we went to visit friends John & Barb tonight and found their place inundated with Santas and elves and all kinds of holiday decorations. Years ago I did a give away of all my holiday decorations. I held it at the office in one of our conference rooms- the deal was that anyone could take whatever they wanted and if they felt moved to donate into a basket that would be great! I let them know that whatever was donated I would match and it would go to charity- and we raised more than $500 (my office mates were first rate givers!)
so we no longer have any holiday decorations and Phil & I have long had a tradition of traveling over the holidays and returning on Christmas Day when the flights were virtually empty. Admittedly we have sometimes had some mediocre hotel based Christmas Day meals (except in Paris where you can eat 24/7/365 at Au Pied de Cochon near Les Halles where you can have oysters and French Onion soup, along with the pig's feet, to celebrate the day!)
But I digress- the reason I am posting this is because we have completed our holiday letter and here it is for all who have any interest in the year being recapped (perhaps you have missed one or two of the more than 125 posts of 2017) LOL
so here it is-
Season’s Greetings! 2017
We hope
this holiday letter finds you well! 2016
ended for us with a trip to Cartagena with friends Barb & John for four days
which was a “getaway” midweek “long weekend” that we enjoyed very much. Our 2017 was somewhat different from our
usual year of travel and social plans because we spent the bulk of the summer
in Chicago with family and friends visiting our new place there.
Victoria
did a fair amount of traveling in the spring with trips to Uzbekistan and her
annual road trip with friend Tom (this year to Delaware and Maryland.) Phil did
his Clearwater Festival in June with son Jeremy. We both got away for an end of
June music tour of Western Ireland and a fall trip to Georgia (the country- not
the state) more on those later… but the
photos below are from Samarkand, Uzbekistan (1) and Mestia, Svaneti, Georgia
(2).
Victoria
took a class on Asian mysteries and Phil was fully into his sessions with his
personal trainer Erika. We went to
lectures and concerts (too numerous to recite but all detailed at http://blog.semifreelife.com/ )
We
celebrated friend Barbara’s 99th birthday as de-facto family (we
call her “Mom”) in early January. Later that month, we made a quick trip to
Chicago to have dinner at our favorite ORIOLE, see friends Kevin & Shari,
and handle some business. In February we
had a great time visiting Angela & Lee in North Carolina. The highlight of
that trip was brunch, with crepes made by Lee and a fabulous chocolate cake
Angela made to celebrate my birthday!
We
attended two film festivals – one before the trip to Uzbekistan and one after.
We saw some really great films at both the Jewish Film Festival and the
Sarasota Film Festival and will return again this coming year. Our winter was filled with symphony and ballet,
in addition to theater and concerts. As
we mentioned in last year’s letter, we do the same things in Florida that we do
in Chicago, just in different seasons – so our entire year has included lots of
theater- lots of concerts and many, many, amazing meals. We tried many new restaurants this year, most
reviewed on the blog (link above) which includes further details.
Before
Victoria’s return to Chicago, she and her road trip buddy Tom, did a DART
(Disappearing America Road Trip) to Maryland and Delaware. The highlight of
that trip would have to be Antietam (surgeon’s tools below), but Winterthur and
the grounds ran a close second.
In the
midst of returning to Chicago we had our first visitors there when Steve &
Suzanne came for several days at the very end of April. We went to many favorite places for much
eating and drinking LOL. May brought a trip to NYC to see son Jeremy, and
friends Laure & Arno and daughter, Alix (who would be joined by new baby
brother Hugo at the very end of July!) June
brought visits from Matt & Ann; and our Cousin Michele; then Phil went to
NY for the Clearwater Festival with son Jeremy and our friends Ron & Mary.
Shortly after his return we headed to Ireland
for a music tour with johnsmith.
We had mostly good weather and some good meals and music every night
(Phil was voted “most enthusiastic audience member” by the trip leaders. They were pretty sure he knew EVERY song!)
We
headed toward center line totality for the solar eclipse in August, stopping in
St Louis, on the way to and from our rural Missouri destination, for two
dinners with Phil’s mom and other family members, including brothers Larry and
Sandy, and nephew Jeff.
The
summer flew by and soon we were on pins & needles watching the TV coverage
of Hurricane Irma (heading right for our town!) We “dodged a bullet” when the
path turned after hitting Naples and went inland instead of directly up the
coast as predicted. We had only a small
amount of damage to our screening over the courtyard but there was a lot of
downed vegetation and landscaping. Despite the “miss,” our condo complex had
$25K in cleanup and repair costs. And
unfortunately, brother Larry had to cancel a trip to visit in Chicago, when
flights were canceled and after he evacuated to Orlando from Miami.
Also
in September, we went to Portland, OR to visit with now “empty nesters” Steve
& Suzanne for a long weekend of wine tasting and tasting menus! Cousin Michele drove down from Seattle to
join us. We had a great time and the
four days flew by with stops at ten wineries and numerous fab restaurants.
Then
in October, we were off for our big journey for the year- the republic of
Georgia! It was to be an epicurean tour,
focusing on the food and wine of Georgia. It was epic for sure. They started pouring wines around ten each
morning and each day had two three hour multi-course meals. There wasn’t a spit bucket in the whole
country. When we finally made it to our
hotel rooms, (generally 9-12 o’clock each night) we were exhausted LOL. The original fifteen members dwindled over
time as broken bones took a toll on the group (along with no spit buckets,
there are also no handrails in the country.)
The
remainder of October was spent dining with friends and doing our usual rounds
of favorite restaurants before we leave town. Victoria went south to open up the condo and
clean up the courtyard and porch after Irma.
Luckily everything is stored in the garage except the umbrella base and
larger outdoor tables, so we weren’t worried about damage, just a lot of
cleaning to be done. She
and Lucy (cat) arrived the first Sunday in November followed by Phil two days
later. So we were all settled in by the third
week of November. Brother Larry came up
from Miami for Thanksgiving weekend and we are headed there for Christmas
weekend.
Right
now our travel plans for the upcoming year are somewhat unsettled. Angela & Lee have a wedding coming up in
June with the ceremony in NYC in early June, and a reception in North Carolina
in late June. We have confirmed plans
for an Africa trip to see the Great Migration in the first half of August.
Sometime
in the Fall we are off to Jutland in Denmark, to visit our friend Aase on the
40th anniversary of Phil and Aase meeting. And since Angela & Lee are moving to
London, we will undoubtedly combine the trips and hopefully wrap in a visit
with Cousin Iddo and his partner Nicola (who live in Exeter in England.) If we
get really lucky, maybe friend Irina
will be visiting her daughter and grandchildren in Warwick at the same
time. Now there’s a plan for an EPIC
trip in October 2018!!!
We hope
this finds you and your families happy and healthy. As the year closes, we still count our blessings. We send to each of you
our very best wishes for health, wealth,
happiness, peace, prosperity, abundance, and good luck in 2018!
PS Please note we both have moved our
email addresses to gmail accounts so we now can be reached at:
From a climate change lecture we attended this
year J
So there it is- the holiday letter for 2017... December is fairly busy already so I am happy to have this part handled in plenty of time..LOL (even though it seems from the decorating we have seen, we are behind the curve...) But stay tuned for more...
