Merry Christmas in 2025!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

We hope 2025 proved to be as wonderful for you as it has been for our family.

Lyrics penned by Paul Simon ring true with regard to this blog, although the product in the song title --- once ubiquitous in my youth --- has now faded away.

"They give us the nice bright colors.  They give us the greens of summers.  Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah.  I got a Nikon camera.  I love to take a photograph, so Mama don't take my Kodachrome away."

For the most part, this glorious world God gave us time to explore is filled with nice bright colors, if we look up from our smartphones.

As in your life, there have been sad moments.  I simply do not tend to focus on those, choosing to reinforce memories of good times, of which there are too many to make note even in such a voluminous blog.  Near the bottom of this page are numbered links to posts with more details and photos.

The biggest headline for our family this year is the arrival of our new grandson to proud big brother Owen and loving parents Sasha and Jay.  Codenamed "Butterball" in reference to his estimated delivery date on Thanksgiving Day, Rory took his sweet time to arrive the next weekend.

I wish I could show you Owen's full smiling countenance.

Our son Jay's family has been doing great in every way.  Read more in links 2, 4, 6, 9, 12 and 13.

With the pregnancy unfolding throughout the year, they traveled to less distant destinations like beautiful Yosemite National Park and the Laguna Seca Race in Monterey.  Their furthest trip afield took them to Big Sky to join us for our fabulous ski trip, the last hurrah for our family's Yellowstone Club adventures, made possible through decades courtesy of Darlene, Brooks and BG3.

Owen is now in pre-school, where he enjoys camaraderie with his two classmates.  Always the musician, he loves playing tambourine or any instruments made available in music class, but he also enjoys art, mixing flour or whatever the lesson happens to be.

Owen's face is intentionally blurred by AI, but mine is blurred by time.

Like a dude in a Beach Boys song, when Owen gets out of school, he hops in his hotrod to race down streets near the beach in Santa Monica.

Jay continues to break sales records in his position as Vice President of Advertising Licensing for Universal Music.  On our multiple trips to Santa Monica, we've been impressed by his composure handling phone calls from clients early and late while balancing duties as loving father and husband.

Despite the additional challenges of pregnancy, Sasha excels as a computer programming supervisor at Capital Group.  She somehow finds time for quilting, sewing and other artistic outlets, including making two Halloween costumes for Owen so he could be a race car driver, then a rocket.

Amy and Lukas also have a headline event as we approach the end of the year.  They're under contract to purchase a beautiful house with acreage in rural upstate New York, not far from Lukas's beloved childhood home.  Read more about their lives in 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9 and 11.

A travel highlight was accompanying us on our fantastic last hurrah YC ski sojourn in Big Sky.

Another great vacation took Amy and Lukas along with his parents and sister to Chania, on the Greek Island of Crete, from where Julie's grandfather Nick immigrated.

Lukas earned promotion to Research Director at Eos, a large-scale battery company based in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.  In the ever-changing business climate, Eos has received kudos on business channels for manufacturing in the USA, overriding the crosswind of reduced emphasis on wind power, which like "American-made" has also been spearheaded by the new federal administration.

Our daughter Amy continues to shine as Product Manager for Nautilus, an upscale scientific magazine.  She works 99% remote.  Her job parameters continue to evolve like a nautilus shell unwinds.  Her preferred avocation remained roller derby, where she was captain of one team and manager of another.

Residing in the suburbs of Philadelphia means we're privileged to spend a lot of time with Gina, Laszlo and Emma, who live less than 15 minutes away.  Read more about them in 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 14.

Now 15-years old, our granddaughter Emma continues to impress us with her accomplishments.  She recently scored 1410 on a Pre-SAT test, besting an already incredible score of 1380 on the SAT she took as a freshman.  Her math and language skills are equally dazzling.  As a sophomore, she already takes college-level Calculus.  Emma plays on her high school tennis team, but her passion is figure skating, gliding gracefully across the ice on an almost daily basis before school and on weekends.

Emma convinced her parents to let her go to Saudi Arabia to visit a friend she met in high school, but they drew the line at letting her fly alone.  Instead, Laszlo --- who rarely gets sick and so has accumulated a lot of flex vacation days --- went along on a great adventure to a whole new world.

Laszlo continues to solve problems by providing tech support at Drexel University on weekdays.  Also skilled educator, Laszlo puts in weekend and evening hours tutoring high school students.

Gina has faced major challenges as Dean of the Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University in the wake of DOGE cuts to DEI programs.  Nonetheless, she maintains a positive attitude and guides her school through the obstacle course of new government priorities and regulations.

