A multi-occasion celebration in Maryland

Dolores and Hugh hosted a family dinner last weekend to celebrate multiple birthdays, anniversaries and other occasions in the middle months of the year.

It was Dolores' idea to have a July get-together to mark the month's significant dates - her birthday (7/11), Lisa's birthday (7/9), Dan and Julie's anniversary (7/8) - plus events from:

• May - Stephanie's master's degree, Lisa and Doug's anniversary, Wren's birthday
• June - Hugh and Dolores' anniversary, Christine and Jamie's move east
• August - Andy's upcoming birthday

The result was a very enjoyable dinner-for-twelve at The Fireside restaurant in H&D's senior-living community.

Family and friends celebrate Daisy's 1st birthday

Dozens of family members, neighbors and friends gathered to celebrate Daisy's first birthday. Her parents, Shanna and Rick, hosted the gathering at the Rockland Gaelic Athletic Association on June 8. Here, the guest of honor poses with her big sister Lucy and her parents, Shanna and Rick - plus Shanna's parents and brother, Kevin (above) and Rick's parents and sister, Stephanie (below).

Daisy, whose actual birthday was May 31, was presented with a "smash cake" - which, after a few tentative pokes and licks, she dove into wholeheartedly.

Click here to see an album with MANY more photos!

Family festivities this spring in Maryland

On two occasions - Cathy's birthday and Easter Sunday - family members gathered at Oak Crest Village in Maryland to celebrate with Dolores and Hugh. This photo was taken at the birthday gathering. We failed to get a picture from Easter brunch, but the group was the same except for the absence of Stephanie's friend Abe (far left above). 

On Easter Morning, Julie and Dan brought Dolores and Hugh to their parish church, Trinity Episcopal in Towson, where they enjoyed greeting in person many of the friends they typically see only from behind as they watch the video stream of Trinity's Sunday services.

Birthday(s) visit in Los Angeles

In celebration of two January birthdays, Julie and Dan took a little hop to Los Angeles for a visit with Christine and Jamie. The visit was two weeks after Christine's birthday and coincided with Julie's. J&D flew in from New Jersey on Saturday and spent the afternoon and evening with C&J at their West LA apartment, relaxing, playing board games and talking.

One of the conversation topics was how well Jamie is enjoying her new job. After two years at Riot Games, she started about three months ago as a system designer at Skybound Entertainment, working on a new project that has yet to be announced. The company is based in Los Angeles, although Jamie works almost entirely from home.

It was rainy on-and-off all weekend in "Sunny California," so museums were on the agenda. On Sunday, the four visited UCLA's Hammer Museum, which featured an exhibit of intaglio prints (made via engraving and related methods) from the 1500s to the present. They then took a window-shopping walk around downtown Westwood (photo above).

While Jamie worked on Monday, Julie, Dan and Christine visited the Getty Villa, one of two campuses of the J. Paul Getty Museum. It's a recreation of a Roman villa built in Herculaneum, near Pompeii. The original villa was buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in the 1st Century and excavated in the 18th Century. It houses the museum's collections of Greek, Roman and Etruscan sculptures and antiquities. Our trio also saw a temporary exbibit on the ancient Egyptian "Book of the Dead," consisting of papyrus scrolls and linens bearing heiroglyphic "spells" intended to enable a deceased person to navigate the afterlife.

Jamie rejoined the group for dinner, and the four then went to a night club in Hollywood to see an LA indie-rock band, Night Talks, perform. "I've been playing their music on Birch Street Radio for years," says Dan, "and because of that, we were on 'the list' to attend the show as guests of the band." Jamie and Christine enjoyed the show, and Night Talks now has two more LA fans.

Get-togethers in Maryland, Virginia complete Dan's birthday tour

Dan's traveling birthday celebration finished up finished up on the last weekend of October with visits to his in-laws in Maryland and his daughter, son-in-law and grandson in Virginia.

