Current Events
Eek!  We now have a time-consuming (and $$-consuming) hobby!  Take a peek at our diaries...

Thursday, July 8
We closed on our house!!  The lawyers only sniped a little (for lawyers), the broker quietly collected his check, and we signed our lives away.  Whoopee!!

Above:  The front of our new house in White Plains.
Below:  ...and the back.

We'll be painting, scraping, landscaping, wiring, spackling, tiling, sanding, staining, and budgeting for the next several months (years?).  After some minor cosmetic work, our first BIG project will be the kitchen -- new counters, new tile, new floor.  Advice?  Suggestions?  Anyone?

Thursday, June 18
As directors on the IBM Club Board at work, Chuck and I helped organize a "concert on the green" for all of the employees at our site.  The T.J. Tomlin big band orchestra came up to Yorktown Heights and performed an evening concert outside for 500+ people.  Fun, fun, fun!  We're hoping to do it again in the fall.

Chuck sets up the blanket outside the T.J. Watson research lab with our friend, Darrell Reimer, while Laura hams it up with Jeff Welser.  Chuck's summer student, Lisa Berndt, is from Bremen, Indiana, and will be going to Cornell for grad school in the fall.

Friday-Monday, June 12-15
After a harrowing experience that included two airports and five planes (boo Northwest), we arrived in Minneapolis for the wedding of our good friends Alex Hawkinson and Anne Champlin.  (Laura and Alex worked together at Gensym Corp. in Cambridge, MA, in 1994-95.) The wedding was beautiful -- the ceremony and reception went off flawlessly. 

During our stay in St. Paul, we visited the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and the impressive Mall of America, and cruised the quaint Grand Avenue.

Friday, May 29
We bought a house!  We signed the contracts and wrote the check today and we close on the house and move in sometime in early July.  It's a big colonial in White Plains with 5ish bedrooms and 3.5 baths.  It was built in 1920 and it's in great shape.  Pictures to follow!

Saturday-Monday, May 23-25 (Memorial Day weekend)
Visited Jordan Katine in Ithaca, NY, where he's a post-doc at Cornell.  Ithaca is beautiful and we spent Saturday touring the town and the Cornell campus.  Sunday we visited several  wineries in the Finger Lakes region. (As Chuck said, "Hey!  They really DO look like fingers!")  Went to see "Godzilla" Sunday night.  Ugh.

Saturday, May 2
Went whitewater rafting in Lehigh, PA.  It was a five hour trip with four or five major rapids and lots of little ones.  Our raft of five included Jeff Welser, Joanne and Lee Goldman.  We kicked butt on the first half, but hit every single rock on the second half and we even bounced Lee out of the boat for awhile.

Weekend of April 10
Went to the Poconos and stayed at the Harry Packer Mansion in Jim Thorpe, PA.  The town was small and really quaint and the bed and breakfast sat on a big hill overlooking the town.  We walked around and did some antique shopping. We ate dinner on Saturday in a tiny, 6-table restaurant called the Black Bread Cafe.

Weekend of February 7
Went to Martha's Vineyard with Joanne and Lee Goldman for Laura's birthday.  Stayed at Lee's parents' beach house.  Ate a ton of seafood, drank a lot of wine and walked it off on our way to Chilmark Chocolates.

Archives
1996 Wedding Pages
10/97 Trip to Seattle
1997 Holiday Letter

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