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 the February winter break, we rented a cabin in South Lake Tahoe, large enough to hold the extended Vo family. It was more than anything an occasion for the 13 adults and eight children to spend time together. The Lake Tahoe shores, where cross-country ski tracks ran in what used to be normal winters, were totally devoid of snow. However, the ski resort of Homewood had enough snow on its groomed slopes for Vi-Van and Minh-Dan to take their first snowboarding lesson. In the while, Tuan took to the lifts for the first time in a dozen years, trying to remember how to do telemark turns. At the end of April, Tuan co-lead a Grand Canyon by raft photography workshop. Unfortunately, mid-trip, he broke his clavicle while being tossed around on the raft by rough rapids. He had to be helicoptered out for his first serious injury. For most of May and June, he was in much pain and unable to move much. By the end of June, he had improved enough to be able to make a quick trip to Yosemite to be interviewed by Al Jazeera America for a short report. It turned out to be our only family camping trip of the year. With surgery, Tuan has now recovered full functionality, although the pain still bothers him at times. At the beginning of August, we traveled to Orlando, Florida for the second consecutive summer. This time, the occasion was the wedding of Solange Dao, Lanchi's cousin. Due to a miscommunication, Tuan thought that he would be in charge of the photography and video, but found out at the ceremony a professional photographer present. Besides shooting video, he tried to stay out of the way. The official photographer subsequently felt ill and disappeared without contact, so the couple had to content themselves with the limited number of pictures Tuan made. Vi-Van and her cousin Nhu had become fans of Harry Potter - while Minh Dan prefers darker books such as the Hunger Games or the Divergent Trilogy. The girls were excited to visit the "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" at Universal Studios. The recently opened attraction (July 8, 2014) was the hot thing to see. We waited in line four hours for the "Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts" roller coaster ride, which lasted less than ten minutes. After the wedding, we boarded a Carnival cruise in Miami with stops in Key West and Cozumel, Mexico. Cozumel has supposedly some of the best scuba diving anywhere, but the snorkeling from a private beach was underwhelming. After the trip, Tuan stayed behind to revisit Virgin Islands National Park with too much luggage that included his underwater housing - unfortunately flooded on the first dive, and an aerial photography drone. After much help from brother-in-law Nhon (a mechanical engineer), Tuan was able to control a high-quality camera from the consumer-grade DJI Phantom 2. However, the system-wide National Park Service drone ban in the summer put a damper on his aerial projects. In the fall, Vi-Van started fifth grade and Minh-Dan fourth grade. After much reluctance, Minh-Dan eventually became comfortable on a bicycle, even managing to ride 15 miles with the extended family, while his previous longest distance was a few miles with training wheels. We signed them up for tennis lessons, but maybe because the game requires a fair amount of skill, they haven't been too enthusiastic. We have yet to find an activity (besides playing with computers and reading) that they embrace fully. Besides their reading preferences, their gender differences manifest themselves in what they do at home. Vi-Van loves to cook (making better quesadillas than Tuan) and bake cakes while Minh-Dan only requests nerf guns for toys and shoots around. We were hoping that Minh-Dan would become more responsible as he is growing up, but this year it has only gotten worse, extending to school study issues. In July, Vi-Van had spent her first week away from home at a summer camp, and then did it again in the fall for a week-long school camp. Asked by Lanchi if she missed her, she replied that she only missed Peanut (the chihuahua). Tuan did not ask whether she missed daddy. On the last days of 2014, we went to Yosemite for the third time in the year, visiting our friends Tom and Teresa who live there. The children took a snowboarding lesson at Badger Pass, which we found to be better organized and more family-friendly than Homewood. Lanchi got back on cross-country skis after a decade-long hiatus. During our stay, a cold snap brought unusually cold weather, but we were glad we had come since lack of snow - a likely chronic condition in California - caused Badger Pass to close in mid-January. As Tuan's photography business declined, Lanchi picked up the slack by taking her wood turning business to the next level. Besides continuing to sell online through a revamped website (http://elviodesign.com), from May to December, she attended 18 local art/craft shows. Her acorns often sold so well that making enough of them began to be an issue. You can read an account of her experience at the shows at http://bit.ly/1DrHfer, among other entries in a blog that she started this year. Initially, Tuan would make the trek to the show with the children. However, past the novelty, the children lost interest in the shows, and Lanchi found their presence distracting, so she preferred to have just sister Fi come along. In March, Tuan traveled to Texas to attend his first portfolio review session at Fotofest, seeking feedback from the art photography world about new directions he had been exploring (http://www.qtluong.com). Although he was pleased with the validation, he concentrated much of his efforts to exhibit (http://www.treasuredlandsproject.com) and publish his park nature photography, with little success this year. Due to his injury, and to take care of the family while Lanchi's schedule kept her busy, Tuan reduced his amount of travels. He still managed to check out new locations, such as the Stehekin Valley in North Cascades, which offers a combination of great scenery, amenities, and the absence of crowds. For a review of his photographic year, we refer you to this blog post and links within http://bit.ly/1K79Erv. Tuan eventually moved into the 21st century by getting his first iPhone, and started an Instagram feed at http://www.instagram.com/terragalleria. We wish you and all your loved ones a year 2015 (of the goat) full of happiness, health, prosperity, and success, and hope to hear some news from you. Tuan, Lanchi, Vi-Van, Minh-Dan, Peanut 3373 Meadowlands Lane, San Jose CA 95135 (+1) 408-223-8419