With much gratitude to the power of Life, Truth, and Love we celebrate Christmas 2007, and look forward to 2008. We are so blessed to have 2 new grandchildren - Faith Denise Stewart born on June 8, 2007, at 28 weeks gestation to Lara and Glenn, and Myles Stanton Miller born on June 14, 2007, at full-term to Chris and Anna! What a week, what a year! We are so happy to report that after 89 days in the neo-natal intensive care unit and with the support of friends, family and much prayer, "feisty" Faith, is doing well, growing like a weed and working on catch-up to her cousin - "mellow" Myles Miller, who now sports two teeth and is the great pleasure of his parents and of course both sets of grandparents

Our other planned 'deliverable' of 2007 - the new house in San Luis Obispo has continued to experience delays, some owner caused, some acts of nature, some contractor induced. Bottom line - although we are decorating our Christmas tree in the great room in front of a lovely stone fireplace, we have no toilets, utilities or finished floor and hence are in the 'wait until next year' mode again. It also means that our Lundys Lane B&B is open for a few more months - So come on out!!

Family
2007 has really been a year all about family. The spring found Jo Anne's mother in the hospital for a total of 5 weeks. Although things looked pretty bleak for a while, she is strong of spirit and got out for her 89th birthday and the arrival of her 2nd and 3rd great-grandchildren. The summer brought the wedding of Jo Anne's youngest nephew and the grandbabies! We were fortunate to be able to give some local support to Lara and Glenn as they dealt with the rollercoaster ride that a preemie brings. We got some quality time with Myles as his parents had their first 'post-partum date' in August. On Labor Day we gathered in LA to prepare for Faith's release from the hospital and have had a few special sitting trips since then.

Dr. Lara Stewart is back at work (80% time) at the Venice Family Clinic and Anna Christol Miller is back at work part-time at eVault. Both young families are learning about the ups and downs of childcare. The challenges we faced 35 years ago seem not to have changed very much. However, Google has a great paternity leave policy and Chris has been able to spend some high quality time with his young son as well as provide on-site support for both YouTube/CNN debates.

Work
Yes, we are still working for wages and enjoying it! This was the first year that neither of us were in a 'corporate America' job, as Rick completed 5 very successful years with his engineering consulting company RNM Engineering and Jo Anne completed her first year as a venture capitalist with Milk Street Ventures, managing out the former Nokia Innovent portfolio and seeking new deals.

Travel
Our work has continued to support our travel habit and we found ourselves in Chicago, Florida, LA, Denver, Boston, Las Vegas and St. Louis as well as Singapore and Bangalore, India. We did take a week together at an all-inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic in July where we did relax a bit. In August, we went to the Santa Fe Opera with our dear friends Glenna and Ken Thompson, excellent music and a great time had by all.

Find us online at rickmiller@rnm-eng.com and joannemiller@rnm-eng.com.