Welcome to the final "Olson Annual
Christmas Letter" of the millenium! As
long as Y2K doesn't blow up the internet you will be reading online at this
very moment!
The year in a sentence:
Ana, Kalik, Johnnyboy, Freak of Nature, Curtis, ExumaPowerboatAdventures,
Dad and Loretta in Eleuthera, Long Island,
fiveminutemiraclewithmomseyandrickinToronto, Miami, The Lost Shaker,
HammerheadswithMikeJamesSteveNikkiKarenRuthie, MardsLeightheultimateSkinner,
Fort Lauderdale, Colin&Jen, ExumasailingwithEarlpopsey,Kat&Diane, Chicago,
Grandma, Saskatoon (mardswiththeTitanics), Tania, Cat Island,
Tammy&BrianBelanger, Iceland, Greenland, Boston, Michael&AnnaOlson, El
SalvadorwithEddieRafaErikTioluis, JotajotaAlex, Darren&Darla'snewbaby, Antigua,
Guatemala, luvyougramps!, CostaRica, monteverdelearningspanish, Y2K!
Needless to say it was a great year! Ana the best part of it was meeting my
dream girl Ana and somehow convincing her that I would be fun to hang
with...
Early in the year the stage was set by the one and only Toddy VanHees when
he pronounced 1999, "The Year of Reform". Not to say that it was without its
reckless moments (car crashes, near drownings, boating disasters, fistfights
in the office) but I do think there was plenty of reforming done. The best
thing this year gave to me was the chance to spend time with so many of you;
my family (no reason to specify friends, they are like family anyway!). This
was a long time coming after not seeing many of you for so long.
It would have been a perfect year except for one thing; the passing of my
grandfather Max Olson. The only way to describe him is that he was a model
of a man. Grew up roughing it on the cold praries, married that beautiful
and exceptional woman Mae Olson and raised a family of kids who have all
remained close and raised good solid families of their own (which these days
is a triumph!), had a legion of friends, never frowned, and said nothing but
good things about people. How many others can be described this way?
Grandpa, you will be missed by all of us. Thank you for your inspiration.
Now, some of the events which made it otherwise a perfect year (in no
particular order of lunacy):
Junkanoo on Bay Street in Nassau Bahamas!
Marty meets the pole, Nassau looses electricity!
Marty and Leigh getting scraped off the sidewalk!
Skinner and the Rye Off!
Curtis naked at the wedding!
Curtis naked at the other wedding!
Meeting Steinthora, Johan, Oddur, Ellinborg, Fred, Oddrun, David & Hanna
Maria in Iceland!
Mike, Ariel, Ma Schaaf and the Chicago Blues Festival!
James driving down Bay Street wearing his prescription dive mask and snorkel!
Steve and I throwing that guy's bike over the railing at Hammerheads!
Learning to sail (the hard way) and all the adventures on the Lost Shaker!
Captain Dan, James Steve and the fishhook, the trip to Andros!
James versus Ironmike at Nikki's BBQ (a.k.a. The Punch Heard Around The
World!)
Darren and the bar stool olympics in Drayton Valley!
Ana and the cracked sternum!
Daytrip to Greenland!
Scuba diving off Our Own Boat!
Earl getting sucked out to sea in Exuma, Bahamas!
The new novel"Why You Shouldn't Hang Your Only Pair of Shorts On The Boat To
Dry Overnight" by Peter Olson!
The Storm of Rose Island(Mike and Steve vs the mossies, James and Nikki vs
the quarter berth, Diane vs the seasick pills)!
Karen's going away party in a Bahamian Cave!
Riding three hours on horseback through the Costa Rican rainforest!
Bumping into Momsey and Rick in a seedy bar in Toronto!
Drinking beer in a plastic bag with Hooley on the road to San Salvador!
Diving in a volcano crater, Lago Ilopango in El Salvador!
Paying $15 for beer in Iceland!
Mike and I making a lovley gay couple at the 50's Ball in Nassau!
Feeling the pain of my first season of rugby!
"Lost Shaker, Lost Shaker, come in…….This is Lost Dingy"!
.....and that is just a selection! If I missed anything you consider
particularly memorable please let me know!!
So what for the big 2000! I don't know how a year can possibly be any more
eventful than 1999 so we will just have to try our best! I have deemed 2000,
the Year of Languages" and have started out right by enrolling in intensive
spanish classes at three different schools in Costa Rica for four weeks. Ana
and I are presently in Monteverde, which is a national park in the middle of
a rain forest and we are having a great time! The Spanish is coming along
nicely though there is mucho mas to go. We will be here in Costa Rica until
March after which we move to Surinam, then to Barbados with the current
project wrapping up in July. Immediately after this we depart for Denmark to
take part in an insane Danish wedding courtesy of Martin and Marianne!
Thus far Ana has been extremely successful as a freelance webdesigner. Some
of her sites include a dive company in El Salvador as well as a bakery and
an independent photographer. She is currently working on five or six web
sites for Costa Rican companies, all of which are going well.
Also, we keep that site updated with our
contact numbers as well as photographs and stories so check it
out once in a while!
I hope that today finds each of you happy and healthy with no troubles
unresolvable and no problems insurmountable. Best of luck and I will be
seeing you soon!
Kris
