It’s the Christmas season. I love all the sparkling lights, the scent of pine, and a fire crackling in the hearth. Our house heater has been kaput for years. To replace it we’ll have to sell one of the boys, so we heat our home with only a wood-burning fireplace. Keeping the home fires burning is a thing. A hard and trying thing. Did I say it was hard and trying to keep a fire burning day and night during endless atmospheric rivers?

The new year began with Scott flying round-the-clock search and rescue missions when the atmospheric rivers rolled into California causing deadly flooding. With Scott away, it fell to me to keep the home fires burning. I was out at the woodpile in the pouring rain like a little drowned mouse trying to keep my mouse babies warm with the fire. It makes for a good story now but wasn’t enjoyable at the time. Our backroads flooded and I nearly got washed off the road trying to get home. Luke said I just wanted to get Dad to come rescue me in his helicopter so I could see him. The boys thought it was all fun and games and had a great time duck hunting. All the new snow that came along with the rain created a whole new kind of fun for the boys. They took up snowboarding.

We visited Scott down at the Sac Metro hanger while he was there and snow fell for months. The boys not only hit the slopes but also the ER. Our pediatrician proclaimed this, “the year of broken Bicknell boys.” Christian had his broken arm still in a brace from the 2022 football season and learned to snowboard with his brace on. Garry James broke his collarbone on the slopes, and John gave himself a concussion flying over a jump at Boreal. Thankfully John was wearing a helmet, but still spent a week in bed seeing flashing lights. Joey messed up his knee, not snowboarding, but during his winter rugby season. Even with these injuries and the endless trips to the doctor, it was so much fun becoming a snowboarding family. While the boys snowboarded, Scott and I enjoyed a winter wonderland in Tahoe. The Sierras were spectacular with record-breaking snow this year.

We also went to the coast as often as we could, helping my brother Patrick take care of his Airbnb near Ten Mile Beach north of Fort Bragg when Scott wasn’t working. Scott absolutely loves flying again and was more than happy to work nearly nonstop during this year’s fire season. Due to all the rain, there weren’t many wildfires, but Scott kept busy putting out small blazes around Sacramento while another Sac Metro crew deployed north to where several big wildfires burned until the end of September.

While Scott was flying, I released my seventh book and am grateful readers continue to ask for more. I was also blessed to attend several writing conferences to connect with old writing friends and make new ones, which made me so happy. I’m now working on another memoir, Farming Hope, because we all need hope, right? And also planning a timeslip novel set in California during the 1906 earthquake and the present day. I’m jokingly calling it my California Crumbling series. My California Rising series continues to do well and my other books are still selling too. Many people think best-selling authors make lots of money. Sorry to say most writers are starving artists. The bulk of my book sales come from Kindle. When my Kindles are on sale for .99 cents, I rake in .35 cents per book, but I’m not complaining. Being an author is my dream job. Just like flying is Scott’s passion. We both feel incredibly grateful to get paid to do what we love. Our dog Ragnar thinks my writing is just for him, so we can hang out together all the time. May, our yellow lab has been my faithful writing companion for nearly a decade. Both dogs like to sleep in the house during the day with me while I write. Sometimes I read passages out loud to them to see how they sound. The dogs are very good listeners and always wag their tails. Every writer should have a good dog or two since writing can be a lonely business.

We also absolutely, positively love raising kids which we’ve been doing for over thirty years now. It’s rare to have all our children together in a photo but I captured this candid shot during one of Joey’s high school soccer games this past winter.

Joey played goalie and was also captain of his rugby team until he tore the meniscus in his knee right before his club team headed to Hawaii for a big rugby tournament there. Joey didn’t get to go to Oahu but he and Emilee, his girlfriend since 8th grade, got a silver lab from Idaho. They named her Shasta. Isn’t she cute?

While Scott was off flying, I took the boys camping, and to their football practices, and enjoyed all our grandkids at the pool and on the farm. Summer is always a blood-sweat-and-tears time for us. This year, harvest season was even more challenging with Scott working for Sac Metro. On his days off, Scott helped in the orchard, and all the kids stepped up, along with Oma and Opa to bring in our crop. For the most part, Scott turned his harvest season job over to Joey, who worked long hours in the orchard and sold our stone fruit while attending summer school at UC Davis to become an EMT.

Before harvest season, Joey and Emilee attended their last prom together and graduated high school as a team. The week before graduation, Emilee walked the stage at Yuba College, graduating with her AA degree before receiving her high school diploma. Joey received his EMT license in September. His first EMT job was at Christian’s football games. We are so proud of Joey and Emilee. The COVID lockdown was hard on teenagers. These kids missed in-person school for two years but didn’t waste their time. They studied hard and accelerated into adulthood. Joey just got hired at our local hospital working in the ER, and Emilee is holding down two jobs while doing college online.

