December 2016+
Welcome to the (touch tardy) Janz 2016 Christmas Communication. This past year involved a couple dive trips, the start of a bathroom remodel, and losing a close family member.
For our diving, we decided on Indo-Pacific destinations to experience different marine life than we see in the Caribbean. For our first foray we flew fourteen hours to the Philippines (Dumaguete) and dove with our dive buddies, Tom and Sandy. We even slept through most of the flight so it was really only a 6 hour flight :). We had a fabulous time at Mike Dauin’s Beach resort – it was small, friendly, and just steps away from the boat taking us to the various dive sites. We saw numerous sea horses, frog fish, and nudibranchs. One of the highlights of the trip was “playing” with a curious mantis shrimp for over 10 minutes. He/she was so cute!
Our next dive trip was in October to the Lembeh Straits in Indonesia to celebrate our 22nd anniversary. Getting there was a little more challenging.. 16 ½ hour to Singapore, 3 1/2 to Manado, 1 ½ hour taxi ride, and then a boat trip to finally arrive at NAD Resort. We met some wonderful divers from Germany, and saw new marine critters– blue ring octopus, starry night octopus, ribbon eels, and numerous nudibranch species – wow!
For home improvement, we decided to finally start the main bathroom the facelift it has needed for so long. After searching far and wide for sinks, lamps, cabinets, and tile, we began our demo after returning from our Lembeh dive trip. The good news: the floor, cabinet, sink, and toilet are installed and functioning. Given the holiday and family stress, once we had a working toilet, we put the project on pause. Needless to say, this better be done in 2017 :)
This year, Jim (Lori’s mom’s beau of 22+ years) lost his battle with stage 4 colon cancer 3 days after Thanksgiving. He had been battling cancer/chemo/radiation for almost 2 years. His passing shortly after Thanksgiving dimmed the sparkle/excitement that normally occurs during the Christmas season. We know he's in heaven and enjoying daily (if not hourly) big Thanksgiving meals. Mike turning 18 years cancer free this January 18th has a little extra special meaning.
Work keeps us busy and (more importantly) pays for our dive vacations. ☺ Mike’s job is finally transitioning from documentation to test and is enjoying the new challenges and responsibilities. Lori is still leading high end server platforms and is “training” her 3rd manager since taking this position.
The boys, Marleau and Murray, turn 12 this year. Marleau is “big-boned”, and enjoys his food, pats, and “his” spot on our bed. Murray is his svelte self, loves to walk in front of the monitor when we are on the computer, and will start trying to get us to go to bed at 9pm, even though bedtime is closer to 11pm….
Jim’s passing reinforces our philosophy of “work to live”, use every available hour of vacation, and enjoy each day. This/Next year we are planning two dive trips – in April we will travel back to the Philippines; October-ish is still TBD. We also intend to complete our main bath remodel and spend some time in Tahoe to enjoy the snow.
We hope you had a safe, healthy, and wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year! Feel free to email us at or visit us (inluding dive pictures!) at http://www.mljanz.com/.