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 Since the kids prefer to stay home - and watch various screens, our first family trip took place in June, when we traveled to Southern California for the wedding of Lanchi's nephew Don. Besides beaches (Laguna Beach, Oceanside, San Diego Mission Beach) , we visited Legoland for Minh-Dan (who still likes legos, although now he also likes Nerf guns), and Seaworld, so that Vi-Van could see real penguins - it turns out the light in their exhibit replicates Antarctica light levels, so it is quite dim during our summer. In July, as Lanchi's cousin from Switzerland visited us, we took turns taking them around. Because of the three other close families engaged more seriously into scouting, creating their own troupe, we had fewer common activities (our kids are still too young to join). Besides joining a scout camp-out in Uvas Canyon near San Jose, we traveled together only on a four-day cruise in August starting in Long Beach, with stops at Catalina Island and Ensenada in Mexico. In the fall, Vi-Van started third grade, and Minh-Dan second grade. Vi-Van remains the more responsible child, while Minh-Dan still throws his tantrum (homework and brushing teeth are particularly problematic). In October, Tuan traveled to Vietnam. He stayed a short week in Saigon with his cousin Dao who is caring for his mother. Although she remains remarkably well physically, she doesn't speak anymore, shows no sign of recognizing anybody. Having lost her teeth, she eats only pureed food. Tuan co-led his first photo tour over the whole length of the country for 12 days. The tour was organized by Phuoc, a Vietnamese woman from Southern California who had traveled extensively herself and was very efficient at taking care of the logistics and participants. The new experience of touring in group (included Kendra from the Berkeley days) and luxury travel - 5 star hotels - wasn't too bad. Tuan had enough fun that he plans to lead more photo tours in the future. After the tour, he went again his backpacker ways for a week in Taiwan, an under-rated country which reminded him a bit of Korea: beautiful, culturally interesting, yet modern and not too expensive. In December, we all went together to Vietnam during the Christmas vacation. The 24-hour journey was not a problem thanks to the on-board entertainment provided by Korean Airlines. Lanchi even enjoyed it - she read two books and watched three movies - saying she didn't had such a large chunk of time to herself for a long time. We expected the kids to be bored with the multiple family visits to numerous relatives of Tuan. What disappointed us was that they were mostly interested in shopping (that they found "awesome") and staying inside in the AC hotel room watching english-language Cartoon Network. Vi-Van had announced prior to the trip that she was only interested in seeing the curious penguin-shaped trash cans placed in public parks. She managed to find many tiny penguins at souvenirs shops, and eventually Tuan even bought one of those trash cans - which turned out to be the most expensive ever because of the outrageous airline oversize charges. So, despite their lack of cultural curiosity, their introduction to the land of their ancestors was a good trip for them. We traveled to Mui Ne with Tuan's mother and cousins, where we stayed in a room fronting a beach where fishermen in the morning bring all sorts of sea creatures. After the new year, we went into the Mekong Delta with a private guide. Although we had visited Tuan's family grave in Ben Tre, Lanchi didn't plan to visit hers in Tra Vinh, but as the guide pointed out a few old tombs that Tuan might be interested in photographing because of their character, Lanchi identified them as belonging to her family. In the fall, Vi-Van's hamster died. Of the new pair, shortly one died and the other escaped. We thought that would be it for pets, but by some curious combinations of circumstances and multiple twists, we happened to care for a wandering Chihuahua who belonged to a far neighbor and came to us a few times. After the very well-behaved dog was eventually returned to his owner for a second time, Lanchi located a three-month old Chihuahua puppy and drove to Stockton to pick him up. The little guy (who still doesn't have a definitive name) melts everybody with his cuteness, but so far has been difficult to train and, unlike the other Chihuahua, doesn't accept all the members of our extended family, taking weeks to warm up to Lanchi. Lanchi's job at the tiny start up did not last long. Like in her previous job, the company ran out of money. Besides continuing woodturning and developing a strong following for her screw-cap Acorn boxes on Ebay and Etsy - which always sell faster than she can make them, she started a ambitious gardening project, to transform the steep slope in our backyard into a wild flower garden. Operating as meticulously as for her other projects, she researched flower species on the web, then worked on the slope day after day by hand tools and with machinery to remove weeds, tilled the ground, and seed the flowers. Tuan hopes that there will be enough California Poppies this spring for him to conduct wildflower photography workshops, right at home. We managed to stop the decline in revenue from the photography business by recovering from copyright infringers, which included our lawyer filling three more federal lawsuits. For now, we can still comfortably support ourselves, however, the long term trends are not favorable. Tuan doesn't find himself where he had envisioned when turning to photography full-time five years ago, so he is looking for new ideas. In the while, besides his Asia trips, he continued to update the website with new images and work on finishing his National Parks project, looking for more elusive images (Aurora Borealis, moonbows, a lunar eclipse, the Milky Way) for which he had to endure extremes of climates, from -30F in Arctic Alaska in winter (with Regis from SRI) to +110F in the deserts of West Texas in the spring and in the canyons of Utah in summer. For a review of his photographic year, we refer you to this blog post and links within: http://bit.ly/UB9H2S We wish you and all your loved ones a year 2013 (of the snake) full of happiness, health, prosperity, and success, and hope to hear some news from you. Tuan, Lanchi, Vi-Van, Minh-Dan 3373 Meadowlands Lane, San Jose CA 95135 (+1) 408-223-8419