Xander graduates high school, heads to university

Xander graduated from Courtland High School in Spotsylvania Courthouse, Va., on May 17. 

Entering to "Pomp and Circumstance"

Nearly 400 graduating seniors walked across the stage during the commencement ceremony on the high school's football field. 

Xander was among the Distinguished Honor Graduates wearing gold cords over their graduation gowns, signifying that they achieved a 4.00 or higher cumulative grade-point average.  

Xander's parents, Marie and Brian, and grandparents Dan and Julie; Anne Marie and Os; and Barbara and Steve were among the crowd of family and friends that jammed the bleachers on either side of the field.

After the ceremony, Marie and Brian hosted a lunch at their home, and later a dinner at a nearby restaurant, giving the grandparents ample opportunity for conversation - and for quizzing Xander on his plans.

Xander is joining the Class of 2029 at University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg. He'll commute to the campus, about a 15-minute drive, and initially plans to major in philosophy.

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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.

An April gathering in Virginia

Dan and Julie spent the second weekend of April in Virginia, visiting Marie, Brian and Xander, plus Brian's parents. 

Steve (pictured at right) and Barbara (behind the camera) moved about two years ago to a house not far from their son's family in Spotsylvania County, Va. They extensively renovated the house, including converting the garage into a studio for Steve's music, and spruced up the roughly one-acre property, where Barbara enjoys flower-gardening and raising vegetables. In the photo above, the group had just finished a board game in the dining room. 

Before visiting Barbara and Steve, D&J and M&B&X enjoyed a lovely dinner cooked by Marie and a walk around their suburban Fredericksburg neighborhood. The following day, Marie and Brian took Dan and Julie to lunch and a stroll in downtown Fredericksburg, which is full of antique shops and other stores and restaurants. Meanwhile that afternoon, Xander and his friends were competing against other teams in an online game called Valorant (which happens to be made by Riot Games, where Jamie now works).

Xander is a high school freshman who splits his days between his local high school and the Commonwealth Governor's School, part of Virginia's program of accelerated learning for advanced students.

A send-off for Christine and Jamie as they prepare for California move (Updated 12/3: more photos)

Members of Christine's family gathered on Sunday to wish a fond farewell to her and Jamie as they get ready to move to California next week.

Christine's parents hosted a brunch in a private room at the Stage House restaurant in Scotch Plains, N.J., bringing together relatives from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. Traveling farthest were Marie, Brian and Xander, who made a weekend of it by visiting Manhattan the day before.

Some of the attendees hadn't seen each other in person since Christine and Jamie's wedding in September 2019 - and in some cases, it was a first chance to meet.

In the official group photo, Jack, Bea, and Charlie are front and center. Seated left to right are Dan and Julie; Dolores; Christine and Jamie; and Andy. Behind them are Kevin; Kathy; John and Genevieve; Kelsey; Kathy; Vivien; Cathy; and Wren. And in the back row are Patrick; CJ with Austin; Hugh; Doug; Christopher; Stephanie and Jackie; Brian and Marie and Xander.

The move West comes as Jamie is now working as a game designer at Riot Games. She and Christine will move to an apartment in nearby West Los Angeles, minutes away from Riot's headquarters in Santa Monica.

A very 2020 Christmas get-together

Keeping up holiday tradition as well as possible under the circumstances, Kathy hosted a virtual version of the annual Yonkers Christmas party on Dec. 27. Family members Zoomed in from up and down the East Coast to exchange Christmas greetings as well as wishes for a much better 2021.

In this checkerboard version of a family photo, we see (top row) Austin in Florida, Dan & Julie in New Jersey, Kathy in Yonkers, and Genevieve with Jack (and John off-screen) in Manhattan; (2nd row) Kevin, Kathy and Kevin in Yonkers, Vivien, CJ and baby Austin in New Jersey (Charlie was napping), Andy and Wren in Middleburgh, NY; (3rd row) Ellen and Owen on Cape Cod (with Lizzie offscreen), Beatrice upstairs from her mom, Christine (with Jamie offscreen) in New Hampshire and Marie in Virginia; and (bottom row) Kelsey and Patrick in northern Westchester (visiting Kelsey's parents), Brien in Yonkers and Mary (with Roger offscreen) in Malta, NY. Also taking part but not captured in this screenshot were Shanna, Rick and Lucy. 

Distanced Thanksgiving: Sharing greetings online

Holidays like Thanksgiving are made for getting together with the people you care about. But caring about people means keeping them safe, so amid the continuing pandemic, our family's gatherings were sharply limited this year. Making the best of the situation, we used technology to share holiday greetings from our separate homes.

