2015 Highlights
SARAH
Sarah received her Master’s degree of Fine Arts in Media Arts from Emerson University in Boston. Her boyfriend, Shaun Clarke, accepted a position as an assistant professor of Media production at Texas A&M’s Corpus Christi. He is a very talented film director and cinematographer. Sarah relocated to Austin to be near Shaun and also to work at the University of Texas. There, she is working for the school of Liberal Arts as a production supervisor for their online classes.
PATRICK
Patrick decided that he wanted to address his weight and entered a program to qualify for lap band surgery. He lost 100 pounds. He is looking for a job transfer with Verizon to Chicago where he has friends that he has made through his avid gaming interests. In addition he is taking and doing well in an online computer science course.
ASPEN FEBRUARY 22 TO 28
In February Dean and I joined our friends Rodney Andreychuk and Richard Malone for
horrendous ski trip to Aspen. It started off with our American flight leg between Dallas and Aspen being cancelled. It was then reinstated and everyone had to be rebooked manually. Then it was rerouted to Glenn Falls from which we were driven the last 2 hours to Aspen. During our time in Aspen we had lots of snow but only one good day of skiing. On the morning of our scheduled return, our American flight was cancelled, we were rebooked on United which was late, and we missed our connection in Denver. There were no more fights until the next day. We re-booked ourselves on redeye discount carriers and did not get to Fort Lauderdale until 4 AM. It will be probably our last ski trip to Aspen and hopefully our last American Airlines flight.
REROUTED FROM THE CARIBBEAN TO BATON ROUGE MARCH 10 TO 12
In March our friends Graham and Chris had invited us to spend a week cruising the ABC Islands in the Caribbean, Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao. Regretfully, the day before we were to leave we received word that my brother Norman had died. He had been diagnosed with ALS about a year before. Despite the sad occasion, it was a wonderful family visit as we are seldom in Baton Rouge to see many of them.
RODNEY AND RICHARD’S WEDDING MARCH 31 TO APRIL 4.
Our great friends Rodney Andreychuk and Richard Malone were married on Grove Isle, which is south of Miami. It was a wonderful celebration with their fun Canadian and American friends. There were great cocktail parties, dinners, boat rides, a beautiful celebration, and of course lots of dancing.
SARAH’S GRADUATION IN BOSTON MAY 14 TO 19
Dean and I enjoyed our trip to Boston for Sarah’s graduation in May. It has been 50years since Roland spent 10 weeks in Boston in an IBM training program and he hardly recognized the city. We had fun visiting Sarah’s Boston haunts, seeing her thesis film, and celebrating with some her classmates and friends.
CHESTER, NOVA SCOTIA JULY 17 TO 21
We celebrated Cheryl Millar’s birthday in Chester, Nova Scotia, from July 17th to 21st.We traveled with Cheryl and her husband Rod on our 2013 Croatia trip, again
on our 2014 Burgundy France barge trip, and see lots of them in Fort Lauderdale where they have a winter home also. We have enjoyed many wonderful days with them on Cheryl and Rod’s boat True Blue and Rodney and Richard’s boat Serendipity. We were hosted by Rodney and Richard in Chester at their charming cottage on the inner harbor (living room view shown). Friday night was a wonderful lobster dinner at Chery and Rod Millar’s beach pavilion of their lovely home there. Saturday Rodney and Richard gave a fun birthday party for Cheryl where we saw many friends that we had met before and met several more fun Chester residents. They are the friendliest group we have ever encountered. While in Chester we enjoyed delicious lunches at the scenic bayside restaurants. It was a great weekend with some of our closest and favorite friends.
SANTA FE AND ALBUQUERQUE AUGUST 6 TO 8
We were joined by Joe Possa and Chad Kenney-Possa for our trip. We spent Friday night at the beautiful home of Roland’s sister Linda where we were married September 2014. Saturday was the 25th anniversary celebration for Black Tic Club International in Albuquerque. It was a fun filled weekend of great food, bountiful alcohol, and great friends including our great friends Donald Laier and Garrison Boyce who have also have homes in Highlands and south Florida.
BARCELONA AND MYKONOS AUGUST 28 T9 SEPTEMBER 9
Joe and Chad again joined us for 3 days in Barcelona and a week in Mykonos. We found Barcelona both beautiful and charming. We became regulars at the roof top bar of our hotel, the Majestic. We enjoyed a Segway tour of the la Rable (old town) and the former world’s fair site. On the 2nd we joined our Fort Lauderdale friends Dick Johnson and Kostas Xenidis in Mykonos. Dick and Kostas have vacationed in Mykonos the same 2 weeks of the year for 40 years. They have many interesting memories of Mykonos’ past and are as well known as any local. We got special treatment wherever we went with them, from the beaches to the restaurants. We had many exciting adventures navigating the narrow streets and steep hills with our underpowered, standard shift, hardtop convertible VW Jetta with its limited breaking capabilities.
friends , Glenn Renecker and Jens Rodberg asked us to join them for the Black Tie Club Toronto Chapter's dinner that they were going to host. They knocked themselves out entertaining us. We had dinner when we arrived at the restaurant "Canoe" Friday night. Saturday included a tour of the new condo that they are renovating, shopping, and the Black Tie Club dinner at the stately International Club which was founded in 1874. On Sunday, we attended the matinee performance of "Kinky Boots".
NEW KITCHEN
We wanted to replace when we bought the condo in 2009. The previous owner had replaced the countertops with heavy banker green marble. It was etched and pitted from acids and chemicals and not a suitable kitchen countertop material. In addition, the marble was too heavy for the cabinets and the cabinet walls were buckling. Therefore, we decided to have the kitchen cabinets replaced this summer.
CHRISTMAS IN BATON ROUGE DECEMBER 23 TO 28
We are looking forward to spending Christmas in Baton Rouge with Joe and Chad. They and their family are very generous in sharing their Christmas dinner with Patrick, Sarah, and us.
VISITS FROM FRIENDS AND FAMILY
We have enjoyed several visits from friends when we were not traveling.
Best wishes for wonderful holidays and a great New Year.
