The spectacular cherry trees of Newark

As the city of Newark, N.J., is proud to point out, its Branch Brook Park has more flowering cherry trees than Washington, D.C. Dan and Julie visited the park on a sunny April day and found the trees to be close to their blossoming peak.

A weekday afternoon proved a perfect time to drive and stroll through the Frederick Law Olmstead-designed park, a gem of the Essex County park system. 

Alongside one section of the park stands the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart, the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark. Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass there during his U.S. tour in 1995.

 

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.

Dan and Brien go train-hunting

Dan and Brien spent a day indulging their inner railfans, checking out active trains and museum pieces at three sites in northern New Jersey.

They started at the Hoboken Terminal, built in 1907 by the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad and now a bustling hub for NJ Transit.

In the 1950s, Dan and Brien's father passed through the terminal frequently when he rode in on the Lackawanna from Scranton, where he was in graduate school, transferred to a ferry to Manhattan, then rode subway, el and streetcar to Yonkers to visit his bride-to-be. More recently, Dan used the PATH station under the terminal when commuting to his job in Hoboken.

The next stop was the Whippany Railway Museum, home to a large collection of rolling stock from regional lines like the Morristown & Erie, Central of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Lackawanna and New York Central.

There were also specimens from farther afield, like this dining car from the Atcheson, Topeka & Santa Fe (reminiscent of Dan's old Lionel model trains).

The big find of the day came a few miles away in Boonton, where the United Railroad Historical Society of NJ has a rail yard and restoration facility. Although it wasn't officially open, a couple of locomotives were accessible, including one of Brien's all-time favorites: #4877, one of the Pennsylvania Railroad's fleet of GG1 streamlined electric locomotives. Built in 1939, it finished its decades of service in the early 1980s on NJ Transit's North Jersey Coast Line.

For Brien, it was like meeting an old friend. He had posed for a picture with the same engine during another train-scouting trip 39 years ago in South Amboy, N.J.

Dolores teaches, judges at national needlework assembly

Dolores traveled to Troy, Mich., to take part in the National Academy of Needlearts Assembly for Embroiderers - an annual event that was canceled the past two years due to Covid.

Her daughter Julie accompanied her on the trip. It was Dolores' first chance in three years to meet her numerous friends in NAN.

During the March 18-22 event, Dolores taught a workshop on the use of color in needlework design (photo above) and took part in various NAN board and committee meetings.

The assembly included the Exemplary, a judged exhibition of 140+ works. Dolores chose the winner of a special ribbon, named for herself, awarded for creative use of color and design.

Climbing the walls: Christine, Jamie enjoy bouldering

Christine and Jamie have found their new favorite way of getting exercise: Bouldering. 

The two have been trying out the rock walls at a few gyms in the Los Angeles/Santa Monica area, enjoying the combination of physical workout and problem-solving. The color-coded hand- and foot-holds are arranged to create "problems" that must be "solved" to reach the top of the wall. 

Once at the top, the climber can use any route down - or simply drop to the padded mats on the floor. As Christine noted, one of the first things to learn about bouldering is how to fall correctly. 

CJ, Vivien, Charlie and Austin moving to London

Vivien, CJ and their two sons are setting off this week for London, where they expect to spend the next two years. CJ, a senior vice president at Brookfield Asset Management, is taking on a new assignment helping to expand the company's multi-family housing business in Europe.

Kensington Palace

The family will be settling into a flat in London's Kensington neighborhood (less than a mile from the palace shown here). Charlie, now 3 1/2, will soon start pre-school at a Montessori academy a short walk from home. He will turn 4 in September, and Austin will have his second birthday the same month.

CJ, who has been with Brookfield in New York for over four years, will be based in London but will also be traveling around the European Union. The company has been ramping up its investments in European apartment properties, largely by buying existing firms. He has already visited Brookfield's operations in several cities as he prepared for the new job.

Christine, Jamie and the cats land in California

On the balcony of their temporary digs

After a smooth cross-country flight, Christine and Jamie arrived in Los Angeles on Tuesday (Nov. 30), accompanied by their Bengal cats, Morgana and Lavenza.

As previously reported, the move was prompted by Jamie's new job as a game designer with video-game publisher Riot Games, headquartered in Santa Monica.

The new California girls are staying temporarily in a company-provided apartment while waiting for their furniture and belongings to arrive. They will then settle into their own apartment in a West Los Angeles neighborhood near Santa Monica.

Leaving their NJ apartment

Jamie and Christine spent the last several months living in New Jersey, about an hour from where Christine grew up. They visited her parents, Dan and Julie, for Thanksgiving dinner, along with Christine's brother, Andy, and his fiancé, Wren. 

The movers came the following Monday, and Dan and Julie hosted the couple and their cats overnight before driving them to Newark Airport in the morning.

Exploring Dan and	Julie's house

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(A couple of hours after they left for sunny California, the season's first snow flurries fell in New Jersey!)

Morgana and Lavenza made the trip in travel carriers. A bit of veterinarian-prescribed sedation kept them reasonably calm, and while they did some mewling, they were no louder than a few babies on the plane. Once they got to the LA apartment, it didn't take long for them to settle in.

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.

Andy, Wren and a week in the Arizona desert

Andy, Wren and Wren’s father, Rich, spent a week in the Phoenix area visiting with Rich’s mother and other family members.

In addition to family activities, Andy and Wren explored local hiking trails, the Phoenix Zoo, the Desert Botanical Garden, Fountain Park and the Musical Instrument Museum.

They were staying in the suburb of Fountain Hills, northeast of downtown. The town's Fountain Park features, yes, a fountain, which sprays as high as 560 feet for 15 minutes each hour, like a man-made geyser. (Click photos for larger view.)

Here's a sampling of Wren and Andy's photos from their trip.

Fountain Hills, Arizona

Hiking trails

(We assume this was in the zoo, not on a trail)

Musical Instruments Museum

Desert landscape

Sunset along the road

Dolores wins 2 awards in county arts contest

Two pieces of Dolores's artwork took first-place awards in an annual Creative Arts Contest conducted by the Baltimore County Department of Aging.

The prizes were in the watercolor category, for a painting titled "Glengarry," and the fabric arts category, for a collage called "Monday Morning Breezes."

A delegation from the county, with a TV crew in tow, visited Oak Crest Village to present certificates to Dolores and to another resident of the complex, who won a second-place award for woodworking. In the photo here, Dolores is holding the collage and a county representative holds the watercolor.

"With each presentation, I was asked how I came to do each, what were my inspirations, and especially with the collage, describe some of the textures, things that I used in the piece," Dolores said. "The collage is a copy/derivation from a watercolor that I did in high school of some back yards in Corning. I found it a few years ago, and did a larger, better (I hope) version. The collage is loosely based on that. I also have a miniature version, so I’m getting a lot of mileage from it!"

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.