Dan and Julie held an "open house" on Zoom, with various family members dropping in at different points in the day. Marie, Brian and Xander joined from Virginia; Christine and Jamie (with kittens) from New Hampshire; and Andy and Wren (with chickens) from upstate New York. From various points in Westchester came Kathy and Robert; Patrick and Kelsey (with puppy); plus Kevin and Kathy (with Jasper), Shanna, Rick, Lucy, Kevin and Brien. Genevieve and John, Bea and Jack zoomed in from Manhattan and Vivien, CJ, Charlie and Austin from New Jersey. Jamie's mom, Bonnie, and dad, Paul, also popped in with Thanksgiving greetings.

"It was wonderful seeing everyone and getting to relax and chat together, even if not in person," Dan said. "To get to visit with so many of our favorite people made the day feel special. And without the holiday traffic!"

Marie takes on bigger role at CodePen

Marie has been promoted to Product Manager at CodePen, where she has worked since becoming the start-up's first employee four years ago.

The company provides a platform for web designers and developers to experiment, test and debug their code, and to share ideas and critiques with one another.

CodePen's three founders hired Marie in September 2015 to handle support, community-outreach and social-media duties. She has written documentation and blog posts, produced podcasts and handled all manner of support issues, all from her home office, as well as representing CodePen at conferences around the country.

Her new job puts her in charge of the growing company's various products and projects.

Meet-up at the art show

Marie, Brian and Xander made their annual visit to the Art All Night festival in Trenton on June 15-16. That gave Dan a chance to spend some time with his elder daughter, son-in-law and grandson on Father's Day weekend. Xander and Brian again entered pieces in the show. Xander's was an anime-style drawing of a character of his own design, and Brian's was a cubist version of one of his Electric Catnip felines.

Giving thanks with family

We hope all our extended family enjoyed the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Please share your pictures and stories!

This is the crowd at Doug and Lisa's home in Maryland, where they were joined on Friday by their daughter Liz; Doug's parents, Hugh and Dolores; Doug's sister Julie and her husband, Dan; Lisa's sister, Sue, and her husband, Dave; Lisa and Sue's brother, David, with his wife, Christine, daughter, Lawson, and son, Ben; and Christine's brother-in-law Sean with children Emma and Owen.

Julie and Dan joined the Maryland gathering after spending Thanksgiving with Marie, Brian and Xander in Virginia. After the long drive down from New Jersey, they enjoyed a wonderful feast prepared by Marie and had a fine time talking and relaxing. Fifth-grader Xander showed how he's using a simplified computer-coding program to create his own games and Brian talked about his latest Electric Catnip art projects.

Because Christine and Andy weren't able to make the trip, Dan and Julie celebrated an early Thanksgiving with them and Shannon the previous weekend.

Kathy posted this photo of herself and Bea enjoying "Thanksgiving Part Two" at Kathy's house over the weekend.

And Mary sent this photo from Ohio, where she spent Thanksgiving with her daughter Shannon, currently stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Family photos of Halloween 2017

Here's a selection of photos, mostly pulled from Facebook, of Halloween around our extended family. Above, Spiderman/Nolan prepares to head out trick-or-treating.

Above, a trick-or-treat trio: Bea visiting with cousins Scarlet and Reuben in New Jersey.

And at right, Princess Bea in her New York neighborhood.

Brennan and Shauna Rae's daughter, Brooklyn, took part in her school's Halloween parade, and this photo of her in a purple-and-black witch-queen gown appeared on the school district's website.

Here's another costumed trio: Xander as Sans (from the Undertale video game), Marie as "Panda Wizard" and Brian as "Cat Dracula."

Christine, Andy and his girlfriend, Shanna, took care of dispensing candy to trick-or-treaters at Birch Street HQ. Here they pose with their pumpkin creations.

And in Florida, Courtney and her co-workers all dressed for the day. There's Courtney at the right, representing the USA.

Marie, Brian, Xander visit Trenton for art's sake

Marie, Brian and Xander traveled from Virginia back to Trenton, N.J., last month to visit Brian's parents and attend the city's annual Art All Night festival.

It was at least the fourth time they've attended the event, where any and all artists are welcome to exhibit one item apiece. Xander has exhibited each year, and this year showed this drawing of a cat waiting for food to appear in its bowl.

Meanwhile, Brian exhibited a large-scale painting of one of his psychedelic cat images, which have become very popular on internet sites (see previous article).

