Christmas 2003
To
our friends and family: Greetings!
After hibernating through a really snowy winter it was good to visit
Marieke in Boston during “winter (Feb) break” and get her tour of the
Salem Maritime Museum. Lately she has been taking museum courses at
Harvard and interning as a Museum Technician, and has a cat to look
after.
Salem
Since we’ve avoided New York City for the last 30 years, we decided to
visit Jan-Luc at Easter. Marieke came from Boston and the 5 of us did
all the tourist stuff. In four days we saw Ellis Island, the WTC site,
a Broadway musical, Chinatown, SoHo, the UN, Macy's, the Cathedral at
Easter (Jan-Luc was roped in to do the collection), Lady Liberty,
Little Italy, Lincoln Center, the Intrepid, Central Park, all the
Squares, and a few other cool things.
Central Park
In the summer we vacationed in Rhode Island of all places, and Marieke
came to visit us there. We got a private tour of their cozy little
Capitol and gaped at the mansions in Newport.
Newport,
R.I.
In the spring Leo and Katie successfully house-hunted and moved in with
help from friends and family. Then they started acquiring critters, and
now they have two dogs to go with their two cats. They now have almost
as much stuff as we do, and a swimming pool besides.
Kateri graduated from Rome Catholic High in June, then spent the summer
at Camp Nazareth, where she was promoted to head counselor. She now
studies at LeMoyne College majoring in history, with a minor in
education.
Camp
Nazareth
Jan-Luc lives in Brooklyn and works on commercial production shoots in
NYC. He is also editing documentaries and short films on a variety of
topics. He seems to have tired of blogging but now sends pictures
of Gotham from his phone. Visit him at vandammeedit.com.
Just the two of us went to New Orleans (first time!) in October for the
wedding of nephew Marc Nuar to lovely Irma Mahar. We also toured the
French Quarter, the bayous and saw our seminarian friend from Uganda,
Athanasius Kikoba. It was grand!
Jackson
Square
In November, Leo got a trip to Australia from Wyeth and he and Katie
decided to go to California and Hawaii, since they were right on the
way, sort of.
Maui,
Hawaii
Mary Margaret has survived another year as the Director of the Catholic Deaf Community
of the Syracuse Diocese. Due to Diocesan cuts, more needs doing in less
time, but the people are still wonderful, activities keep multiplying
(this year we celebrated the 55th Anniversary), and lots of travel
(around the diocese, January Conference in Savannah, another in
Philadelphia in July, then with the teens to NCYC in Houston in
November). She also tries to find time for hobbies: walking (picking up
the beer cans from the hunters), genealogy (slowly tracking back to
Ireland, while Geralyn whizzes us back to Germany!), gardening (which
got a little rained out), and tap dancing.
Jim and MC
the cat haven’t been doing much. Jim still does radar research at the Air Force Research Lab, and tends websites in his spare time.
We hope you
are healthy and happy. Best wishes for 2004!
Jim,
Mary Margaret, Leo, Katie, Jan-Luc, Marieke and Kateri