Julie travels to Ohio for Girl Scouts and family

Julie traveled to Ohio in early October to attend a Girl Scouts national convention and visit with her sister, Cathy, and niece Stephanie.

The Girl Scouts took over the Greater Columbus Convention Center for their 54th National Council Session and an exposition called G.I.R.L. that included speakers and workshops, entertainment, demonstrations and exhibits. "Like a big trade show, all about Girl Scouts," Julie said. The speakers included Chelsea Clinton and Barbara Pierce Bush.

One of the highlights for Julie was an evening sing-along that brought back memories of campfires past.

By having the event in Columbus, the Girl Scouts made it convenient for Julie to attend while visiting Cathy and Stephanie.

That Saturday, Hilliard Darby High School hosted a marching band competition, giving Julie a chance to see Stephanie and the Darby band in action.

Stephanie, a senior, is the band's student president and its clarinet section leader. At one point in the band's show this year, titled "The Bridge," she takes part in a woodwind sextet that performs "Bridge Over Troubled Water."

Here is a link to a YouTube video of a Darby Marching Band performance in September, cued to the start of the woodwind feature.

Before Julie flew home to New Jersey, she and Cathy and Stephanie toured the grounds and greenhouses at the Columbus Botanical Garden. They enjoyed the seasonal displays, which included a lot of pumpkins and chrysanthemums, along with the gardens' regular collection of flowers, plants and topiary.

Genevieve enters the theater world

Genevieve has made another career move. She started this past week as Director of Foundation Relations at Roundabout Theater Company in New York. She'll head the theater operator's efforts to obtain grants from charitable foundations that support the arts.

Genevieve most recently was manager of foundation relations at the Museum of Modern Art, and before that, worked on foundation and government grants at the New York Public Library for about four years.

Roundabout, a nonprofit company founded in 1965, now operates several Broadway and off-Broadway theaters - the American Airlines Theatre, the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, Studio 54, the Laura Pels Theatre and the Roundabout Underground Black Box Theatre.

Band president Stephanie on Columbus TV

Early on Friday morning, the Hilliard Darby Marching Band, cheerleaders and football fans gathered at the school field as the Columbus NBC-TV affiliate featured them on its morning news show. The reporter started the "Football Friday Night - Morning Kickoff" segment by interviewing the band president - Stephanie.


Cathy writes: As you can see, it was a VERY foggy morning. The students had to report to school at 5:00 AM to get into their uniforms and get warmed up. They appeared on air periodically between 6-7 AM. The reporter would do various live reports throughout the broadcast to get viewers excited for the game.

This video shows all the parts of the broadcast that featured Darby - excluding all the other news, weather, traffic, etc. Right around the 0:40 mark, you will recognize the Darby Band President being interviewed. Go Stephanie!

As for the game that night, crosstown rival Hilliard Bradley won 21-7. The Darby band was tired, but still did a fine job performing during the game and at halftime.

Florida family members all safe after hurricane

Hurricane Irma in Florida, Sept. 10-11, 2017

We're glad to know that our family members in Florida are all safe after Hurricane Irma made its way through the state.

At one point, the storm seemed to be aiming for the southeastern part of the state, and there was concern about serious flooding in Palm Beach County where Courtney lives. Irma's western turn lessened the storm surge on the east coast when it struck the state on Sunday, although the high winds brought down trees and power lines and Courtney was without electricity as of Tuesday.

The course change sent the hurricane up Florida's west coast, and for a time it appeared Irma had her eye on Tampa Bay. That raised the concern level for Austin and his daughter, Rachel, who both live in Clearwater, between the bay and the Gulf of Mexico. But the storm tracked farther inland than expected and began to weaken. "All is well," Austin messaged Monday morning as what was now a tropical storm began to move away. "No significant damage except for scattered branches on the street. Power is still on. Everyone is safe."

