Dear Friends,

We are moving back across the country to California! We are headed to the San Francisco bay area; specifically, we expect to ultimately land in Berkeley or Oakland.

Lee has accepted a promotion to "Vice President for Performance and Strategic Analysis" (he points out that the longer the title, generally the less the power -- compare to "CEO" or "CFO"). In this new position, he plans to be an evangelist for improving the cost structure, service, and quality for Kaiser Permanente.

Karen, who is an original California girl (born in Claremont, a suburb of Los Angeles), is looking forward to the California culture and lack of mosquitoes. She will be entering 11th grade at the College Preparatory School with hopes that we will select a house that is walking distance from her school. She thinks the best aspect of the move is not having to take the fifth year of Latin. The worst part is missing friends and not participating as a leader in Discovery, an Outward Bound like program at Westminster (her former Atlanta school).

Paul does not want to move. He has lived in Georgia since he was four and the thought of change is frightening. He will be attending the Bentley School in the sixth grade as one of two new students in the grade.

Helen will be escaping her 1997-98 commitment as the coordinator of the Dunwoody shuttle, an elaborate car pool with 25 families for the 6th to 12th grades at Westminster. She will regret leaving her role as Chair of the Commission on the Status and Role of Women for the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church. Helen has become an expert at moving and reports some satisfaction from the process of sorting and tossing.

We have begun searching for a permanent residence; housing sticker shock is a bit painful. We hope that by Christmas we can share our newer address.

Movingly yours,

    Lee, Helen, Karen, & Paul