Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Another wonderful year has come and almost gone, with more travels and changes keeping life fascinating.

Wes and Julie at Portofino in Redondo Beach

After decades of threatening to quit, Julie hung up her Director of Human Resources uniform this year. It won’t be displayed at Staples Center next to jerseys of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Jerry West, but it represents a seismic shift for our home life.

Julie has usurped tasks like cooking (although she still lets Wes do the more disgusting stuff like trimming raw chicken) and paying bills, giving Wes free time to join her at the beach or reading by our condo pool. Despite concerns that filling her free time might drive one of us crazy, so far she has no regrets.

Amy continues her work in journalism with Curbed, receiving a couple of bumps in pay and promotion to Senior Editor as milestones acknowledging they are happy with her production. Her job poking fun at the manses and penthouses of the rich and famous has brought her into a few New York City soirees, giving her an excuse to don more sophisticated apparel and pretend to be an ever-chic knickerbocker. She recently received a highly coveted e-vite addressed to “Amy Darling” by one of the more Avant-garde socialites for a holiday party, which made her clap rapidly with joy.

In between her nights pretending to be a bon vivant, she lives considerably less lavishly in her four bedroom Hamilton Heights apartment with the same three friends. Two of her roommates recently graduated with masters degrees in journalism and accepted writing positions in Manhattan, so it seems the arrangement will continue for the foreseeable future.

Amy’s new boyfriend, Lukas, is an engineering grad student in Berlin, Germany, confirming my belief that she enjoys having a long distance relationship because it gives her more time to hang out with her friends, although she denies that, having begun dating Lukas while he attended Columbia in NYC. Her job allows her to work anywhere that has internet access, so she headed to Berlin for the week after Thanksgiving to visit Lukas and explore the German capitol.  She also slipped in a working visit to Redondo Beach around her birth day in May.

Gina’s family remains in New York, a few stops up the A line from Amy in Washington Heights.  She also was able to get to Redondo Beach for a few days, coming in April to attend a friend's wedding and work on a USC joint project.  Her epidemiology career with Columbia University continues to develop positively, balancing teaching a few classes with lots of writing (and frequent publication) as well as numerous prestigious speaking engagements, including one in China.

 Her husband Laszlo started the new school year at a junior high in Chelsea, finding challenges in reaching seventh and eighth graders who fail to see connections to their futures in education, but enjoying the fresh crop of eager-to-learn sixth graders. They celebrated their eighth anniversary, and their daughter Emma turned 3 ½ during our recent stay in their guest area.

Emma’s learning every day, and her report card from her pre-school showed mastery of about everything she’s supposed to know by the end of the school year. The teacher said she needed to work on patterns, but she and Nanna put any substantial concern about mastering that to rest by designing beautifully patterned necklaces from plastic bead shapes. Our gingerbread village decorations showed we all could still use a bit more work in that regard. Emma’s also enjoying her dance lessons.

On that stay in New York earlier this month, we got together with Julie’s long lost cousins Nikos, Harold and George, as well as their families. It was a highlight of a great Christmas Time vacation in the city.

Jay did not join us for the New York reunion. He still works for Universal Music Enterprises in Santa Monica, where he earned a couple of promotions this year by dedicating himself to his tasks. He’s now a Manager of Film and Television, including sports programming like football games.

The biggest news for Jay, however, is probably his move from Canoga Park to Brentwood. With the 405 in a state of constant repair between the San Fernando Valley and Santa Monica, what should have been a 45 minute commute stretched to three or four times that long, so moving to within a few miles of his office definitely improved his life. He bought an old Triumph Spitfire to make his new short commute, and while it is rough around the edges, he loves it. As someone who drove convertibles for many years, Wes can relate.  We're happy to get to see him more, getting together for dinner every week or two near his job.

He now has more time for concerts in the evenings at nearby venues, too. His cousin Jered invited him up to Seattle for the Sasquatch Music Festival, which was quite an event they say, and his friends Patsy, Katie and Claire invited him to Hawaii for a reportedly terrific tropical week.

In late August, Jay flew to New York for a brief stay at Gina’s place before flying to Iceland with Amy. They had decided to stretch a Scotland trip planned by their mom with a few days exploring Reyjavik and the surrounding countryside. They shared a lot of laughs before joining us in Edinburgh for a happy and scenic Scotland trip.

Shortly after returning home, we were shocked by our brother-in-law Brooks suffering heart failure which landed him in intensive care for over a week followed by a prolonged hospital stay. Julie and Wes spent some extended periods in San Diego helping Darlene and their son Brooks with cooking and moral support. We’re happy to report that BG is recovering nicely, now back home where he continues his therapy. He’ll most likely be back on his sail boat soon.

They won’t be joining us for our end of the year ski trip in Big Sky this year, which is a huge disappointment but must be expected given the nature of his recovery. Nonetheless, they have generously arranged for us to be able to ski at YC. Jay, Julie and I will drive up, while Amy will fly in from NYC to join us for what will undoubtedly be great skiing.

Julie and I went to Big Sky two other times this year, once in March for spring skiing and then for most of the month of July, when we went to several great outdoor concerts including the Beach Boys. For the Fourth of July week, Julie’s sister Cheryl visited, motivating us to visit Yellowstone National Park. Then, Gina, Laszlo and Emma came to Big Sky for a visit. Gina and Laszlo went on a couples trip to Glacier Bay, giving Julie and me the opportunity to spend extra time with Emma. Darlene and Brooks were also up in Big Sky during the Lovasi family visit and beyond, and we enjoyed wonderful moments together. When Gina’s family headed back home, Darlene and Brooks took me golfing twice at the gorgeous Yellowstone Club Golf Course. I thought the bear spray in the cart was kind of a joke, but after we returned home, Brooks had a bear try to join him on the tee for one hole. Needless to say, Brooks didn’t wait for the bear to play through.

We had one vacation when Jay, Amy, Gina, Laszlo, Emma, Julie and I were all together. It was in honor of our niece Kendra’s wedding vacation in Cabo, so we got to spend time with many of the relatives on Julie’s side of the family, too.

By the way, Wes is still a Cruise Planner, and Julie has officially joined him in booking vacations now that she has left her HR career. As you can see, we live a truly blessed life and hope you do too.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!