As Irma moved on into Georgia and Alabama, its enormous size brought tropical storm winds across South Carolina and much of North Carolina. Owen reported on Tuesday that he'd been assured by a friend "that my Charleston house is fine and did not become an aquarium." His daughter, Lizzie, currently teaches third grade in the Charleston suburbs and lives in Daniels Island, S.C., which was hit by high wind and tidal flooding on Monday. Liz had retreated to Charlotte, N.C., to wait out the storm, but was able to return Tuesday. The school system, which was closed Friday through Tuesday, resumed classes on Wednesday.

Scenes from sunny days on Cape Cod

Chatham lighthouse

As previously posted, Dan, Julie, Christine, Andy and Shannon visited Cape Cod in August, meeting James and his family as well as Owen and Gerrit. Here are some more photos taken by Dan during their three-day stay.

Boats in Provincetown harbor

Sunset over Provincetown

Tourists and shoppers in downtown Provincetown

On the same day as the solar eclipse, the group watched the sun set at Chapin Beach, where low tide exposes a wide expanse of beach that is covered by water at high tide.

Low tide at Chapin Beach

Christine, Jamie, Andy, Shannon hike toward the bay

Posing with the sun

The sun retires after its busy day

28 plays out summer; Nolan gets into the act

Cape Cod's best band, 28, finished a series of summer performances by playing at Chatham Shellfish Co.'s Second Annual Labor Day Party.

The daytime event gave Nolan a chance to see the band's show.

Gerrit writes: "Nolan saw me play with the band for the first time today. He was so excited to sing with daddy during our break. I nearly melted from the cuteness overload." Nolan joined Dad for a duet on the Alphabet Song.

Steph and bandmates on local TV news

The Hilliard-Darby High School marching band was featured on Columbus, Ohio's Channel 4's five o'clock news on Friday, Sept. 1, during the warm-up for that night's football game between Darby and crosstown rival Davidson HS. The video above is set to start 45 seconds into the report, and at about the 55-second mark, as the weatherman says "We're gonna try for dry," you can see Stephanie with her clarinet just left of a flag-waver.

Cathy also took a brief video of the band as it was playing for the TV cameras:



And the game? It was a close, low-scoring contest, with Darby winning 9-6 in overtime.

We're catching up on August posts

Your editor had a chance this week to catch up with some of the events of the past month or so, and posted a fresh batch of articles. You don't want to miss them - scroll down to see!

• Courtney and Chad are engaged 
• Andy celebrates important birthday 
• Stephanie selected to All-State Band 
• Visiting cousins and new friends on Cape Code and Long Island 
• We catch glimpses of the solar eclipse
• Dan meets the other Dan in the Hamptons 
• Dolores teaches portraiture; Hugh assists 
• Balloons and music at annual festival in NJ 

Celebrating a big birthday Montauk-style

Andy celebrated his 21st birthday Aug. 23 while on vacation on Long Island with his parents, his sister and his girlfriend, Shannon.

The group drove out to Montauk to visit the lighthouse, then went to the restaurant at Gosman's Dock and enjoyed dinner on the waterside deck in absolutely gorgeous late-summer weather.

A birthday toast with adult beverages

As the sun set, a small boat just offshore positioned itself perfectly for photos, with the sliver of the new moon in the sky above.

Moon catches sun, we catch glimpses

While the Northeastern U.S. was outside the path of the total eclipse of the sun that crossed America on Aug. 21, a partial eclipse was visible, and some of us were able to get a view.

Julie had obtained a pair of special viewing glasses from an astronomy-minded friend. So as she and Dan, Christine, Andy and Shannon visited Jamie and his mom and stepdad on Cape Cod, they were able to take turns viewing the celestial event.

The orange-tinted photos at the top of this post were taken by Dan by simply holding the glasses over the lens of his camera.

Meanwhile, down in Yonkers, a thin layer of clouds provided just enough filter for Brien to get these shots with his phone camera.

Did anyone else get eclipse photos? Please share them!

Courtney & Chad are engaged

We're catching up with news that broke a couple of weeks ago in Florida: Courtney and her long-time boyfriend Chad are now engaged to be married!