Brian's mother, Barbara, showed "Patriot's Dream," a vision-through-a-window quilt, with a schoolhouse in the center -- appropriately for the retired teacher and current literacy volunteer.

Brian's father, Steve, presented this painting of "Fiddleheads in the Moonlight."

The event fell on Father's Day Weekend, and provided a chance for a get-together between Marie and her dad, Dan, along with Julie, Christine, Andy and Shannon. Everyone enjoyed strolling through the exhibit hall - a former Roebling steel factory - and watching artists at work on the surrounding grounds.

Brian's psychedelic cats become Internet stars

For a little over a year, Brian has been taking photographs of cats - mostly Hans and Matilda, the family pets of Marie, Brian and Xander - and turning them into multimedia art pieces.

Brian uses photo effects and animation software to create psychedelic videos and records music to accompany them, then posts them on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube under the name Electric Catnip.



Several months ago, Marie says, Brian's creations suddenly began to "go viral" and draw a large following. As of today, over 188,000 Facebook users have "liked" the Electric Catnip page. The most popular video, "Catnip Rising," has been viewed more than a million times! Hundreds of others follow Electric Catnip's Instagram and YouTube accounts.

Brian has now released an album of Electric Catnip music (available on Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play Music, Amazon etc.) and opened an online shop on Redbubble offering various items imprinted with his "cat dreams."

Xander & parents visit the wizarding world

"Butterbeer" for breakfast

Marie, Brian and Xander paid a visit to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios in Orlando this month.

They'd planned to make the trip around Xander's 10th birthday in early October, but postponed it due to Hurricane Matthew.

Visiting in December meant getting to see Christmas decorations, such as the tree in the lobby of the Hard Rock Hotel.

By the magic of greenscreen, Xander appears in a series of Potterverse vignettes in a souvenir video. Click here to watch.

Of course, in one more year Xander will be old enough to be admitted to Hogwarts!

Travels and get-togethers around Thanksgiving

At Marie & Brian's home in Virginia

At James' mother's home in N.H.

Dan and Julie traveled north and south during Thanksgiving week to celebrate with family members.

The weekend before the official holiday, they were in Rochester with daughter Christine and her boyfriend, James. They spent Sunday afternoon at the Memorial Art Gallery (which was featuring an excellent exhibit on M.C. Escher). That evening, they dined in a restaurant they had nearly to themselves as a snow-and-wind storm raged outside!

Back home in New Jersey, Julie and Dan had another little celebration on Tuesday with son Andy and his girlfriend, Shannon. Why Tuesday? Because both are working at Kohl's department store these days and were going to be very busy for the rest of the week!

Meanwhile, Christine and James headed to New Hampshire to visit his parents, then to Connecticut for a Thanksgiving gathering at the home of his dad's parents in Connecticut.

Julie and Dan hit the road again on Thursday morning and arrived in late afternoon at Marie, Brian and Xander's home in Fredericksburg, Va. Marie provided the travelers with a fine Thanksgiving turkey dinner with plenty of fixings. That was followed by an evening of board games and conversation that picked up again the next morning.

At Doug & Lisa's in Maryland

Later Friday, Dan and Julie turned back north. Next stop: Maryland for the traditional Friday crabcakes-and-ribs feast at Doug & Lisa's house in Riderwood. Among the crowd this year: D&L's daughter Liz; Lisa's sister, Susan, her husband, Dave, and daughter, Kathy; and brother David, along with daughter Lawson and son Ben.

Meanwhile, Doug and Julie's parents and sister, Cathy, were spending the day together at Deep Creek Lake.

We hope everyone in the family had a fine Thanksgiving! We'd be happy to post photos of your celebrations!

Halloween scenes from around the family

Here's a quick collection of photos posted by family members of jack-o-lanterns, costumes and other Halloween scenes. The pumpkin above was carved by Gerrit, and the one below by Andy and Shannon.

Bea and her dad, John, dressed as characters from the TV series "Stranger Things" ...

...and Bea also made an appearance as a Sweet Strawberry.

Nolan trick-or-treated as a dinosaur on wheels.

"He wouldn't sit still for a good pic," said his dad, Gerrit - seen below in "Walking Dead" get-up.

Brooklyn Rae made a lovely Princess Elsa and Brennan Alexander was a super Spiderman.

Marie, Brian and Xander went with a Pokemon theme - Xander as Ash and his parents as Pikachu and Charizard (we think).

And pumpkin-carving master Brian created this Pikachu-o-lantern.

And Kathy shares this photo of Jack-o-Leo... looking a bit puzzled.

"Leo thinks this whole pumpkin thing isn't working," Kathy said.