This has been a year of travel for us, connecting with family and friends. In March we took a 3-week trip to England to visit a friend in Cornwall, to sightsee and to attend the wedding of our dear friend, Carole Isis. The wedding was exquisite and the sightseeing was magnificent. We stayed in Bath for 8 days and took tours of Stonehenge, Avebury, and other sights in and around the area. We attended Easter service at the Bath Abby which in many ways was the highlight of our trip.
      Upon our return from England we found out that Victor’s 91-year-old father, Jesse, had fallen and had been placed in a nursing home in Connecticut. For the next 6 weeks I made it my mission to advocate for him, calling him several times a day, sending him nutritional bars to eat (his weight had dropped to 82 pounds), leading him over the phone through exercises to strengthen his muscles and interfacing with the social worker and doctors at the nursing home. Long story short -- he was able to return to his apartment in May. I arranged for in-home nursing services for him and continued to call him several times a week leading him through exercises to keep up his strength. Unfortunately, in September he fell and broke his hip, had to be placed in a rehab center and began to decline.
     In April we drove to Santa Barbara to attend the wedding of another dear friend and then Victor was off to New Orleans to attend a conference on Internet Identity. In August we flew to Wisconsin, along with my sister, to spend time with my dad who had suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized with congestive heart failure. The good news is that while we were there he had a miraculous recovery and was able to come home.
      In October Victor and I headed to Southern California. He dropped me off in Dana Point to spend time with Kris and her family while he continued on to San Diego to attend a technology conference. At the end of the conference I took AmTrak to spend a day with him in San Diego before our drive back home.
On November 2nd we traveled to Virginia Beach for a week to visit Victor’s daughter Echo and her family. We had such a wonderful time getting reacquainted with our grandchildren, Kai and Kenna. The day after our return we were notified that Victor’s father had passed away. We flew to New York and drove to Connecticut to close his apartment and to hold a memorial service for him.
      A wonderful family related highlight is the birth of our 10th grandchild to Kris and Jeff. Jude joined our family on May 21. Our grandchildren range in age from 6 years to 7 months! Also good family related news is that Liz and Sean built a lovely new home in Brentwood, about 35 minutes away.
      One of our work related highlights this year is that we produced a Lighten Up CD. This was a real learning experience for me as I did all the sound editing and designed all the graphics. I absolutely love how it turned out! I am also in the process of writing a series of 5 books entitled “Simple Healing Tools” and am targeting the first book to be released on my birthday, 2006! I’ll keep you posted.
      We hope 2005 was good to you and your loved ones and we send you heart-felt wishes for a healthy, prosperous, joyous and peace-filled 2006.

Sent with love from Carol and Victor