Time with Family and Friends
- On March 2, 2020
We were fortunate to see almost all of our close family members this year, and to enjoy time with good friends as well. These are a few highlights.
In April, a planning conference gave Karen the opportunity to spend time with family and friends in the Bay Area. She and her sister Sallie had time to hang out together in Santa Clara, enjoy a day along the coast in Monterey, and have wine flights and Mongolian Hot Pot in restaurants near the place we lived when our family first moved to California in 1961!
Getting together with Dennis Church in San Jose. 
Taking George Atta to a college favorite restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown. 
Karen got many of her Texas planning friends to join her for a dinner at San Francisco’s memorable Ferry Building. 
We celebrated Easter at brother Gary’s house in Los Altos. From left: Gary’s son Brian, sister Sallie, Gary, sister-in-law Cathy’s dad Al, Cathy, Cathy’s sister Jenny.
Karen and her former college roommate Chris Liu Perkins try to get together every year or so to catch up. This year, they did that in Fort Worth. Chris had never been there, and Karen is usually there just for business meetings. So we both had a great time enjoying the city’s amenities!
Our Airbnb near the Cultural District 
Lunch at the Modern Art Museum 
An Ethiopian dinner — we also had Korean, Turkish and many other varieties. 
Terry joined us for dinner at Reata, one of Fort Worth’s most iconic restaurants. 
The weather was great for enjoying outdoor plazas. 
We managed to do a lot of shopping, including for chocolate. 
We ate at the Bird Cafe, which features a series of Texas native bird paintings. 
An angel at the beautiful Bass Performance Hall. 
During intermission of ‘A Bronx Tale’, a fun musical we saw at the Bass.
Our Antarctica trip gave us the opportunity to enjoy several enjoyable gatherings this year. We organized our photos into a presentation and shared it with friends and family in various places — in Dallas and Hillsboro KS in September, in Kansas City in October, and in California in December. It was wonderful to see our friends and share our experiences!
September and October included visits with several groups of family and friends in Kansas and Missouri. It was great fun to catch up with so many of them, and to get better acquainted with relatives we didn’t know well. By the way, we’re just going to use the term ‘cousin’ pretty loosely here!
Karen spent a few days with her Dad’s cousins in Wichita KS. Cousin Judy Conley and her husband Earnie were really generous in letting her stay at their next-door house for a few days to visit, connect and enjoy family stories.
Cousin Judy Conley with her son Shaun, who lives in Colorado but happened to be in Wichita at the time Karen visited. It was fun to find common interests and enthusiasms! 
Dad Len Walz’s cousins. From left, Phyllis Smith (married to cousin Mel), Earnie Conley, Andrea Mauer, Karen, Andrea’s husband Martin Mauer, their daughter, cousin Jerry’s wife Diane, cousin Jerry Smith, cousin Judy Conley. 
Judy’s daughter Andrea trains the EMT’s for Wichita and Sedgwick County using a very creative and innovative scenario lab she designed. It was really fascinating to see how it works! We only hope the EMT’s in Dallas get similar training. 
This mannequin is computer-controlled to do everything from fast heart rate to dilated eyes!
A second family gathering involved Karen’s mom Beverly Regier Walz’s cousins. The annual Pankratium (the reunion of cousins whose grandparents were Henry and Frieda Pankratz) was held in Hillsboro KS this year — the town where the parents of these cousins grew up. Karen participated in the whole gathering and Terry was able to get there for several days too.
The Milk & Honey B&B was the base for the reunion. 
Breakfast at the B&B. From left: host Joyce Barkman, Karen, Terry, cousin Lee Hoff, aunt Marilyn Pearcy, aunt Carol Sunderland, cousins Sonja and Janet Regier, cousin Doreen Wetzel (cousin Ron Regier was taking the photo). 
A project during the reunion in Hillsboro was scanning old family photo albums. The girls in this top photo are the mothers of these cousins. 
These cousins’ great-aunt Mary J. Regier was an early Tabor College graduate, donor and house mother. She is celebrated in the school’s museum. 
Mary J. Regier provided the funds for Regier Hall (originally called the ‘Ladies Home’) — the dormitory for women students that was the second building on the Tabor campus. It’s been closed now for many years. 
On this visit, we were able to tour inside Regier Hall! From left, Janet, cousin Marion Regier with grandson, Marilyn, Carol, Lee, Doreen, Ron, Sonja, cousin Rex Regier, Karen. 
In place of the old Regier Hall, Tabor has dedicated the atrium of its lovely new Performing Arts Center to Mary J. Regier. Cousins here are Lee, Sonja, Janet, Marilyn, Ron, Doreen, Carol and Karen. 
Cousin Jack Regier passed away a few months before Bev and Len in 2018. It was lovely to visit his wife Evelyn at her new home in a retirement community … and wonderful that her daughter Cheri could come up from Wichita to join us! 
Rex is an expert on the family’s history and led us on a great tour, including this farm once owned by family members. 
Who knew there was a Michelin-starred restaurant in Abilene KS? We had a huge and delicious lunch of fried chicken and all the trimmings at the Brookside Hotel. 
This was the house the cousins’ grandparents lived in during much of their lives. It was designed by Karen’s grandfather John Regier and built in the early 1930’s. Amazingly, Rex was able to get us a visit inside! 
Grandpa’s built-in cabinetry is still intact! 
Dinner at the family farm, now the home of Rex, Marion and their family. The selfie shows only parts of some people. What a wonderful time together! (Photo by Ron, who’s barely visible on the bottom right)
We also spent some time in Kansas City this fall. Steve Swanberg, one of Karen’s college friends who now lives in Chicago, came down at the same time so we, Steve and our friend Barbara Parness enjoyed a visit to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Our friends Paul and Michele Weirich came over from Columbia MO and shared an Airbnb with us for a few days. We got together several times with Terry’s sister Nancy and her friend Kim. Marilyn Dawson McCarthy and Frank McCarthy hosted a dinner at their house too. And we got to share our Antarctica photos with everyone!
Steve, Karen, Barbara, Terry 
Our Airbnb 
Terry, Karen, Nancy, Kim 
Michele, Paul, Terry, Karen 
Chatting at dinner before the Antarctica show 
Paul and Frank 
In the back yard
We spent Christmas in California with Karen’s family. Along with our holiday traditions, we decided to do something new. The experiment of a cooking class, where we learned to cook Beef Wellington, will give us stories to retell for years to come! Here are a few photos of this trip.
Karen and Sallie celebrated their birthdays together for the first time in years, with dinner out including Terry and Tyler. 
Hiking at Rancho San Antonio 
The Beef Wellington experience! (Photo by Tyler) 
Nephew Tyler and Terry decorating the tree. 
Ready for Christmas! Nephew Brian, Julie’s husband Dan, Terry, Tyler, Sallie, Julie, Gary, Cathy & Karen. (Photo by Brian) 
Julie got a laugh out of the present from Uncle Terry! 
Celebrating Karen’s 65th birthday with friends in Palo Alto. 
A quick overnight to Half Moon Bay. 