Their biggest trip as a family began in Anchorage, where Julie and I met them before we all continued on to Denali National Park.  Julie and I went directly, but Gina, Laszlo and Emma first proceeded on an additional long leg to Fairbanks on the Alaska Railroad.  In the Gold Dome, they survived chugging past a forest fire right next to the famed Denali Star tracks, returning with a unique tale to tell.

Gina, Laszlo and Emma also took a summer California trip, seeing Jay and Owen.

As you may surmise from the times we spent with our children and their families, Julie and I enjoyed another amazing year with loved ones.

But we also had two vacations that I might call returning to the Fountain of Youth, where Julie and I transform to a young couple in our prime, sharing great romantic adventures.

In February, we flew to Cape Town, South Africa, to begin another "trip of a lifetime."  South Africa should be near the top of your bucket list, even if you have been persuaded that it is too perilous a journey.  Is it dangerous?  Not as long as you keep your head on a swivel and travel with experts who keep you well-advised on how to remain safe.

Our other Fountain of Youth trip was less an adventure than a rejuvenation.  We cruised from Brooklyn to the Caribbean and Bermuda on what for us is a floating home-away-from-home, a Princess Cruise ship.

Our other big trip outside of the contiguous 48 states, Alaska, featured a scenic boat ride with Emma around gorgeous Resurrection Bay in the Kenai Peninsula.

Earlier on that same trip, Emma flew to San Diego on her own for a stay with Darlene, Brooks and BG3.  That allowed Emma to gain that solo flying experience she hoped to get for the more exotic Saudi Arabia.  Julie and I were privileged to stay with Darlene and the Brookses several times this year, including when Emma was there.  That's always a very special treat comparable to the best destinations in the world.

Wes, Julie, Rizo, Brooks, Brooks, Darlene, Teddy and Emma.

The wedding of our nephew Brad to his longtime girlfriend Tegan provided us the opportunity to spend time with Julie's siblings, John and Jacque, and their respective spouses, Toren and Mike, in beautiful Avila Beach and San Luis Obispo.  Brad, Bree and Brett are John and Toren's children.  

Bree, Jacque, John, Brad, Tegan, Toren, Brett and Julie.

I can go on and on, but instead, I will refer you to the long list of links below, where you can find more of our life story than you probably want to know.

1. Wes's Travels: Bullseye for Thanksgiving

2. Wes's Travels: Falling Fast From Summer Into Winter

3. Wes's Travels: Avila Beach and the Madonna Inn

4. Wes's Travels: Pumpkin Patch Season in SoCal

5. Wes's Travels: Caribbean and Bermuda from NYC

6. Wes's Travels: Summer of '25 Arrives and Flies By

7. Wes's Travels: Transition to Summer in Ardmore

8. Wes's Travels: April Showers Bring May Flowers

9. Wes's Travels: March Gladness

10. Wes's Travels: A Book About Our South Africa Sojourn

11. Wes's Travels: Chilly In Philly

The following posts are flashbacks to 2024, which I wrote about in 2025, because as Kierkegaard wrote, "Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards."

12. Wes's Travels: Yuletide in San Diego

13. Wes's Travels: Yuletide In Los Angeles

14. Wes's Travels: Yuletide in Pennsylvania

15. Wes's Travels: Our Med-in-the- Rain-Again Cruise

May the year ahead be blessed with wondrous adventures and cherished times with loved ones.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Wes, Julie & Family

April Showers Bring May Flowers

In spite of warnings about the hottest winter ever, cool temperatures remained the norm most of spring.  

We had a few days approaching 80 degrees Fahrenheit sprinkled in, but more often we were below 60.

That is actually excellent hiking weather.  We enjoyed many forays into nearby forests, including favorite places like Haverford Nature Preserve and Ridley Creek State Park (Julie's short video linked here), which themselves offer multiple trails from which to choose.

We walk daily, including neighborhood walks and the Nature Trail at Haverford College by Emma's skating rink, where we often walk with Gina and Laszlo.

Emma, Laszlo, Gina and I play tennis together occasionally, too.

Fridays usually meant more time with Gina and Laszlo at happy hour on our backyard deck, though occasionally we went to a venue like PJ Whelihan's, or shifting the day to Saturday.

I mentioned rain in the subject, so I will include that some days it rained at happy hour time, forcing us inside, although the showers spread around through the day so that we managed to find a lot of time to enjoy the great outdoors.

With rain followed by sunshine, flowers have bloomed throughout the spring.  Pennsylvania is a lush world from spring through the changing of the leaves in fall.  Having lived most of our lives in arid Southern California, it's a treat to live where lawns are green despite not having sprinklers.