Dan and Julie set out southbound on Friday, his actual birthday, and arrived at Oak Crest Village for dinner with Hugh and Dolores, Doug, Cathy and Stephanie. Afterward, they enjoyed an overnight visit with Doug and Lisa at their home

The next day, Dan and Julie drove down to Fredericksburg to Marie, Brian and Xander's home, where they spent the afternoon talking and catching up. Xander is now a high school junior, preparing for college by taking AP courses. He is also an accomplished video-gamer, having been on a very successful team in a local e-sports league, and now focusing on a single game in hopes of moving up in competitive ranks.

That evening, the family enjoyed a wonderful meal at a Bonefish Grill restaurant and then a movie night back at the house. On Sunday, they met at the house again for lunch and more conversation before Dan and Julie hit the road back to New Jersey.

California get-together: Dan's birthday tour part 3

The Northern and Southern California branches of the family came together on the Central Coast last weekend as Dan and Julie continued their traveling celebration of Dan's "significant birthday."

The New Jersey residents flew to Los Angeles on Oct. 21 to visit with Christine and Jamie. The next day, they set out northward, while the younger Dan set out southward from his home in Santa Cruz. They met in Morro Bay, the Central Coast city known as the site of Morro Rock.

The 561-foot-tall rock, the remains of an ancient volcanic core, sits on the shore looking like it dropped out of the sky. 

On its north side is a wide ocean beach, and on its south side, the entrance to the bay.

The five family members spent the afternoon sightseeing around the rock, viewing sea lions and sea otters in the bay and swimmers and surfers along the beach. They then enjoyed an excellent meal at the Harbor Hut restaurant as the sun went down behind the rock. 

This was the first time in several years that Christine and Dan got to spend some time together, and the first time Dan met Jamie. Everyone had a great time catching up with one another while taking in the sights. 

After a night at one of the many hotels in town, they found a great local spot for breakfast (Frankie and Lola's Front Street Cafe) before parting. 

On the way back to LA, Jamie, Christine, Dan and Julie made a quick stop at El Matador State Beach, where they looked down from the cliffs at the rocky Pacific coast. (Jamie and Christine previously spent a summer day down on the beach with Jamie's mom.)

A Downstate NY get-together

Continuing Dan's traveling birthday celebration, he and Julie met his sister, Kathy, brother Brien, brother Kevin and sister-in-law Kathy for a fine dinner in Yonkers on Oct. 15. Although they'd all seen each other at Andy and Wren's wedding a few weeks earlier, it was a great chance to catch up in a smaller-group setting. And there was no better place for the occasion than Rory Dolan's, the neighborhood restaurant where the siblings' dad celebrated an equivalent birthday 25 years earlier.   

An Upstate NY get-together

Dan and Julie headed North for the weekend of Oct. 7-9 and paid a visit to the newly married couple, Andy and Wren, at their home in the northern Catskills.

The trip was the first of several D+J will be making this month, to visit various relatives as a way of celebrating a significant birthday that's coming up for Dan. The four had a fine meal Saturday night at the Bulls Head Inn in Cobleskill (which dates to 1802).

The next day they spent some time hob-nobbing with A&W's Nigerian dwarf goats (currently two males, two females and three kids).

Sunday afternoon they met up with cousin Mary, whose new home on the shore of Sacandaga Lake is only about an hour from Andy and Wren's. They took the short walk past a few neighbors' houses to Mary's slice of the lakeshore, where she keeps her kayaks, and later headed to a nearby brewpub to taste some local beers.

A birthday-celebration weekend in Los Angeles

Dan and Julie visited Christine and Jamie in Los Angeles in early January to celebrate Christine's birthday. Highlights included a visit to the Getty Center museum, where Julie and Christine posed before an appropriate sculpture, "Draped Reclining Mother and Baby" by Henry Moore.

The weekend began with a stroll on and around the Santa Monica Pier, and then to a movie theater to experience the new Avatar movie in 3D.

That evening, the group toasted the birthday girl at Harvelle's Blues Club in Santa Monica, where they were entertained by a New Orleans-style jazz band called Alligator Beach.

The visit to the Getty was the following day. "We could only see a fraction of Getty Center, as it's enormous," says Dan, "and that's just one of the two Getty museums in LA. But we enjoyed both the exhibits - including a collection of drawings and sketches by Dutch artists - and the grounds themselves."

