From Our House to Yours
It is that time again.
Holiday emails and cards are starting to arrive. Thank you email and card senders. We always
enjoy and look forward to hearing from you.
We are well. We are
thankful for our continued good health and hope to continue our active
lifestyle for as long as we can. We do
have to remind our knees to engage when we get up.
Our two sons, Bob and Mike, also are well. We were taken by surprise when in February
Bob and Natalie announced that they were separating after nearly twenty years
together. No word yet on their
future. As our children and nieces and
nephews reach middle age, we are gratified by their successes.
We continue with our busy schedules both in San Diego and in
Tempe. Gary has tried to cut back on
some of the boards and committees he was on with only modest success. His schedule is still quite busy. Vina is enjoying her Spanish with her Spanish
group, hiking in the beautiful Arizona desert and mountains, and has taken up
playing Ma Jong. Both Vina and Gary
continue trying to play golf and attend events, lectures and classes at both
ASU and Mesa Community College.
We wish you the happiest of holidays and a healthy and
prosperous New Year.
Below is a review of our 2016. If this is more than you want to know, please
just skip it.
PLEASE CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS TO BE SHOWN PICTURES
We have started going to various wine dinners at local
restaurants in both San Diego and Tempe and found them to be both educational
and quite enjoyable. In February we enjoyed RigaTony’s (one of our favorite
Italian restaurants) Chocolate Themed Wine Dinner.
Thanks to New Frontiers for Lifelong Learning out of Mesa
Community College, Gary had the opportunity to tour the recycling plant of ER2
in Mesa. They safely recycle used
electronic equipment. It was remarkable
to see both the amount of electronic stuff that gets thrown out and what they are
able to do with it. If you want a good
deal on a computer or other computer equipment, I encourage you check them out
online or in person.
In March, we visited Cuba for a look at this country of
contradictions. Cuba with its crumbling infrastructure is still a place of some
beauty. It is a third world country with a well-educated population. It is a
repressive Communist regime with first rate education, health care and cultural
institutions accessible to all. It is a place where credit cards are not used,
the Internet is difficult (at best) to access and no ATM machines are to be
found. In many ways, Cuba is a step back in time to the 1960’s. The more you
learn about the Cuba, the more questions you have. Our blog expands on that trip including
pictures. Just scroll down below this
letter or go to: http://garyandvina.blogspot.com/2016/08/our-cuban-adventure-2016.html
After our trip, Gary had eye surgery to remove cataracts in
his left eye. He is now adjusting to
life without having to wear glasses all of the time.
In May, our wonderful tour guide from our
trip to China in 2010, Lucky Wang, came to Phoenix for a visit and we were
able to have lunch with Lucky and several of us who had gone on one of the
three China trips with him.
Back in San Diego for the summer, we joined the Hiking Group
for hiking on most Wednesdays and Fridays.
We took two hikes in May. Click
on the links below to see the pictures.
May
was Vina’s sister Elsie’s birthday. With
the help of sister Vera and Elsie’s daughter Michelle, we had a surprise birthday lunch for
Elsie in LA. We do think that she
was surprised.
In June we went to another wine dinner, this one at Capri
Blu another Italian restaurant that we enjoy near our place in San Diego. Sorry no pictures from this evening.
We went on five hikes around San Diego in June:
Just for fun we signed up for a cooking class at Café Merlot
located at the Rancho Bernardo winery.
It was great fun!
Gary prepared and then delivered a 90-minute PowerPoint
presentation on our trip to Cuba to the retirement community in Rancho
Bernardo. It was well received.
In July our good friends, David and Karen Schwalm came for a
short visit and we took them to a Capri Blu wine dinner. It was a good dinner and a lot of fun. We always enjoy it when they come to
visit.
We went on four hikes in July:
We visited
the Orange Empire Railway Museum with good friend Bob Serrano. I can remember some of the trains now in the
museum from when I was a boy. Maybe I am
ready for the museum?!
Gary led a two-hour workshop on the National Debt at the
community center for our retirement community.
