We began the year celebrating holidays with family, and expected to end it the same way. In between, we’ve been really fortunate to share this year with our family members and dear friends, in person or otherwise. It would be impossible to describe all the interesting experiences, in-depth conversations and good times we had, but we want to share a few highlights.

Happy New Year 2023!

Cousins Ron Regier and Doreen Wetzel joined us to celebrate New Year’s 2023 at the KT Ranch, complete with hiking, card games and a big turkey dinner!

San Francisco

In January, Karen finally managed to do a trip that was the first one she delayed when COVID hit in early 2000 – a get-together in San Francisco with many of the women on her mom’s side of the family. Along with sister Sallie, sister-in-law Cathy, and cousins (of one degree or another) Doreen, Karol and Tracy, she had a fabulous time visiting the Ramses the Great exhibit, shopping in Chinatown, having lots of great meals and generally catching up. Karen and Sallie’s mom Bev and Karol’s mom Lee had a decades-long tradition of an annual trip to The City and this may be the start of a new version.

Costa Rica

While Karen was in California, Terry had his annual birding trip with long-time pal Jim Arneson. Check out the Costa Rica story below to see more about the fun they had with this trip, the continuation of another decades-long tradition.

Arizona

We managed to escape from construction long enough to hang out with our Portal friends (Rose Ann, Richard, Bill, Jill, Rhonda and Mike). We also had visits from friends John and Marlene Tuthill, Ann and Ruedi Hunziker and Tom and Josie Harding (and visited them at their Casa Porque too). The KT is a great place for visits, and will be even better when all the construction is finished. Come see us!

Florida

Our trip to Cuba took us through Florida, so it was easy to add on a short visit with our niece Julie Rufus and her family. They moved to Florida from Montana last year, and are definitely enjoying the warmer weather! We visited them in Bradenton, near Tampa. Son Wyatt has grown a lot since we saw him last, and daughter Calia is navigating a new school, new softball team, new friends and life as a teenager. While we were there, we enjoyed hanging out at their house, doing outdoor things (hikes and birding, unfortunately no manatee sightings) and having dinner on a pier in the Bradenton River.

Colorado

In July, Karen re-instituted another tradition from before COVID. She and Chris Perkins, a college roommate, have tried to get together every year for a long weekend together. Last time, in 2019, this visit was in Fort Worth. This time, Karen flew out to Colorado to stay with Chris and her husband Mike. It’s always wonderful to have time to hang out and talk through everything going on in our lives. This time, we explored and spent money on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, learned about BUGS!! and other creatures at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and took a class on “The Origin of Tea” at the Dushanbe Teahouse. Mike joined us for a fun day at the Denver Botanical Garden. Great time!

Northern California

September found us both in California. We had dinner on the patio with Karen’s sister Sallie, brother Gary and sister-in-law Cathy, as well as other adventures with Sallie. In the south Bay, we had a philosophical morning with Dennis Church. In the east Bay, we caught up with Bob and Bernadette Mack one day and Joe Houska and Chris Paige another. And we got together with Barbara and Dan Williams for several days – enjoying a pelagic birding trip from Half Moon Bay, another from Sausalito out to the Farallones (going underneath the Golden Gate Bridge) and birding from Marin to Santa Clara counties.

And also …

Between all these in-person trips, we’ve kept up with other people through technology. We look forward to Zoom cocktail hours with Terry’s sister Nancy and her partner Kim, Barbara and Dan Williams, Ann and Ruedi Hunziker, Tom and Josie Harding, Paul and Michele Weirich, Raul and Denise Arias de Para, Barbara Parness, Steve Swanberg, Janice Price and more. Phone calls connect us with friends and family members who don’t like virtual visits.

Karen has particularly enjoyed Zoom gatherings with two groups that connect to her past. Before the pandemic, she had group phone chats with some friends from her time at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Those have evolved into Zoom calls with many more people. We have a great time debating public policy and catching up on one another’s activities.

In January, she had the first Zoom call with people who’d been at Stanford-in-Berlin with her. With one exception, she had not been in touch with any of them since that time in Berlin – in 1975! Most people are near or past the end of their professional careers in very diverse fields. It’s fascinating to see how the Berlin experience affected each of us and to find common interests after all this time when we’ve been traveling many different paths.

Holidays in California

Our plan was to enjoy a traditional Christmas with our family in California. Our nephew Tyler traveled there from Boston on Monday, Dec. 18th. We flew from Dallas on Tuesday, and enjoyed decorating the Christmas tree with Tyler and Karen’s sister Sallie. We had plans for dinners and other celebrations for the next 10 days.

But the very next morning, Tyler tested positive for COVID! Poor guy! So we revamped the plans for the next few days. We made a quick visit to the ducks at Palo Alto Baylands but otherwise stayed away from people.

Sadly, Sallie also came down with COVID. No fun at all! Since we have a foreign trip right after New Year’s, we made the difficult choice to return to Dallas. Instead of a dinner with everyone together at the house, we instead had a zoom celebration with Gary, Cathy and Brian in Los Altos, Sallie and Tyler in Santa Clara, and Karen and Terry in Dallas.

We hope everyone else has had good health during the holidays — and that 2023 will be the last year for things like this!