a restaurant and parties with his friends.  His old Jeep died on him, so he got a new one.  Aaron came out with his Grandparents this summer to visit and see our new house.  We had a good visit, and took them up to see the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg, which is only about 15 miles from our house.  Aaron turned 21 this year, but he still couldn't get a drink at the Distillery because it's in a dry county.  We saw Aaron again in October when we made a quick trip to San Antonio for Debi's Grandmother's funeral.  She was 91 years old and lived a good life.

My big project this year has been compiling our family's genealogy database.  I had a lot of information that had been collected over the years, but it wasn't organized.  I got a computer program for genealogy and started merging all the data.  There are currently over 4200 individuals in my database, and I still have a lot of work to do.  My sister, Donna, has put together a photographic record, and she's graciously allowed me to scan some of the photos for my report.  I hope to publish my reports next year.  If anyone would like a copy of the report, or if you have photos and data that I can include, please contact me.  I prefer to publish on CD.  I estimate the full report will be about 350 pages, so a paper copy will by a bit pricey.

I recently posted a lot of my work on a genealogy site on the Internet.  As a result of that website, I've been contacted by two distant relatives who are also interested in family genealogy.  I was blessed to hear from Annabelle Leitner, my Father's 3rd cousin, and from Kathy (Black) Henson, my Mother's 3rd cousin.  We've been exchanging emails and data over the Internet.  Perhaps someday soon, I'll get to meet these distant cousins.

Well, that's it for another year.  If you get to Huntsville, please look us up.  We'd love to see you.  We hope this has been a good year for you and your family, and we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year.

The Hackett's
Ron, Debi and Candace