Merry Christmas To All!

We want to take this opportunity to wish all of our family, friends, and on-line acquaintances a Happy Holiday Season and the very best for the next 1000 years.

                                                                            All our best,
                                                                            Richard and Ann

Please take a look at our Christmas Letters.  

Here are some pictures of our Christmas Present (for the next three years):

 

Here's what Santa brought:

Here's what the New Year's celebration looked like at our house:

I worked on our fireplace on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

Here are some of our favorite holiday traditions.
  • Christmas Tree Decorations– Beginning with the first year we were married, 1988, we have bought an ornament for each member of the family every year. We put each family member's name and the year on each ornament. For those years that we had house guests, we have also bought an ornament for each visitor. We now have the opportunity to remember each year of our lives every time we decorate the tree. The children look forward to getting their own ornaments out and hanging them on the tree. We had planned to give the ornaments to the children when they marry, but now we're having second thoughts because we enjoy them so much.

  • New Year's Resolutions– Ann and I have been wondering what to do to make this New Year meaningful. As I was walking through the museum a few days ago, I saw the exhibit of the Museum's Millennium Time Capsule. This made me start thinking about the future. I've thought some about the future, but it's always been in light of technological advances. This is because of the course I teach on computers and databases. Anyway, I started thinking in more personal terms and decided that it would be nice for us, as a family, to make a "time capsule" for the future. This year, we are going to choose some items that describe our life and put them away for a certain length of time. We haven't yet decided how long– maybe 25 or 50 years. Along with this, and probably more importantly, we are going to write our thoughts about our lives, the past and the future. These will be included. I think it will be enlightening for our children and grandchildren later on.

    Ann and I have also talked about this and in order to make this project more meaningful to the kids, we plan to have them each write how they feel, what they think is important, and what they want to do in the next year. We are going to put these away for a year and open them on the next New Year. This will be a annual activity for us.


  • Homemade Strawberry Cheesecake–  Need I say more?