Chad proposed while the couple was on a boat heading to a restaurant to celebrate Chad's birthday. Chad had secretly arranged to turn the birthday party into an engagement party. Courtney's mother, Nanette, had flown down from New York to join the celebration along with Chad's family and Courtney's close friends.

We hear the plan is for the wedding to take place next year, in the fall. Congratulations, Chad and Courtney!

Stephanie selected to All-State Band (Updated with band camp photos & videos)

Stephanie just had an exciting week:

She began her senior year at Hilliard-Darby High School... played in the school marching band's first football-game performance of the season...

And was notified that she'd been selected to participate in the 2018 Ohio Music Education Association All State Band. This ensemble of student musicians from around the state will get together to rehearse and perform in February.

Congratulations to our favorite clarinetist!

Earlier in August, Steph and her bandmates spent several days at band camp learning this season's show.

Band mom Cathy reports: "The students spent a week away at a conference center learning the first half of their competition show. This year's show is called "The Bridge." They also practiced the stand tunes that they play during football games."

"We had great weather all week which helped tremendously. I went along as a chaperone which allowed me to take a few (1500 or so!) photos of the students throughout the week.

I've shared some photos of Stephanie as well as a couple of videos from one of the first times they ran through their show. They learned sections 1 & 2 at camp. Now they are working on section 3 (which includes a woodwind ensemble & a clarinet solo by someone we know!).

• Click here to see the photo album.
• Watch the videos: Part 1 (about 1 min) - Part 2 (2 1/2 min)

Visiting cousins & new friends on Cape, LI

Dan, Julie, Christine, Andy and Shannon took a vacation trip this month to Cape Cod, where Christine introduced her family to James' mother, Bonnie, and her husband, Jay, who recently moved full-time to what was their summer home, in Harwich Port. In the photo above, the group (L to R Jay, Bonnie, Andy, Shannon, Jamie, Christine, Dan, Julie) dine al fresco at Mistralino Ristorante during a day trip to Provincetown.

While on the Cape, Dan and Julie met Dan's cousin Owen at a club where Owen's son, Gerrit, and his band, 28, were playing for the Saturday night crowd. A couple of days later, Owen joined the group for a sunset visit to Chapin Beach on Cape Cod Bay. (Unfortunately, Gerrit, Angela and Nolan weren't able to come by, as Nolan had other plans for the evening.)

After a few fine days on the Cape, Dan, Julie, Christine, Andy and Shannon headed to Long Island, taking the New London-to-Orient Point ferry. (Meanwhile, Jamie prepared to return to R.I.T. for the fall semester.) On their way to Noyac, the group met Dan's cousin Nanette on Shelter Island. They spent the late afternoon grabbing a bite to eat and catching some salty air at a local beach where the wind was blowing swiftly across Noyac Bay.

Additional posts coming soon with more from Cape Cod and Long Island!

Dan meets that other Dan in the Hamptons

In early August, Dan made a one-day trip from New Jersey to Long Island to bring some things out to the Noyac cottage, then spent the day with Kathy. They went to the ocean beach in Bridgehampton, and late in the afternoon they noticed a bunch of kites in the air at Sagg Main Beach. So they drove over to investigate.

It turned out to be the Dan's Papers 45th Annual Kite Fly, and Dan Rattiner, the founder and president of those Hampton weeklies, was on hand. "We met and chatted for a bit," says our Dan, "telling him we'd been reading his papers since they first appeared in the early 1960s. Then Kathy insisted we pose for a Dan-meets-Dan photo."

Can you tell which white-bearded Dan is which?

Kathy also met and spoke with local artist Lucy Rubin, who had drawn the cover art for that week's issue and brought along her own kite, embellished with angel wings. Unfortunately, she said, it didn't fly well.

Dolores teaches portraiture; Hugh assists

Hugh sends along this photo​ of Dolores conducting a class at the Rehoboth Art League, instructing students on how to draw/paint portraits in Rehoboth. "Note that she has provided a live model," Hugh writes. "She says that the hat and the beard provide a challenge, and he works cheap."