Along with snowboarding, John took up backpacking this summer. He also met a rare and special girl named Skye at a Nickelback concert in June. Skye has red hair and blue eyes just like John, which makes these two gingers 0.17 percent of the population, that’s how rare blue-eyed redheads are today. Considering John’s brothers thought he’d never find a girl as unique as him, in true John fashion, he proved them wrong. Joey says, “The ginger nieces and nephews will be legendary.” The sibs (this is what the kids call each other and they have their own group chat). “Will hide their children when the ginger cousins come to town,” says Joey. John has been working for Opa and Patrick and is still looking at the military. For now, he’s Opa’s right-hand man. Opa says John can do anything. John is also our family chef. We all love it when he cooks for us because John makes delicious meals.

Scott was able to help coach Christian’s 12 U team at the end of the fire season. It’s hard to believe our youngest is in junior high already. We are so proud of Christian with his awesome grades and kind heart. He loves animals and amazes us with his ability to catch wild birds and other untamed critters and calm them in his gentle hands. We call Christian our animal whisperer. Whenever I need pest control, I yell for Christian. He loves relocating snakes (as long as they aren’t rattlers), frogs, lizards, and birds that get stuck in our chicken coop. He also catches birds out of the trees at night with his bare hands and rescues injured wildlife. He wants to become a game warden or a biologist when he grows up.

Joey’s hands are gentle too, which is a contradiction considering Joey earned the nickname “The Crusher” when he was little. The Bicknell boys are tough competitors and hard workers, but they are protectors and healers as well. Here is Joey working an EMT shift at one of Christian’s youth football games in October. You can see I’m very proud of him looking so spiffy in his EMT uniform.

Garry James had an amazing football season earning Defensive Player of the Year and getting moved up to varsity for playoffs. He has the highest GPA on his team and got his driver’s permit this summer. In January, Garry turns 16, and Joey’s old Ford pickup sits in the driveway waiting for him. This spring Garry plans to give pole vaulting a try during track season because last year at an away meet, he picked up a pole vaulter’s pole to impress the girls and jumped high enough to get everyone’s attention. Like his big brothers, Garry James is fearless, and so fun to raise. He recently informed us his friends’ grandparents are about our age. “But you don’t look that old,” he assured us. “My friends are shocked when I tell them you qualify as senior citizens.”

Garry also knows everything. I mean everything. Just ask him, he knows. He knows more than I do. More than his dad. More than his twenty-year-old brother John and John knows just about everything too. Scott and I are pretty dumb these days. We can’t even comment on the news without saying something stupid. People claim our generation raised entitled kids. We were the first generation of helicopter parents. Scott took this seriously, lol. But I say we raised geniuses because apparently, Generation X knows nothing. And maybe there’s a bit of truth to this. I often hand my iPhone to one of the boys, saying, “Please fix this for me.”

After quickly righting my phone ship (iPhones are the mother ship, you know) they say, “Really, Mom?”

I don’t know how to Snapchat or tick-tock, though I may try to learn tick-tock, so I can write a book about spies in America. Garry James read this letter, he’s my editor, and realized I’d spelled tick-tock wrong. It’s TikTok, but Garry didn’t correct me. He just laughed. I don’t care enough to fix it. Tick-tock is the devil in disguise. Don’t kids know this? I’m the queen of Facebook and my 55-year-old brain can only handle so much. I sign my books in an orchard, after all. Garry James is the up-and-coming spy in this story. He can read a football play in one glance and his memory is way better than mine or Scott’s. Poor Garry has old people for parents but he says he loves where he’s landed in the birth order. We finally have the money to let the boys order drinks with their fast-food meals. His older siblings only got to drink complimentary water and everyone had to order off the value menu. Plus, Garry doesn’t have to watch younger siblings unless the grandchildren show up. Christian is more than able to take care of himself. And is so quiet you don’t even know he’s in the house. But he’s always listening. Christian doesn’t miss a trick. Oh, wait, maybe Christian is the spy in the family. Garry is our showboat.

Raising teens while grandparenting is a juggling act. Teenagers love to play at night and sleep the morning away. Our grandbabies are morning gamers. And I’m not talking about video games. The grandkids are up by 5:00 am ready to play. When we do cousin sleepovers on Saturdays, we are exhausted by the time the grands go home after church on Sundays. We can’t wait for Garry James to get his driver’s license in January so he can drive himself to all his activities since Garry James is our social butterfly and is involved in everything. We are picking Garry up late on weekends and rising bright and early for pancakes in the morning with the grandkids. Papa Scott’s marshmallow pancakes are their favorite thing.

