Merry Christmas!

For our Family, 2012 was a year of big moves and quick trips. 

Downsizing from our Manhattan Beach house to a condo in Redondo probably wins the blue ribbon for Biggest Single Move, but Julie also switched jobs, staying in El Segundo rather than following her company to the low taxes of Virginia.

Youngest daughter Amy certainly had big moves of her own.  Amy graduated from UConn with a double major in Anthropology and Journalism, moved to New York City where she worked in a paid internship at the New York Times as a copy editor, and when her internship ended joined Curbed.com, a considerably smaller company on the cutting edge of journalism.

After writing three pages to inadequately summarize our year, I decided to follow Amy’s professional example, going more to links than in depth analysis.  

Okay, I still have rambled a bit here, and if you click on the links, you'll see I ramble even more other places, but at least you can decide what you want to learn more about. 

Here are a few highlights of the year:

In January, while Amy was on her winter break, she joined Julie and I on a trip to Palm Springs.

When Julie's new company Wyle sent her to visit their offices in Houston and Huntsville, I tagged along, and it gave us the oppportunity to visit my country cousins for a fantastic reunion.

Around this time, we submitted an offer for a short sale condo near Jay's work, hoping for a big move for Jay from the condo he currently rents in Canoga Park, which has a miserable commute to Santa Monica where he still loves working at Universal Music Group. Nine months later, that big move is still on ice as the bank dithers. We've about given up on this, so Jay's big move to some other new home is likely for early next year.

In May, we headed east to see Gina, Laszlo and Emma's new apartment (their big move) and then bounce over to UConn to see Amy graduate. Jay joined us, and it was the only time this year all three of our kids were with us at one time.

Amy came home for a brief visit, the last time at our MB house, before returning east to continue her journalism career.

Julie and I headed to Cabo to spend a few days with Darlene and Brooks at their beautiful condo there.

Emma celebrated her second birthday, and we at least got to visit vitrually on Skype. She started pre-school and also dance lessons. We were supposed to see Emma, Gina and Laszlo on an Alaska cruise in August, but we were in the process of moving instead. They had a great time without us, and Emma was the star of the Golden Princess, we hear.

In July, we had another family reunion of sorts, but it was just Julie and me meeting with her siblings and some of their children in beautiful Colorado.

The unexpected sale of our house in August had us hustling to find a new place to live while overseeing the contract-required repairs on our old house.

You never know how much you have until you move. We sold the best furniture and gave away a few tons of other stuff. And surprisingly we learned we no longer needed it at all.

Amy came out for a brief visit in September to see the new place and sort through her remaining stuff before returning to New York to interview for...and subsequently starting at...her new Associate Editor job.

Julie's job sent her to a conference in Deer Valley, which was justifcation for another brief road trip in October.

Dr. Gina came out for a couple of weeks to work with USC on a project she started last year.   It was a lot of fun having her stay with us.  She actually did a lot of work-related travel this year, including a trip to Amsterdam to speak at a conference there.  She recently committed to continue her research at Columbia University for a few more years.

For Thanksgiving, Julie, Jay and I headed down to Point Loma to join Brooks, Darlene and Brooks for a couple of days. Speaking of big moves, they also "downsized" from their long time home, although in this case it was to a bigger home that they spent several months remodeling. We visited a few times during the year, and by Thanksgiving, it had all come together. Like us, they were surprised how quickly they adapted to their new locale.

We just returned from New York City where we enjoyed a great holiday visit with the Knickerbockers our clan.

We'll continue the family festivities with our traditional ski trip to Big Sky before the end of the year. Gina's family won't be joining us, but Jay and Amy won't miss it.

Well, there you have it. A not-so brief summary of our year. Wake up! It's time to celebrate the New Year!