THE BIG MOVE: Thats right boys and girls, John, Patrice, Ashley, and Ian are in Belgium. Apparently, Texas Instruments couldn't figure out what else to do with him so they shipped John and family to Belgium where John will do research for 2 years. So far most of his research has involved Beer and Chocolate.

WHAT WE LEFT BEHIND: Earlier this year John sold his trusty and slightly rusty 1982 SAAB. Patrice bought a 1996 Volvo, which we turned around and sold along with her older Volvo just before we left the country. We left our herd of turtles with Richard Fojtasek, a retired Herpaphile. We left most of our furniture and our house to Raj Aggarwal and Mike Polley who promised to give it back in two years. Somewhere in the week before we left, we left our wits behind.

GETTING THERE: Some of you may know that Patrice is not fond of flying. So how did the Randalls make it across the Atlantic? In style. We took the QE2 from New York to England. One can get used to 5 course meals, constant entertainment, and a staff that tries to see that you don't lift a finger. We actually flew to New York. The original plan of driving for 4 days was modified by Patrice just after our last trip to Houston which was 4 hours of the Randall midgets pounding on each other in the back seat.

BELGIUM SO FAR: In preparation for our trip, we took some French lessons, that so far we have used mainly to say: "Je ne parle pas Francais." We spent the first two weeks in a hotel, and spent the next two weeks sleeping on borrowed air matteresses in a lovely house that Patrice found for us to rent in Overijse, just on the east side of Brussels. The house is built in a sort of french style but is a fairly recent construction. We finally got beds a few days ago but most of the furniture we ordered won't show up until late January. Speaking of late January, if this is not the email version of the Randall's Generic Christmas Newsletter, that may be when you are reading this. Expect anything mailed across the Atlantic to take a long time getting there. We have concluded that "Air Mail" means that they throw it onto a very slow boat.

THE NEW RANDALL: Also making the trip is the newest member of the Randall family, Max. When we adopted Max at the end of last year, we had no idea that we would be taking him back to his homeland. Max is a Belgian Tervuren, a fairly rare breed of dog in the US. He looks sort of like a cross between a German Shepard and a Collie. When he was very young with big ears, a black face, and a pointy nose he looked like a fruit bat. Max is a big sweet happy dog with a stubborn streak and he obeys only slightly better than Ian. Not entirely happy with this new addition is the family cat Isis. Isis's domain is the upstairs and Max stays downstairs. Isis likes to sit on the stairs and tease Max.

ASHLEY ADDENDA: Ashley is now 12 and started middle school (almost). Actually she went for one day to Bowman Middle School. Then we pulled her out to go to St. Paul where she went for several weeks. Then we pulled her out and dragged her off to Europe where she now attends the International School of Brussels where it turns out that the 6th grade is still in elementary school. Somewhere in there she took up the oboe.

IAN INFO: Ian is now 7 and in first grade. He played soccer and T-ball for the St. Mark's Lions with a great bunch of kids and coaches. The Lions gave Ian a great send off and all signed a soccer ball. They were one of the hardest things for Ian to leave behind. Ian has already distinguished himself at his new school. His head and a hard part of the playground collided at high velocity to produce a world class black eye. In spite of this injury Ian insisted on staying in school. He seems to have inherited the Randall hard head.

PATRICE PROFILE: After much soul-searching, careful research, and deliberation, Patrice decided to embark upon a second career as a student. She had signed up for classes in residential construction technology. That was about the same time that John said, "Hey, lets move to Europe!". Patrice plans to conpensate by studying, firsthand, the architecture of, Rome, Venice, Vienna, Paris, Prague, London, Nice, Florence, Zurich, Salzberg, and several other places that we haven't heard of yet.

JOHN JUNK: This summer, John helped Margaret Stern (from Lincoln Laboratory) run the semi-famous Gordon Research Conference on the Chemistry and Physics of Nanofabrication. This is an exciting event in which people from all over the world come to talk about how to push atoms around and make things so small that no one can see them. The grand finale of the conference was a squirt gun fight in which John was ambushed and many of the world's top Nanofabricators got wet.

RELATIVITY REPORT:
Randall Roundup: John's brother Mike is still living in Minnesota. There he braves extremes in weather (-57 F one day last winter) and helps some local braves help people lose their money. Sister Cindy still manages two Gyms, manages two kids Shelly(13) and Kelsie(7), and managed to sell her house and move back in with dear old Mom and Pop. Mom and Pop (Vee and Bill) thought their life was fairly busy before Cindy, Shelly, and Kelsie moved in. Vee is cataloging obituaries for the Daughters of the American Revolution. Bill has been working on a number of gas processing projects none of which have yet struck paydirt.

Stepchinski Stuff: Patrice's brother Patrick and wife Erica have struck paydirt with Allan, a bouncing baby brother for Leanne who is now 3. Brother Nigel has recovered from his dirt bike accident with the aid of Rhonda's mother who made an extended stay in Houston. Munchkins Caitlin(5) and Kyle (2) can still outrun daddy. Patrice's parents Eddie and Anita are still in Houston. Anita is expecting pictures from Dusseldorf Germany, her family's hometown.

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