Holiday Party

Ed and I hosted the Vermont Professional Photographers Association holiday party on Sunday. Well, we cleaned the house...but everybody pitched in to make it a great time and very easy on us. Special thanks to Janet and Marcos who kept things organized and moving right along!
Photographers are busy, stressed and TIRED by December 14, so we were very happy to have a great turnout.
Our fun annual gift exchange was a blast and we all had a chance to decompress and catch up with friends. Everybody brought food and it was delicious. Ed and I are on a diet, but...
Our friend Al came the farthest - from Florida, no less. He got a taste of Vermont winter, arriving during Thursday's ice storm!
Thanks to everyone who came to party and any VPPers who missed it - well, we hope you'll be here next year!

Old Friends

Our friends Dayle and Paul drove over from Cleveland in November with their little girl Lucille. Lucille kept all our pets in line while she was here - Ed says little dogs don't know they're little!
Dayle, Ed and I went to high school with Dayle, so we always have lots to catch up on. Paul is a great sport and puts up with us yak-yak-yaking about people he doesn't know.
We decided to have a Thanksgiving meal, even though it was a week early and Dayle's sausage, cornbread and dried cherry stuffing was delicious. Our friends Portia, Dan, Ruth and Hugh joined us for food and chatter - lucky us - two great Thanksgivings!
We surely are thankful for great friends.

Another Birthday

Well, it's hard to believe, but our beautiful grandson Anthony is four years old!
He's such a character. He loves to talk and speculates about anything and everything. "What if...?
He loves trains, cars and trucks, any kind of tool or animal, outer space, and owls, owls, owls.
He's one of those kids who's always busy, never bored and really fun to be around.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PUNKY!

Road trip

Se drove down to Pennsylvania to spend Thanksgiving with Megan's parents Sue and Kent. You remember - Megan is Anthony's lovely and talented girlfriend who's in grad school at the U of Pennsylvania. Sue, Kent and Kent's sister Donna who was visiting from Houston were wonderful hosts - we ate, drank, played Liverpool, watched movies...
Anyway we had a lovely time visiting and on Thursday had a blow out meal. Kent, Sue and Donna made their families' traditional dishes - we had sausage stuffing, oyster stuffing and potato stuffing along with the turkey, veggies, desserts, etc. To say the least, we were STUFFED!
On Friday I went downtown with A & M to see the Constitution Center. Megan had to study, but Anthony and I strolled around. He went to the Mint (they wouldn't let me in because I had a camera - but they didn't ask about cell phones with cameras - go figure!) and I went over to Ben Franklin's grave across the street to wait. The little cemetery is beautiful and I was so impressed by how many people came by to look at the grave - it's very plain, but I'm sure I saw 200 people stopping and taking pictures in the half hour I was there.
We looked at the Liberty Bell, then it was getting dark - Megan's mom was right - we should have gone earlier! But we walked to Chinatown where we had fabulous and cheap dim sum. All in all, a great road trip.

Birthday Girl

Here she is - the bright-eyed California girl! Our grandaughter Ellie was one year old in November. We couldn't be there for the party, but Ed will be visiting in January so he can send back photos.
Ellie is a fashion plate, Mom Lindsay loves to dress her up. She likes books, playing with Mom and Dad, visiting her "Omi" and generally having one year old fun.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SWEETIE!

Happy Birthday, Anthony!

It's hard to believe that Gillian's son Anthony is 27 years old! How did that ever happen???
He came by on his birthday and we had blueberry pie. We're more pie-people than cake-people, I guess.
Anthony teaches introductory courses in CNC machining in Hanover, NH for Vermont HITEC.
He lives in Fairlee, VT and his beautiful girlfriend Megan attends graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania.

A Visit from Emmy

Ed's granddaughter Emily came for a visit recently and we had the best time! She traveled from California with her mom Rachel and sister Keely to see friends and family in Vermont. Emmy, 2 and Keely, 12, are very close as you can see from the photo.
Emmy goes 100 mph ALL the time and his a happy, playful, curious little girl. She has a great sense of humor, tickling 'Bumps' (Ed) and Arlo with Gillian's famous tickle feather and generally enjoys herself. She also LOVES ice cream - see video clip below.

Congratulations, Dr. Kurth!

We want to spread the word about Gillian's sister Barbara and her move to Tulane University in New Orleans. Here's part of the article in Tulane's newsletter.

NAVIGATOR TO GUIDE CLINICAL RESEARCHERS

Barbara E. Kurth, formerly with the University of Virginia Cancer Center, serves as the new research navigator, helping health sciences faculty members and trainees involved in clinical trials.

Clinical research faculty and trainees in health sciences at Tulane and Louisiana State universities now have a partner to assist in the development of innovative, investigator-initiated clinical trials. Barbara E. Kurth, new clinical research navigator, will facilitate the progress of clinical research at both institutions from conception to analysis and publication of data.

Kurth will work with researchers as they draft studies and will assist in their use of biostatistics, bioinformatics and electronic protocol management as well as be a liaison with intellectual property officers, contract officers, scientific review committee members and data and safety monitoring personnel.

Kurth, who received her doctorate in 1988 from the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, comes to this new position from the University of Virginia Cancer Center, where she was a clinical trials scientist and assistant professor of research.

AND she gets to live in New Orleans! Loves it, so far, especially the wonderful restaurants. Expect visitors, Barbara!