It Was A Very Good Year

(excerpts from the lengthy email with photos sent to friends on New Years' Day)

Friends, Family & Traveling Companions:

This has been one hell of a year!  Our sons moved home, Scott's fine art photography is beginning to take off, we completed the majority of renovations on the old farm house... there was... travel.  It's been a fulfilliing, rewarding twelve months. 

So, today is Jan 1.  Do you remember all the New Years Eves spent together?  ...Do any of you get out there and shake it up any more?  Scott and I celebrated New Years Eve on 12/30 in Boston.  We drove down, checked into a nice hotel near Copley Square,  went walking, taking photographs, visited the Boston Public Library (gorgeous), drank Guiness in an Irish pub, dinner in the North End at a terrific Italian restaurant and spent the next day at the JFK Library.  

... Bryan returned to Salt Lake for his final semester @ Univ Utah.  He's lived there 6 years... SLC has been a perfect environment for his snowboarding, hiking, kayaking, rock climbing, trips to Moab and other adventurous stuff.  He received his degree in Environmental Studies spending his last semester interning for Tim DeChristopher, probably the biggest activist in the David/Goliath fight of environmentalists vs Big Oil & the govt.  He decided to come home and try his luck here [because I work with so many environmental and govt agencies marketing tourism]. 

My job at the tv station is wonderful.  I love selling this niche product... If this is my last job in broadcasting, I lucked out big time.  

In April, [we] returned to Anna Maria Island, FL,  one of our favorite places... It was a warm, sunny week of beaching, swimming, eating and family time.

This summer, [we] took a small renovated "camp" cottage on Lake Sunapee.  We'd never been to this lake and heard lovely things about it...The lakeside homes and old boating garages and wonderful antique boats reminded us of Lake Arrowhead.  Those were the days...

 

Scott ... was commissioned by a local hotel to print 11 images for display in a newly renovated wing... We took a trip to NYC in Sept to meet with an [art] consultant. .. She was enthusiastic and constructive.  While they met, I took the opportunity to visit the Empire State Bldg for the very first time.  It was SO WORTH IT...

Fletcher and Ashley moved back from Naples, Fl...  This winter, Fletcher and Bryan are working in the terrain park of a local ski mountain.  Tough life, 11 hours of snowboarding every day and getting paid for it.

[Scott's mother] is doing fairly well...She'll be 85 this week...  I think it's been a real adjustment for all and it still isn't perfect but how easily does living with one's parents come after all these years?   Bryan and Fletch have only been here a couple of months and they care chafing under our still watchful parental eyes.

Some but not all of you know I participated in a mutual 60th birthday bash in New Orleans in October with [5 of my oldest friends.] ... 3 nights together of eating, drinking and sightseeing, not necessarily in that order...  

Wishing you the best year ahead with health and happiness and love because, when you get right down to it,  that's all there is!

        I call this photo "Everybody loves Scott...except Bryan"  

HAPPY NEW YEAR!