Our oldest son Luke shot his dream buck in the snowy mountains near the Oregon-Nevada border last winter. He’s doing fantastic in the Army and Alex graduated from cosmetology school and is working at a salon now. All the Bicknells keep Alex busy and the boys’ hair finally looks amazing. Their son Cameron turned six in October. He loves school and hanging out with his uncles and cousins. Four-year-old Abby says she’s going to marry Cameron but he has a girlfriend in kindergarten. Abby says she’ll wait. We have yet to break it to Abby that it is illegal to marry your first cousin.

Cami and Drew are doing wonderful. Kara is a dimpled and diligent first grader and curly-haired Abby is in preschool planning her wedding to Cameron. Cami and the girls helped me in the farmstand this summer and Cami enjoys being a stay-at-home mom. At some point, she will probably return to her speech therapy work, but for now is helping Lacy, a night nurse, with her babies. Cami and Lacy are inseparable and their little ones behave more like siblings than cousins. Abby and Lily spar over Cameron and sometimes fight for Kara’s attention.

Jake and Lacy nailed their dream job this summer running the duck club across the road from their house. They also added to their family with baby Isaac born at the end of September. Isaac’s lungs weren’t quite ready, he was due October 17th but came early, and we nearly lost him when his lungs collapsed in an ambulance rushing to UC Davis. He has recovered well and came home after just one week in the NICU thanks to thousands of people praying. JJ is a mommy’s-boy-forever unless Auntie Cami comes around and Lily who is quite independent, sweet, and sassy just like her mom, couldn’t wait to meet their baby brother who is the spitting image of his Uncle Joey as a baby.

The week Isaac was born and nearly died, a door fell off the helicopter Scott was flying over El Dorado Hills. Scott texted me, “Just made an emergency landing, please pray!” while I was at the hospital with Lacy. Isaac was in critical condition. Had the helicopter door hit the tail rotor, it could have been catastrophic. Thankfully, the door fell straight down and landed rather gently on a roof, so gently in fact that the homeowners didn’t know it was there. On that same day, Isaac was crashing in the NICU of our local hospital where he was born. We didn’t know if Isaac was going to make it. I’m so thankful both Isaac and Scott are here strong and healthy to tell their tales. When Scott returned home the night after his emergency landing, he said, “Let’s keep this quiet. We don’t know why the door fell off. There’s going to be an investigation. I don’t want to talk about it until we know more.”

I wrapped my arms around Scott and said, “I promise I won’t say anything to anyone.” The next morning the texts began rolling in. The story was all over the TV news. “Does Scott know a Sac Metro helicopter lost a door yesterday in midflight? The news says the pilot did an amazing job landing the aircraft on a school soccer field. Does Scott know anything about this?!”

“Yes, Scott knows about it,” I texted back a number of times without elaborating. “There’s going to be an investigation. We’ll know more later.” Once the dust settled, we teased Scott. “You got your doors blown off,” because the boys are always saying, “Dad, you just got your doors blown off!” Since Scott drives like an old man, and people always pass us on the freeway. Now Scott really has gotten his doors blown off. In our family, we laugh about things maybe we should cry about but both Scott and Isaac are here and that’s all that matters to us. We are so thankful. A Pacific Crest Trail hiker is here too because Scott’s crew rescued him last spring. The hiker was from Belgium and had begun his trek in Mexico. When he hit deep snow in the Desolation Wilderness, he didn’t want to quit like most other hikers who skipped the snowy Sierras this spring. Nearing sundown with temperatures dropping fast, the Belgium hiker fell through the snowy ice and broke his shoulder.

Sac Metro got the call for a hoist rescue and raced towards the Tahoe Rim. Scott texted me, “Headed into the mountains for a dangerous rescue. Please pray!” I looked at the sun on the horizon and felt sick to my stomach. Watching Life 360, I finally breathed a sigh of thankful relief when Scott’s helicopter landed at the South Lake Tahoe Airport. The crew had to fly home under goggles through the mountains. When Scott stepped through the door around 2 am, I was so happy to hug him. The hiker recovered and lived to hike another day.

Growing old really is a gift. Again this year we’ve attended too many funerals. I don’t know what is happening in the world but life feels fragile and dangerous these days. So many people are hurting. Wars are erupting. Crime is terrible and people dump their garbage all over our beautiful backcountry roads. I can hardly afford to grocery shop and fill our vehicles with gas but I can sleep on a mattress on the side of the road if I want to. This summer gas hit six dollars a gallon in California. Homelessness is out of control. Life wasn’t this way just a decade ago. If I was going to tattoo something on my body it would be: “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid,” Frederick Buechner.

Buechner is one of my favorite writers. He passed away at 96 years old in 2022. Here is his quote in full context because I think we all need to read it. “The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you. There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.”

Wishing you peace, love, and happiness if you can find it this Christmas. With God, all things are possible. Big warm hugs, Scott and Paula