2007Adventures

It finally happened. We had been waiting for a discount on the Europe canal boat trip from Amsterdam to Vienna. In April, we received a post card from Grand Circle Travel ( with a $1000/person discount, so we signed up with our friends Dennis and Tricia Smith for the trip in May and June. The four of us flew to Amsterdam and explored the area for four days before setting off on Route 66 …that is the canal route to Vienna with 66 locks along the way. What a great trip! We never had to change hotels and visited a different city each day. After we arrived in Vienna, we rented a car and explored areas of the Austrian Alps and the Italian Dolomites. There is a one page written summary and a 600MB CD PowerPoint presentation entitled: Canals, Castles, and Cathedrals (available on request). The picture this year shows the four of us on top of Lagazuoi in the Dolomites.

Katy and Anarion are in Carmel with Seanna (now 5)and Kaiden (almost 2). The family is kept busy maintaining the property and playing with the menagerie upon the hill. They came to visit for a weekend during the summer. We go to visit them every Christmas to share the holiday season with the family there. This year we visited GilroyGardens on a cold winter night.

Andy moved to Okinawa and is living with his friend Ken Harinishi from CalabasasHigh School. He found a job working in a Japanese computer firm there, but he is getting bored with the routine nature of the work and the limited area of the island. The biggest attraction is the very nice Aquarium. He would like to go back to the Tokyo area and find a more rewarding job there.

During the summer, Emily volunteered at the CaliforniaWildlifeCenter for animal rescue. On July 4th, a litter of kittens walked into her backyard and she kept one, named Juris H. Prudence or, simply, Juju. She is now attending the Monterey Institute of International Relations near Carmel. She isworking on her master’s degree in International Trade Policy.

Jeremy went to visit Malaysialast January. His friend there, Joyce, came to the area in July and enrolled at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut. She has since joined the family and will be going to PierceCollege where Jeremy attends. Joyce likes living in California but misses Malaysia.

Other adventures included the annual camping trip to Anza-BorregoState Park in March with the Yuengers. The van got stuck in a huge off-road sand dune and the sheriff had to pull us out, as the Auto Club does not help off the pavement. In September, we went on a rainy camping weekend with the Northrop-Grumman hiking club to Santa Cruz Island. Chris explored the island trails, and we went ocean kayaking into the many caves along the shoreline. There were lots of dolphins, sea lions, and pelicans. The water was really clear so we could see down the kelp to the orange garibaldi near the bottom. In October, we flew to Sacramento for the annual Halloween trip to the Sugars in Lincoln, where we greatly enjoyed the farm experience. In November, we visited Aunt Ethel Golab and her family in Toronto. We stayed with our friends Dennis and Helen Cleary Stynes from NorthwesternUniversity. For Thanksgiving, we went to visit Chris’family in Mukwonago, Wisconsin. It snowed that morning, so we went sledding down the hill and through the woods.

Chris is still solving problems at Northrop Grumman Navigation Systems. She is the Engineering Manager for the LN-200 product line, which is doing very well for the company. She is quite busy coordinating all the Engineering activity. She puts in long hours and has many meetings to go to. She also goes on the occasional business trip.

Louis is working for SAIC in Torrance and is still on the SBIRS project. He likes the project but does not like the traffic and the excessive commute time. He has been going back to Azusa about twice a month to solve some data processing problems. He is still playing fantasy basketball and plays assorted games about once every two months with his friends: bridge on Tuesdays with Bob Soll, rail drawing on Fridays at Bill Beyermann, and new creations on Sundays with game inventor, Tony Leal.

Happy New Year! Sorry aboutthe late letter for 2007.

Have an adventurous 2008. Chris Louis Emily Jeremy