Greetings of the Season 2012

Happy Hanukkah     Merry Christmas     Feliz Navidad    

Happy Kwanzaa 

Feliz Dia de Reyes     Happy Eid al-Adha

It is time once again to reflect on the past year and to hope for the future. We have much to be thankful for this year and much to be hopeful for in the coming year.   

 (Please click on any of the links to see pictures.)
 

Sunrise on the Amazon

Gary and Vina both remain quite active.  Both of us enjoyed joining with other seniors in hiking around Arizona (in the fall and spring) and San Diego (in the summer).  We both have struggled with our golf games but thoroughly enjoy chasing that little dimpled ball around different and beautiful courses.  Vina plays once a week with her ladies group and Gary once a week with a men's group.  We try to also occasionally play together.  And we both enjoy attending “for fun” classes, lectures and other learning opportunities offered at ASU and the community colleges.  

Gary with John Legend at NASPA

During 2012 Gary served on the planning committee for the NASPA 2012 Conference which was held in Phoenix in March.  It was a fun experience and a great ending to his active involvement with this outstanding international professional association.  Gary also completed his three year tenure as Treasurer and Board member for New Frontiers, a local lifelong learning group at Mesa Community College.  Gary continues to serve on the ASU Emeritus College Dean’s Council and as a Board member for the ASU Retirees Association where he serves on the Travel Committee and chairs the Seminars Committee.  

Vina continues to volunteer at Call 12 for Action, the local NBC station’s consumer action hotline.  She has amazing stories to tell about the kinds of consumer problems that people get themselves into.  She works to actively keep up her Spanish and enjoys her Spanish group luncheons where they discuss all sorts of topics but speak only in Spanish.  Vina recently got herself an iPad and has discovered a whole bunch of things that the Internet and email allow her to do easily.  A big change for the formerly keyboard shy Vina.  Don’t be surprised if you actually get an email from her someday!

What follows below is a month by month review since our 2011 holiday blog post.

Christmas tamales with Natalie, Bob, Mike and Vina

We spent Christmas 2011 in San Diego with our kids – Bob, Natalie and Mike.  We were able to join John and Vera Davis (Vina’s sister) to help celebrate Vera’s birthday in Coronado.  We visited the San Diego Auto Show where we looked at all the new  (and old) cars and remained convinced that we don’t need a new one.  We ended 2011 by celebrating New Year’s Eve with a quiet dinner at a local restaurant in Poway.

In January we went on a couple of hikes – one in San Diego and one in Phoenix.  The Sotelo side of the family went to Ajo to bury Vina’s Aunt Queta’s ashes in the Ajo Cemetery close to other relatives.  Vina had served as executor of her will.  We took a fun trip with the ASU Retirees to visit the Chocolate Factory in Glendale, Arizona followed by lunch at the Wrigley Mansion close to the Arizona Biltmore hotel.

Vina and Gary at Machu Picchu

In February it was time again for the Phoenix Open.  It was as advertised “the greatest show on grass” and it lived up to its reputation.  We also went to an LPGA tournament in March.  But the big event for February was our trip to Peru.  We spent a week cruising on the upper Amazon River and then we flew up in the Andes Mountains and visited the ancient Inca site of Machu Picchu.  A

Gary catches a piranha

blog on the entire trip and pictures may be found at: http://garyandvina.blogspot.com/2012/04/major-takeaways-peru-is-country-with.html
 
Spring arrived and the front yard was ablaze with desert colors.  Gary practiced using his new camera to capture the spring show.  The annual Ajo Reunion was held in April.  This was year that most of people in Vina’s class (1960) turned 70.   It is always a fun event and it is great to see people who were originally from Ajo but now live all over the world.

In May we packed up and headed to San Diego for the summer.  We were fortunate to be able to join a local hiking group for a number of hikes in the mountains and at the beaches close to San Diego.  We hiked the Daley Ranch Loop, the Santa Ysabel Preserve, the Santa Margarita River, Swami’s Beach, Mt. Palomar, Black’s Beach and the Birch Aquarium, Batiquitos Lagoon, Wilderness Gardens Preserve, Torrey Pines and Black’s Beach (again), the Silver Strand, took the Sprinter train to Oceanside, Tourmaline Pacific Beach and Mission Beach, Torrey Pines north to Del Mar, Cabrillo National Monument Bayside Trail, San Dieguito River Park Boardwalk and Lagoon Trail, Guajome County Park, and Moonlight Beach.  In June we joined many others to celebrate a milestone birthday for Kathy Loring, one of the leaders of our hiking groups.

We both enjoyed playing golf in San Diego with our respective men’s and women’s golfing groups and with a monthly couples group called the “Holy Niner’s.”  We have a pot luck type of meal after the game.  

In July we took a day trip up to Palm Springs to celebrate Bob Serrano’s birthday.  It is always good to see Bob and we were glad to be able to join him for his birthday.  

August just seemed to fly by.  We enjoyed going to the San Diego Pops for a concert with Neil Sedaka (ask your parents if you don’t know who he is).  We also enjoyed the wonderful sunsets by the ocean whenever we could.  

We concluded our summer in San Diego by visiting the Festival of Sail where the tall sailing ships came to visit San Diego.  Bob Serrano was able to visit and join us for this event.  We set up a picnic camp to watch the ships enter the harbor and the next day we went down to wharf to tour the ships.  It is a great annual event.  

Back home in Tempe fall activities kept us busy. We returned to golf at the local course, ASU football games, New Frontiers classes, ASU Retirees Association and Emeritus College lectures and symposia, and the election season activities.  We enjoyed monthly luncheons with other ASU Poly retirees.  We joined the New Frontiers hiking group for hikes to Horton Creek, Spur Cross Ranch, and Hackberry Springs Loop.  

Vina, Joan and John

In October, our good friends John and Joan Hendricks from Sacramento were able to visit.  We all had a great time.  We went up in the Superstition Mountains for a cruise around Lake Saguaro, we visited the Olive Mill in rural Queen Creek to see how they made olive oil, and we took a walking tour of the Desert Botanical Gardens.  We hosted a TV Presidential Debate watching party and invited several like minded friends to help us cheer on our candidate.  To end up the visit we took a tour of the Arizona Biltmore (built with a Frank Lloyd Wright design in the late 1920’s) followed by lunch at the Wrigley Mansion.   A good time was had by all.

Natalie and Bob

Mike

The highlight for November was Thanksgiving.  We felt blessed to be able to host fourteen family members including our kids – Bob and Natalie and Mike – for a great day.  We have so much to be thankful for and we are especially thankful for the strong support of family both far and near.  

Let us all hope for good health, modest wealth and many friends in 2013.    We wish you all of the very best for 2013 and hope that our paths might cross during the coming year.

We have posted pictures collected throughout the year at: http://picasaweb.google.com/garykleemann.