This topic is not a part of his academic training but is something he
enjoys talking about. The workshop was
well attended and people seemed to get something from the experience.
Also in June, we were able to join Tempe friends, Gretchen
Hirni and Jim and Eva Hamant for a round of golf at the Coronado Naval
Base. They were each visiting San
Diego. A wonderful course played with
good friends.
August was filled with lots of good hiking on the beaches:
We enjoyed another Capri Blu wine dinner in
early August and then we joined some nice folks that we met there for a great dinner at Gourmet Italia
restaurant in Temecula. David and
Davida invited us to stay overnight in their lovely home in the middle of a
vineyard. We gladly accepted their kind
invitation. Temecula was a place that we
used to just drive by on the freeway as we headed north to Los Angeles or Palm
Springs. We didn’t realize just how nice
of a place it is. With over 35 different
wineries, it rivals Napa Valley. Return
visits are in our future.
Vina had often complained about the
“path” we often used to walk to the Oaks North Community Center. Gary led an effort to get “the path”
improved. After many, many meetings and
discussions with the Oaks North Community Center Board and management, they
were finally convinced to install a regular sidewalk. Our frequent walks to the Center are now much
safer and more pleasant.
A good friend and Tucson resident, Pat Ryder, came for a
visit during August and we enjoyed a round of golf and a meal together. It is always a pleasure to be able to spend
time with Pat.
Last year in late December we joined Bill and Susie Wright for some
“bad golf and good food” in Borrego Springs. This was becoming an annual tradition as they
would come down from Oregon to enjoy the warmth of the desert and we would take
the short drive up from San Diego. This
would be the last time that we would see Bill.
We were saddened when we received the news in August that Bill died
while on a trip with Susie to Norway.
Bill will be missed. Susie is in our thoughts. We hope to enjoy some bad golf and good food
with Susie in the not too distant future.
We began September with a Labor Day picnic with family
along the Coronado strand. Vera and John
had parked their motorhome there. Elsie
and Eddie and Michelle and Mason drove down from L.A. Bob was also able to join us.
Our
last hike of the summer: 2016_09_02
Hike along Mission Beach We miss the ocean when we are
in Arizona.
We
attended the last wine dinner
of the summer in San Diego.
Back in Arizona, we attended the ASU Polytechnic Campus 20th
Anniversary Celebration. Gary was part
of the founding group of this campus. It
certainly doesn’t feel like it was 20 years ago! It was a great pleasure to go back and see all
the progress that has been made.
In October Gary gave two travel presentations for New
Frontiers. He gave the Cuba presentation
and the Tuscany and Umbria trip. Both
were well received.
We went to the ASU Football games but, alas, it was a
building season. Maybe next year will be
better.
The ASU Retirees Association held a luncheon with Pat
McMahon as the speaker. For those of you
who grew up in Arizona, you will remember Pat as a character on the Wallace and
Ladmo Show. He gave a very interesting
and informative talk explaining a lot of Arizona recent history.
The folks from Vina’s high school class held their annual Ajo
Reunion Luncheon and 74th Birthday Party. It is good to see these Ajoites each
year.
We attended RigaTony’s
Fall Harvest wine dinner in late October. Another enjoyable experience.
In November Gary led his National Debt workshop for New
Frontiers. It is always interesting to
learn what people think about this topic and what facts they do and do not
know. Gary hopes to continue giving this
workshop for some time to come.
The ASU Retirees Association has a Video History Project
where they video people who have retired from ASU about their time at the
University. Gary was interviewed in November
by the two people he most closely worked with – Leon Shell at the Tempe campus
and Dave Schwalm at the Polytechnic campus.
The video is now in the process of being edited but we will let you know
about the grand premiere. J
We spent Thanksgiving in San Diego where Vina cooked for the
family. We then drove back to Tempe for
a few weeks before heading back to San Diego for the holidays. We joined the Hiking Club at the annual Holiday Party. A good time was had by all.
We feel very grateful for our good fortune and for having
you in our lives. We wish you a healthy
and prosperous 2017. We hope that our
paths might cross many times during the coming year.
