Dear Friends and Family,
In the saga of the continuing adventures of Steve and Nancy, last Christmas found us leaving Arizona to spend a week in White Salmon to celebrate the holidays with family, as Rich and Tabitha, down from Seattle, hosted Christmas Day festivities at their Hood River house. We also spent time with Steve’s brother Dave and his daughter Andie. The weather there made us appreciate our decision to spend most of our winters in warmer climes.
For New Year’s, we flew the TBM with friends Marcie and Susan to Pensacola and Daytona. To say it was unexpectedly cold would be severely understating things. There was more ice on the ground in Pensacola than in White Salmon! But we enjoyed seeing the U.S. Navy Air Museum in Pensacola, a New Year’s Day showing of Saving Mr. Banks, and a tour and a basketball game at Embry-Riddle in Daytona.
Also in January, we enjoyed a mini-Sliwa-family reunion in L.A. to celebrate a nephew’s wedding. Later in Spring, we joined our Austrian friends at their villa in the British Virgin Islands to celebrate one of their milestone birthdays. I am getting to like this idea of big celebrations for major milestone life events … especially now that we have several in the offing!
Steve’s new company, Seeq, has been making steady progress. They are up to 18 employees and expect to start making a splash next year as partnerships are announced and products are released. Seeq is helping process industries burdened with large of amounts of sensor data perform data analytics to optimize safety, quality, reliability, maintenance and business performance. The fact that Seeq is a virtual company (with no brick-and-mortar office,) and uses new advances in online tools, enables the Sliwa household to continue its migration north and south as the weather varies. Steve continues to enjoy working with Tabitha again.
Nancy has kept busy with various activities. While in Arizona she has an aggressive workout schedule, as well as strong participation in a local church. While in White Salmon, she traveled quite a bit. She and flying buddy Marcie did the Air Race Classic this year for the first time in eighteen years, from Concord, CA to York, PA. It was an exciting cross-country trip in Marcie’s Cessna 182. While many teams were unable to complete the race due to weather, Nancy and Marcie did finish the race in time, thanks to support from an Embry-Riddle meteorology class. Our race times were quite respectable, qualifying us for third place, although we were ultimately hampered by some mechanical problems.
Nancy also flew herself and some friends in the TBM to the Ninety-Nines International Convention this year in New Orleans. While July is not the optimal time to visit NOLA, it proved to be fascinating for a first-time visitor like Nancy. She’d love to go back when it’s not so hot and humid (although NOT during Mardi Gras.) She also spent three weeks visiting her mother in northeastern Tennessee. When not traveling, Nancy taught the women’s Bible study at Hood River Valley Christian Church. That was a very Spirit-filled experience!
Steve and Nancy also spent time together flying the TBM. They did recurrency training in Camarillo in January, and another trip to Florida in April to visit friends at Marco Island [Text Box:] and take in some baseball games in Sliwa Stadium at Embry-Riddle. Sadly, the time has come to sell the TBM. It has been a very sweet plane, but we expect to downsize to something more easily maintained. Steve has put together a website, [Text Box:] and we already have had a few nibbles, but the site brings back great memories of fun trips. But even without using the TBM, we proved we could enjoy some aviation activities together. We joined friends Lon and Laura via commercial airlines to Minden for our first-time view of the Reno Air Races. It’s a lot like NASCAR but with jet fuel.
In October, Nancy spent time with some Air Race Classic compatriots for a mini-reunion at the NASA Ames 75th Anniversary Open House (quite nostalgic of Nancy’s years there), then went with Marcie to bring her Cessna back from Pennsylvania where it had been marooned since the Air Race Classic in June. (Long story.) That was also a breathtakingly lovely trip, a low- altitude flight during the fall leaf season over the whole U.S. Upon her return to California, Nancy met Steve at Stanford for the 25th reunion of Steve’s Sloan class, “the best class ever.” It was great fun to reconnect with all our friends from that [Text Box:] time. That group sure knows how to party, and true to form, they have planned the locations of each annual reunion for the next decade.
Rich and Tabitha were unable to join us for Thanksgiving as they have for the last few years, but we were fortunate to host Debbie and Andy Brignoli, in Arizona to visit their son’s family. All five came up from Tucson, including their 2-year-old grandson, and spent the long Thanksgiving weekend with us, eating and playing and eating and shopping and eating and… Well, you get the picture.
Steve celebrated the “Big Six Oh” in December. To avoid depression he has decided to embrace the new age and created a goal of “Sixty Sixties.” It’s a combination bucket list and scavenger hunt that he hopes to complete during the coming year. He has 60 items each of which has something to do with 60. For example, he plans to make 60 donations, walk at least 10,000 steps on 60 days, beat the computer 60 times at Scrabble, and etc. In fact, he expects to spend 60 hours programming tools to track the progress on his website (link).
This Christmas Tabitha and Rich are scheduled to spend two weeks in Michigan with Rich’s family, so Steve and Nancy will be “home alone” in Arizona. But we’ll be eagerly anticipating the visit of friends Marcie and Susan the following week. Seems we may be starting a new New Year’s tradition.
Speaking of Rich and Tabitha, they are still doing well in Seattle. Rich has seen steady career growth with Amazon, and is on a new project providing bookstore services to universities. Tabitha is still an invaluable member of Steve’s Seeq team, and stays busy with marketing, event planning, HR activities, bookkeeping, and psychological TLC for the CEO. Their Hood River house is up for sale, but we still hope to see them in our White Salmon guest room frequently during the summers as Rich gets his windsurfing, kite-boarding, and mountain biking fixes in the gorge.
Pixie and Angel are still doing well for being grandmothers in dog years, although they are definitely moving more slowly now that they are 12. They still look forward every day to their meal times and their visits to the local dog park. Angel sticks close to the kitchen in case she is called upon to clean up any food scraps. Pixie is stuck like Velcro to Steve, even venturing up and down the stairs several times a day to stay close to him, although she prefers to use the elevator when she can.
We’ll have to start calling Casper a miracle cat if he survives much longer as he’s now more than 20 years old. He is careful to sleep most of the day so as not to use up any more of his nine lives. He still likes to snuggle, especially during TV time at night.
So all in all, you can see life is good for the Sliwa family. We are anticipating a fun and active 2015, including, we hope, a trip to Spain with our Austrian friends next fall. We expect pictures from that trip will be featured in our letter next year!
Until then, we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year.
Nancy and Steve Sliwa
2014 Holiday Letter Photo Gallery
 Nancy and her pilot buddies Susan and Marcie |
 We pick up ice descending into Pensacola FL. |
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 Nancy’s “Island” outfit while we were in the BVI. |
 Nancy spends quality time with her mom. |
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 Family picture at nephew Brian’s wedding. |
 Casper and Pixie enjoy the TBM ride. |
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 Part of Steve’s fitness kick was hiking Dog Mtn. |
 Steve joins the Board of Oregon Tech. |
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 Steve’s 25th Stanford Sloan Fellow Reunion. |
 We are enjoying one of the reunion activities. |
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 Recent Seeq Team dinner in Seattle. We schedule quarterly meet-ups to augment the virtual team. |
 We attended the Reno Air races and saw this photo finish. May your year finish this strong! |
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