That evening, the group had a fine dinner at an Italian restaurant, La Bruschetta in the Westwood neighborhood, that has become a C&J favorite.

D&J stayed through Monday, and while Jamie worked, they and Christine visited South Dakota the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures - a new attraction in the city, which opened in late 2021. This selfie was taken in front of Mount Rushmore a painted backdrop used in Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest."

Outside the museum, heavy rain arrived that afternoon, part of a series of storms that caused flooding and mudslides in various parts of California during January. Some streets in the LA area were flooded that night, but fortunately, there were no such problems in C&J's neighborhood. And the skies cleared for D&J's flight back to New Jersey the next day.

The colors of October in New Jersey

Trees reflected in Speedwell Lake

Dan writes: A favorite activity of mine around my birthday is to spend a day driving and walking through woods, to take in the autumn colors. This year, that day was dreary, but the next was beautiful, and Julie and I took a short drive to my original hometown of Morristown. We stopped first at Speedwell Lake Park for a pleasant stroll amid the trees at the water's edge. 

We then revisited Frelinghuysen Arboretum, where we've gone several times in different seasons.

The wide variety of trees there made for a wide variety of colors.

Back at home, I prepared a couple of pumpkins to serve as our Halloween decorations, incorporating squirrels' bites into the design.

Charlie celebrates third birthday

Vivien posted these photos of Charlie, celebrating on Sunday at Grandma Kathy's summer house in Noyac. "So proud of our big kid! Happy 3rd Birthday to Charlie!"

Autumn leaves and family visits

Fall view from Andy & Wren's porch

Dan celebrated his late-October birthday by taking some days off work, and he and Julie hit the road to points north and east. They visited Andy and Wren in upstate New York, then Christine and Jamie in New Hampshire. Along the way they checked out the fall foliage, which was just a bit past peak but still very colorful. 

Relaxing at home

Just a few of the chickens

In Middleburg, N.Y., Dan and Julie toasted Andy and Wren's recent engagement and enjoyed their hospitality - including fresh eggs from their flock of chickens.

The four set out for a Sunday hike at a nearby geological feature called Vroman's Nose, but changed their minds when they found the trail crowded with maskless people. They drove around a bit looking at the scenery, then took a stroll in a community park in nearby Schoharie that includes a covered pedestrian bridge over Fox Creek. 

On Monday, Dan and Julie took a drive through the Berkshires and across central Massachusetts, then dipped into northeastern Connecticut. The weather was alternately rainy, foggy and just damp, foiling plans to stop for a walk in the woods near Stockbridge, Mass., but the autumn scenery was colorful even without the sun. They spent the night in Connecticut (due to Covid restrictions) before heading to New Hampshire the next morning. 

The weather dried out for their Tuesday visit with Christine and Jamie - and their kittens, now almost six months old. It was Dan and Julie's first chance to meet Morgana and Lavenza in person. After catching up over lunch, D&J and C&J headed out to explore the Andres Institute of Art sculpture park in nearby Brookline, N.H.

It was a chance to enjoy a fall hike in the woods and observe some art along the way. This work, called "Bones of the Earth," incorporated an existing rock outcropping. It was along the park's "Quarry Trail," which turned out to involve some rugged, rocky climbing.

Along a smoother trail were other installations, such as the very cute "Animals" and a trio of metal figures called "The Debate." There were very few people in the park on that Tuesday afternoon, and the group never encountered anyone else along the trails - making it a very relaxing, socially-distanced outing.

Friendly-looking "Animals"

Christine engages in "The Debate"

Afterward, the four returned to the house Jamie and Christine are sharing with Jamie's dad, Paul. Jamie grilled a rack of ribs with her own spice rub, making for a fine dinner. Dan then invoked birthday privilege to get Julie, Christine, Jamie and Paul to join him in a game of Rail Baron - which Christine was leading when all decided to call it a night.

It was raining again as Dan and Julie started the drive home, but the weather improved as they crossed Connecticut, and they had another chance to enjoy beautiful fall foliage along the Merritt Parkway to conclude their mini-vacation.