On many an afternoon, I have stood on the back deck appreciating the foliage while playing my guitar, accompanied by singing birds and watching bunnies hop by.

During April and May, we celebrated many special occasions.

Gina, Laszlo and Emma provided their Giant ham as centerpiece for a delicious Easter dinner cooked by Julie.

On Easter morning, Laszlo and Emma had returned from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where they went so Emma could visit a friend who had attended school with her the prior year.  They had a good time and returned with positive impressions of Riyadh.

Saving some of that huge ham for later meant we had ham as entrees for two other family dinners.  Julie also served roasts and other dishes as centerpieces for almost weekly dinners.

On the weekend of Gina's birthday, Amy and Lukas came to Philly to celebrate Gina's and Amy's birthdays.

They stayed at Gina's house this time, so we mostly gathered there.

But we had happy hour on Saturday on our deck in Ardmore.

Gina and Laszlo served Indian food for dinner.  For dessert, we had strawberry shortcake, with a candle to celebrate Gina's birthday.

When Gina was a little girl, my mom made strawberry shortcake one evening.  Gina did not want to try it.  I knew she would love it, so I told Gina I would give he a quarter if she took one bight.  As expected, she found it delicious.  I asked if she wanted more, which she did.  I told her it would cost her a quarter to get the rest of her serving.  A real deal.

We celebrated Mother's Day on Sunday.  Gina bought craft projects for Julie, Amy and herself.  I helped Julie keep up.  Key birthdays and anniversaries are written on tags which tangle as a sort of calendar.  I now look at Julie's each morning at one point in my stretching routine, so I shouldn't miss any birthdays.

On Sunday afternoon, we sang happy birthday to Amy, whose actual birthday was about a week away.  More strawberries and whipped cream, with most of us putting personal-sized sponge cakes underneath.

Between work, going upstate to visit Lukas's hometown and enjoying Jersey City/NYC life, Amy and Lukas don't make their way to Philly as much as we'd like, so we combine celebrations.  Amy still skates for the Gotham Girls B Team, where she was recently selected as team captain.  Amy also manages their All-Star team.  At a derby tournament in Boston last weekend, she won MVP honors

Amy and Lukas would soon be off to Chania, on Greece's isle of Crete, with Lukas's parents and sister.  They loved the trip.

Amy in Greece

While they were on Crete, Emma's ice-skating club put on a fun figure skating show in Ardmore called "Yo, Philly."  For their number, Emma and four others skated to John Fogerty's Centerfield, wearing Phillies costumes.

Gina, as a new Skating Board member, volunteered at the concession stand rinkside, while Laszlo, Julie and I sprung for the VIP suite upstairs, with a catered buffet dinner including wine.

A month later, Emma attended a figure skating contest held at the University of Delaware.

Coach Russ, Emma and Proud Grampa

I rode over with Emma and her dad in Laszlo's car, while Gina and Julie took Amtrak plus Uber to join us.  Emma skates for the beauty and joy of the sport, but we were all very proud that she won first in her division during this, her second competition.  All her devoted practice pays off.

On their ride home from Delaware, Julie and Gina took advantage of a break changing trains in Philadelphia to take the elevator to the 60th floor of the Four Seasons to enjoy the view.

Gina treated Julie with tickets to see the 4-time Tony winning musical Some Like It Hot, a stage version of the silvers screen comedy that had starred Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon.  They said it was fantastic.  Funny, of course, but also terrific singing and dancing.  Gina generously shares her season tickets with various guests.

I recently heard of a new term popping up in culture: "land-snorkeling."

It refers to appreciating nature and other beauty all around us just walking around, like the wonder we find when snorkeling around coral reefs in the ocean.  I'd say we do this on a regular basis.  We started long before this emerging fad.

A recent land-snorkel took us back to Maybrook Mansion, adjacent to the Wynnewood Train station.

Linked here is a short video of geese at Maybrook Mansion hat Julie captured.

I wonder how many people ride the SEPTA train past that stop never knowing it is there?

While Julie and I didn't go either time, I should at least mention that Amy and Lukas took a trip to California to visit Jay, Sasha and Owen, paired with attending a concert.  About a week later, Gina visited Santa Monica kin in conjunction with a work trip.  And don't pity Julie and me, because we visited Santa Monica in March.

We all enjoyed our very cool spring.

If it rained all day, we walked indoor malls like King of Prussia.

Where I probably spend too much time.

More Spring Photos from Emma

Emma and Coach Russ