I’ll be the first to admit it. Life was probably better in “the old days” when people wrote long, personalized letters to one another at the Holidays. You’d cuddle up in front of the fireplace in your favorite slippers, alongside a hot cocoa, a stack of Christmas cards, a small handful of reprints of a family snapshots, and of course your favorite pen…and scribble away the evenings every night for a week.

Bah. Humbug!

Cursed with illegible penmanship, a fickle writing muse, and no fireplace in our house, I’ve chosen instead to cozy up to a Pentium 4 processor, listening to the soothing hum of the cooling fan, and share with you instead, our dear, anonymous friend, some of the highlights of our year together as a family.

Photos abound. Words fail me. So I’ll go with what I know.

January

January brought a case of temporary insanity, as I decided to do something I’d never even considered before: I participated in the Washington Special Olympics “Polar Bear Plunge,” and on a frosty, foggy Saturday morning in January, I joined 100 other crazies and jumped into the ice-encrusted waters of the Columbia river.

That’s me, wondering what the hell I was thinking.

Laura was there for moral support, as always.

A dirty little secret — it wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected. And I raised $1,700 for Special Olympics, so it hardly mattered that I spoke in a falsetto voice for three days.

By the way, I’m doing the same again, this year. You can pledge if you want to!

February

Amazingly enough, not a single thing happened in February. At least, not that I remember.

March

March brought the first of several road trips that would characterize the year — despite rising gas prices and impending global warming catastrophes, we somehow managed to put a lot of miles on our little economy cars.

Thank goodness for 35 mpg!

For starters, Laura and I extended a trip to take Ryan back to the UW by going up to La Conner in hopes of visiting the quilt museum on the way back from some errands — alas, we arrived just as they had closed, but at least now we know where they are, and will return. And not all was lost — we had a chance to stay with our good friend Kelly, who Laura has known since they were kids.

Also during the month, my good friend Vern and I took the first of what would be several fishing trips away from our usual haunts on the Yakima River — we were lucky enough to be invited along as guests of the folks from Red’s Fly Shop, to help them “test guide” the Grande Ronde river in southeastern Washington. We went in search of winter steelhead, but high water and a serious shortage of steelhead know-how on the part of Vern and I left us with nothing but tales around the campfire.

April

April brought — what else? More fishing! I was lucky enough to spend a day on the Yakima River with my friend Keith, who I’ve known since first grade, and his friend Pat.

May

Unlike many years past, this was a year without a lot of business travel — changes in my work assignments, and a newly-developed ability to say “no” to invitations to speak at conferences both contributed to a year with no more than a half-dozen flights across country, to Boston, Salt Lake City, New Orleans, Lowell, MA and Washington D.C.

I think it’s possible that Sean, in his several trips back and forth to school in New Hampshire, logged more miles than I did!

May brought a trip to New Orleans, my first time there since Hurricane Katrina. I had the pleasure of being invited to my friend Kris’ parents house, which came through the hurricane in decent shape, where a large group of us put a serious dent in Louisiana’s shellfish population.

Kris (right) and her parents treated us to great southern hospitality!

The French Quarter has survived a lot. It will survive Katrina.

Statue in Jackson Square

May was also when Sean returned from his first year at Thomas More College of the Liberal Arts — and as nice as it was to be “empty nesters” for the first time in 22 years, it was nice to have both the boys home off and on throughout the year.

Of course, May wouldn’t be complete without mentioning “the big event” — the Mother’s Day Caddis Hatch on the Yakima River, which this year was probably the most spectacular showing of insect life I’ve ever seen in my life. Vern and I happened to be on the river one evening when the water just erupted with billions and billions (cue Carl Sagan sound-alike) of small, moth like bugs which hatch below the surface then spend the next several days flying around, making babies. The females eventually return to the river to lay their eggs, starting the whole thing over again. The fish go nuts, and the river surface is just littered with bugs!

Finally, at the end of May, Vern and I drove down to the Henry’s Fork, near the western entrance to Yellowstone National Park, for a two-day drift boat rowing class and fishing trip. Vern learned how to row a boat, but mostly we just had fun catching fish and watching the scenery roll past.

Antelope take a brief respite from playing on the range.

Gibbon Falls in Yellowstone National Park

Vern holds on while our guide, Brian, takes us through a small rapid on the Henry’s Fork River, just below Mesa Falls.

June

June brought stormy weather to the Tri-Cities, giving me a chance to finally — after many years trying! — capture a decent photo of lightning.

But the weather didn’t keep me from heading across the mountains to attend a bittersweet event — my sister Leslie’s retirement from her job as Principal. It was impressive to see the outpouring of love that came from her students and staff. It must be nice to touch people’s lives like that — it was a proud moment for me, and I’m just her baby brother!

Lol — er, Leslie – looks through the cards and well-wishes
Another road trip in June, too — up to Wenatchee to see Laura’s sister, Frieda, and to take some photos in the wheat fields.

Laura and Frieda in the kitchen

Wheat fields northeast of Wenatchee, near a cute little quilt shop we found in Waterville!

I closed out June by spending my 49th birthday on the river with brother Bill and his daughter, Kaelee.

July

With school out for both Sean and Laura (who had been substitute teaching all year in the Richland School District), we were able to take a few more road trips during the summer. Ryan ended up spending the summer back at the UW, finishing up an intensive semester of Russian language courses — so he wasn’t able to join us.

