The Lewin Family Virtual, Interactive, Year-end, Letter - 2009 ©

[New, Improved and Y3K Compliant]

 

A note to all readers: You are about to embark on a revolutionary new concept in holiday newsletters. Not only is this interactive, that is, links to pictures and websites, but now incorporates "talkies" or moving pictures.
As in 1927, when the first movie with sound was introduced (The Jazz Singer, with Al Jolson), this is the first newsletter incorporating movies, as well as these interactive links. Plan on spending a half hour reading and learning about our adventures and misadventures over the past year. And because it is on the Internet, thanks to Al Gore, you will be able to return many times over to savor the links, pictures, movies and extremely demented humor.

Hallmark Cards and American Greetings...Eat Your Collective Hearts Out

 

So, let us begin our journey:

She did it again. Carol hit the tarmac with a vengeance this year, going to the East Coast twice in the first two months. First was to assist after her sister Roseann's surgery, then, unfortunately, just a few weeks after returning, her sister Marie's husband, Henry, passed away on February 25. So that was another trip to the East Coast.

Steve and Evelyn Forbes' daughter, Hannah, got hitched early in the year. It was a beautiful wedding and reception in the Laguna Hills area.

With Anthony off in Germany, we quickly took his room and had our best furniture maker, Doug DeJardine, make a Murphy Bed for all the future guests. Sure enough, no sooner than the bed was stowed in the full upright position, Cousin Bobbie and his wife Jean came from Florida, Carol's friend, Carol Chrenc from New York, Sisters Marie and Roseann, as well as Arnie's friends, Mark and Carolyn from Portland. (Thank goodness they didn't all arrive at once)

This was the second year of Jenny's Walk, a fund raiser in memory of our dear friend, Jenny Poliakoff. We were again honored to participate.

The highlight of the year was our trip to Germany to visit Anthony. A beautiful country with very friendly people. Anthony was living and working in a small town called Garmisch-Partenkirchen, located in the Bavarian Alps.(Check your atlas, GAP is in the southern part of Germany near the Austrian border) It was a wonderful trip, just over three weeks, visiting such towns as Garmisch, Nuremburg, Prague, Berlin, Frankfurt, the Rhine and Mosel Valleys, Bruttig, Baden-Baden, Furtwangen and Munich. Rather than recount everything we did, here is a little movie that will give you most of the highlights. We also were fortunate to meet Anthony's girlfriend, Erin.

Two days before we returned home, we toured Dauchau. It was extremely emotional and compelled this author to put together yet another movie.

Being socially inept and technically challenged, I threw together a PowerPoint of our trip to Germany. Click here to download. It is a very big file, over 175 Megs. Matter of fact, it is so big, if I were you, I would save it to your desktop and watch it later. If you don't have high speed access to Al Gore's Internet, or if you don't have PowerPoint on your computer, just keep reading.

Sister Marie returned and helped Carol with her ceramics, as Carol had a booth in the Fairy Festival at San Diego Botanic Garden. By the way, Carol is still a docent at the Garden. You may remember it used to be Quail Botanical Gardens, but name was changed. Directly after, she and Carol took a drive up to coast to San Francisco to visit Marie's son, Michael. Apparently they had a good time, it was hard to tell.

Also during the summer, the Garden was host to Pearl Fryar. In case you have no idea who Pearl is, and I doubt that you do, Pearl is very famous for his Topiary Garden in South Carolina. He is also the subject of the movie: A Man Named Pearl.

With great sadness, I must report that Carol reached that magical age where she could start receiving those monthly checks from your government and she immediately filed. She has a message to all of you still working and paying into the Social Security fund: keep working and keep paying into the fund.
Me? I have a ways to go before I am eligible.

Towards the end of September to celebrate our birthdays, we took a drive with the Santina's to the Wine County in Sonoma to meet two other couples. Because this author is now over infatuated with YouTube, here is yet another video, this time from Sonoma. What do they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and a movie is worth a million words?

Carol had the audacity to up and leave on my birthday and go to Vietnam. What does Vietnam have that I don't have? Well, sure enough, here is another movie.

Carol came home on November 5th and Anthony arrived on November 6th. Back to a full house again.

Then Carol hit the road again (you know, just between you and me, I gotta tell ya, all of Carol's travels are really getting to me) to visit Leslie in Dry Gulch, also known as Casa Grande, Arizona. Leslie has several greyhounds (the dogs, not these) and Carol attended one of her shows.

Of all the life-cycle events, Anthony turned a quarter of a century old on Thanksgiving Day.

My big end-of-the-year project was...well, let me set the stage for you....one Sunday afternoon while Carol was home (that's right, she was actually home), there was this loud crash. Apparently, after 12 years, the largest part of my antenna corroded enough to fall off onto the roof. So my project was to fix it. I just happen to have a short movie for that too.

And speaking about me, I became rather exasperated with the condition of my radio club's website, so I volunteered to take it over. Spent a little bit of time whipping it into shape and then found as usual, I had too much time on my hands. Idle fingers (and YouTube) are the devil's playground and I again did another movie from our summer bash or party. You can see it now.

But enough about me.

Carol's mom turned 95 and is still in the same facility nearby. She has had several strokes this year and continues to receive excellent care.

When Carol doesn't have a suitcase in hand, she is still volunteering for the San Diego Botanic Garden, San Diego Horticulture Society and the San Diego Master Gardeners. (Thank goodness, no movies on this topic)

Anthony is home filling out job applications in hopes of moving to a snow environment so he can practice his snowboarding.

A wonderful Holiday season to all and to all a happy and healthy New Year.

Write us if you dare....Carol, Anthony, or Arnie.

BTW, we are all on Facebook, even Ted the Cat. CUL

Bye Bye and Buy Bonds.

 

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