This is Lanchi and Tuan's annual family letter. Our family photos, as well as an archive of our family letters, can always be seen at http://www.terragalleria.com/family During Spring break, we visited the island of Kauai. We rented a house near Kalihika Beach on the north shore, shared with Lanchi's three sisters and their children. This worked well for a family vacation as Minh-Dan and Vi-Van loved playing with their cousins. However, when we hiked the first two miles of the famed Kalalau trail - which gives a good flavor of the beauty of the roadless Na Pali Coast, one of the most beautiful wild coast anywhere - they had a difficult time, because of the long rough trail (4 miles), heat and humidity. To our consternation, the subsequent mention of more hiking elicited negative responses. After the customary camping trips in the Sierra with the extended family in July, we went on a road trip in August. Since the rest of the country is quite warm at that time of the year, we returned to the Northwest, through the eastern high desert. We visited Black Rock Desert (and let the kids drove the cars on the expansive playa), remote Lake Oywhee area in Oregon, and Hells Canyon where we found a paradisiac campsite by the river, surrounded by trees with ripe fruits weighing down the branches. We then camped in the three Washington National Parks, Mount Rainier, North Cascades, and Olympic. We saw a very wide range of natural environments. However, between "are we there yet?", "why do we have to hike again?" and "are we going home?" we are not sure if we will repeat the road trip experience soon. Kids were tiring to take care of and didn't seem to appreciate the locations visited, rejoicing at staying in motels because of the swimming pools (Tuan had not realized their usefulness before), and TVs. Vi-Van started second grade, and Minh-Dan first grade. While the previous years we were worried about Vi-Van's performance in school, this year she turned out to do just fine, taking good care of her homework all by herself. In contrast, Minh-Dan continues to display natural ability, for instance reading well above his grade, but does not put effort into his studies. We are hoping that he would soon grow out of his difficult attitude and temperament. Besides school, the kids started a number of new activities: swimming, art, piano, and rock climbing in the gym. Like for her homework, Vi-Van tries her best at those, while Minh-Dan does everything half-heartedly. Vi-Van is now into penguins: books, games, stuffed annimals (she's given a name to each of her 20 penguins and remembers it), while Minh-Dan is eager to get Ninjago Lego sets, even those too complex for him. In November, Tuan went to Vietnam to visit his mother. Vietnam requires a visa for entry from most countries, but he totally forgot about it until the day before departure. He found this service http://www.myvietnamvisa.com/ which got him a pre-approved visa letter directly from Vietnam delivered as PDF, and got the visa stamp upon arrival in Ho Chi Minh City. It's actually cheaper and easier than the traditional way. As her aunt Phong didn't get along with caretakers, Tuan's mother is is now cared for by Tuan's cousin, Dao, with whom he stayed. Tuan found his mother in good health, but with much diminished capabilities: it wasn't clear whether she even recognized him, she almost doesn't speak anymore, must be spoon-fed, and cannot get out of the bed by herself. He was grateful for the cheerful and attentive care provided by Dao and her husband - better than what we would have been able to do here - with whom his mother appears to be very comfortable. During his stay, he also traveled with cousin My Hien to the coastal town of Mui Ne. Since his flight to Vietnam went through Seoul, upon returning he toured South Korea. In 10 days he traveled the length of the country and visited 9 out of the 10 World Heritage sites, ranging from ancient temples and palaces to a hike up the highest mountain in South Korea, which was surprisingly popular despite white-out and sub-freezing conditions. Lanchi continued to expand her wood collection and woodturning skills. She offers some of her wooden items on Ebay and Etsy. Demand has been good, especially for her specialty, the screw-cap Acorn boxes. The sale of several dozen pieces per month has kept her busy, trying to produce enough inventory, and fulfilling orders for custom pieces. Despite sending many resumes for chemistry positions, it was only towards the end of the year that she got an offer, though only about a day of work per week for a tiny start-up. Even though site traffic still staying high, we saw again a decline in revenue in the prints and licensing business (username/password to download free wallpaper images is friends2012). Since the main reason is the proliferation of images, a trend which is not likely to change anytime, Tuan began to explore other sources of revenue. He took for the first time a commercial assignment, to create promotional pictures with models for the Stanford Credit Union - and scrambled beforehand to polish up lighting techniques. In addition to the art director's daughters, Lanchi's niece Capucine and her friend Roman, were enrolled for the shot. They happened to be visiting us from Paris. Last, after turning a blind eye for many years towards people who used commercially his images without permission, Tuan began to crack down on the most egregious cases (such as lawyers, who have no excuse for ignoring copyrights) thanks to the newly released Google image-based search. However, he was surprised to see that even a lawyer specialized in copyrights couldn't easily recover from infringers, making the filling of a lawsuit in federal court necessary. Besides, Tuan expanded his social media presence, opening a Facebook business page (http://www.facebook.com/terragalleria), and getting on board the new Google Plus network (http://www.gplus.to/qtluong). Tuan wanted to wrap up his National Parks project by seeking more difficult-to-get images (including winter, underwater, thunderstorms, auroras, and summit views) but didn't make much progress, partly because of natural conditions. The underwater photography plans were abandoned for health reasons. Although he didn't remember hurting it, a shoulder bothered him for month, and when he eventually went to see a doctor, he was diagnosed with a "frozen shoulder", a curious condition with little explanation nor cure. Rather than going into the details of what he did manage to photograph, we refer you to this blog post and links within: http://bit.ly/AkoaJr We wish you and all your loved ones a year 2012 (of the dragon) full of happiness, health, prosperity, and success, and hope to hear some news from you. Tuan, Lanchi, Vi-Van, and Minh-Dan 3373 Meadowlands Lane, San Jose CA 95135 (+1) 408-223-8419