We took a long day’s drive around Mt. St Helens, visiting the various viewpoints on the mountains as well as taking a short hike into the Ape Caves, a lava tube that runs underneath the mountain for about a mile. It was a long day, punctuated by wonderful views of three different volcanoes (Adams, Rainier, and St. Helens) and good company.

Mt. St Helens from Windy Ridge

Laura, Sean and Tabi at the Ape Caves

Mt Rainier from the south

A week later, Laura and I, pretty much on a whim, decided to drive 700+ miles to Cody, Wyoming, to attend “Westcamp,” a gathering of fly fisherpeople who frequent the Fly Fisherman web site. We had breakfast with the group, and while Laura shopped in Cody’s one quilt shop, I went fishing with my friends Ben and Jasmine in the North Fork Shoshone River. Our return trip took us through Yellowstone, where I also had a chance to fish the Madison and Lamar rivers.

Ben and Laura at breakfast in Cody

A nice western scene outside of Cody, along the Shoshone River

Sunrise on the road to the NE entrance to Yellowstone

But the best road trip of the year was one we took on Laura’s birthday to see the Mariners play at Safeco Field. We made a family gathering of it, inviting along her brother Barry, his wife Brenda, and Laura’s sister Frieda and her husband, Jon. The Mariners won, but the real highlight was seeing family.

August

In August, we finally had a long-postponed Butner family reunion, held in Mt Vernon, WA in the community clubhouse in my uncle Gordon’s development. Multiple generations of Butners got together — some of us cousins hadn’t seen each other for many, many years. We all had a lot of fun, and promised we wouldn’t wait 20 years until the next one.

Ryan listens intently to family lore. Or tries to figure out what the heck uncle Bill is doing with that pencil.

Laura made Kaelee a quilt for her birthday present, and delivered it at the reunion.

That’s a whole lotta Butners!

More family tales being told

In August, with a bit of prodding from Sean, I resumed training in our local Shotokan Karate dojo, as part of my campaign to find my toes again. I’d started Weight Watchers in July, and then Laura took notice and started dieting as well. By mid-December, we’d lost 60 lbs between the two of us, and we’re both on our way to losing another 60.

Me (far left) with my fellow Karate students

In late August, Ryan and I stayed up ’til wee hours of the morning to watch a total eclipse of the moon.

Ryan and I also got a chance to go fishing during his brief break between quarters

September

With September came time to send Sean back to New Hampshire to start his sophomore year at Thomas More. In January, he will be flying with the rest of his classmates to Rome, Italy, where he’ll live and study for next 3 months. Needless to say, he’s pretty excited about that.

We’re just envious!

September brought Ryan home from the UW for much of the month, but eventually he too had to return to school. We took advantage of a nice day on move-in day to spend a cool fall afternoon at the Woodland Park Zoo.

Did I mention that I went fishing a few times this year? Well I did — and a lot of the trips were with friends and family. I especially enjoyed the chance to take people who hadn’t fly fished much before out on the river. That included my friend Jill Watz, and her family:

October

October can only mean one thing: The Mariner High School Old Farts Weekend, when a group of us late 40-somethings get together for a few days of telling stories around the campfire, and fishing in the Yakima canyon. This year’s participants included Dave Van Beek, Ozie Greene, Keith Anderson, and Jim Roberts. Though I’ve known all of these guys for a long time, Ozie, Dave and I go all the way back to second grade together. It’s a lot of fun to fish with guys you’ve known for nearly your whole life.

Ozie and Dave preparing to hit the water

Nothing like a hot campfire on a cold night

Fall colors on the Yakima River

I also squeezed in one more fishing trip with brother Bill and one of his friends (Bill’s on the oars here)

October also brings Halloween, Laura’s favorite holiday.

November

One last road trip: faced with the need to attend the American Institute of Chemical Engineers meeting in Salt Lake City, I decided to drive the 1500 miles round trip, instead of flying, so that i could take in some scenery and maybe do some fishing along the way.

I did both.

Salt Lake was very nice, and I enjoyed renewing my friendships with professional colleagues at AIChE, some of whom I’ve known for 15 years or more.

On the way home, I stopped in eastern Oregon and fished the Owyhee river with my friends Rhonda and Dave.

Dave and Rhonda

Laura working on a quilt — a common sight during the year!

Laura “helps” with the leaves — we leave them piled up until Halloween, as decorations

Thanksgiving break means a chance to see the kids again, and while visiting Ryan is not a big deal (Seattle’s only 200 miles away), Sean rarely makes the trip home from New Hampshire without at least a few flight delays.

This year was an exception — his flight home went just fine, and we had a good time visiting with my sister and brother (and their families) for Thanksgiving.

Sean and Laura strike a pose at SeaTac

Thanksgiving Dinner

December

Well, December was busy at work, but it did provide an opportunity to visit Sean back at school when I found myself flying to Boston for business.

Sean at Thomas More, December 2007

Moonlight in the coulee country, near Wenatchee, WA

Our dog, Shadow, doing her favorite thing in the world — scamming dog bones

All in all, it was a pretty good year. Lots of family trips, edging closer and closer to graduation for the kids, and getting within sight of retirement (still 10 years away, but within sight!) for me. Laura and I discovered we liked being empty nesters (but we still love you, boys)!

We hope you had a great year as well, and wish you the best for 2008.

The Butner-Stephens Family

• Laura
• Scott
• Sean
• Ryan

1319 Stevens Drive
Richland, WA 99354
(509)-943-6592

Enjoy the photos?  Here’s some more to keep you from getting anything important done!