In the beginning of November I took out some time to fly to Philadelphia back to my alma mater for a reunion of the program I graduated from. It was an opportunity to see the Director of the program and the former Dean of the engineering school. The Director is retiring this year, and part of the plan of the reunion was to honor his work over the last 35 years. In addition to visiting my alma mater, I took a side trip out to Pittsburg to visit a friend from elementary school I hadn't seen since high school. My friend Dan, was my best friend in elementary school. I got reacquainted with him again on Facebook, and wanted to take the opportunity to see him. I've written about him elsewhere, when I first met him at the beginning of first grade, he introduced me to the new to me elementary school, later after eye surgery for retinal blastoma, I became his guide to the school when he could no longer see. It was a great reunion, both at Penn and with Dan, and I'm glad I made the trip for both.
At the end of November, I got to take Lauren to her first show for this season of Broadway San Jose, Cirque Holidaze Dreams. Lauris' brother Kent visited us over Thanksgiving, and all of us went to see the show. It was a wonderful show filled with acrobats and skilled performers and a great start to the season.
In December, we had plenty of activities as well, including a weekend trip to Seattle where we met up with Lauris' son Keith and his family. Lauren loved going to Seattle and spending time in Pike Place Market and going up the Space Needle. We even got to spend an afternoon at the Museum of Flight. And we met up with my cousin Jeff to spend a dinner together as well. Jeff only recently moved to Seattle, so it was great getting to see him in his new environment.
We also got to see Michaela in her annual production of the Nutcracker, where she was in two scenes, one as a Sugar Plum Fairy and the other as part of the Chinese dance. She's getting so grown up and looking very professional in these ballet productions.
I was also able to squeeze in two sessions of ice-skating with Lauren on the Downtown Ice in downtown San Jose. She's still not very good, but she's got really good attitude about going on the ice, and really loves being on the ice, even if she can't always propel herself forward.
Lauren's school held a Winter Sing, something her previous school had cancelled due to budget cuts. It was great getting to watch her perform again, some thing she really seems to enjoy. Her class did one Christmas song and one Elvis song since Elvis was the theme of this year's Winter Sing.
Lauren's girl scout troop held their investiture ceremony in December, rededicating themselves again for the year and had a family pot luck. Each of the girls was responsible for a piece of the party, and Lauren organized a treat exchange, sort of like a Secret Santa.
My company had a two week shutdown over the holiday, so I got to spend a lot of time with family. We started it off by all going to San Francisco for the San Francisco Symphony's production of "A Charlie Brown Christmas". Afterwards we stayed in a very crowded Union Square at the Parc 55 Wyndham for annual evening in SF for Christmas.
Later that week we hosted the annual Christmas Eve dinner at house, with dinner for 21, and the following day drove back up to San Francisco to attend my sister's Clam Chowder brunch at her timeshare on Christmas day.
So a very busy couple of months for us all!
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