Liz and friends enjoy Florida fantasy-lands

Liz and some of her friends took a February vacation to Orlando and visited the Disney and Universal theme parks.

"Busy being a princess," Liz wrote on Facebook.

She added, "Epcot's way more fun when you're an adult."

And of course, Liz and her friends also revisited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. That train, in case you somehow don't recognize it, is the Hogwarts Express.

Great photo: Mom & daughter & cake

We just have to share this photo of Genevieve on her recent birthday, joined by daughter Bea to blow out the candle on her cake. Bea looks ready to steal a bite!

Nolan receives sacrament of Baptism

Nolan was baptized this week, and proud Grandpa Owen sent along these photos.

Above, Nolan poses with his parents, Gerrit and Angela, and grandparents Rick and Louise.

Here he is with his mom and his godmother, Aunt Lynn.


Owen writes, "He wasn't too pleased getting some water in his nose but basically all went well."

Below is a photo taken on Owen's birthday in January.

Rebecca in national curling competition this week

Rebecca writes: "We're in FLORIDA for CURLING!"

Strange but true, the USA Curling national championships are being held this week in Jacksonville, Fla. And Rebecca is there as a member of "Team Meechai," one of seven teams competing for this year's women's title.

You can follow their progress at USA Curling's website. And you can watch live coverage online on TESN - where the schedule includes Rebecca's team vs. a Minnesota team on Monday at noon.

Listen to Dan's musical mix on Birch Street Radio

Logo by Christine

Dan writes: Some of you might remember that, nearly three years ago, I started up an online radio station, Birch Street Radio, on a service called Live365. There's been a link to it in the right-hand sidebar of this blog ever since.

The station attracted a small but greater-than-zero number of listeners who apparently liked my peculiar assortment of old and new rock, folk-rock and other types of music.

Alas, Live365 shut down on Jan. 30, for reasons having to do with a new royalty rate structure for web-streaming of copyright performances. Having gotten a few weeks' warning of Live365's demise, I quickly latched onto another webcasting platform, called Radionomy, and rebuilt Birch Street Radio there. It's worked out pretty well so far - and again, has been getting small handfuls of listeners from out there on that world wide web.

There's a catch: As a commercial-supported operation, Radionomy requires its stations to reach a certain level of listenership within nine months to stay on their platform. So I faced a choice: Give up on my little radio hobby - or step it up and work to build an audience. Well, hey, I've always wanted to run a radio station, so I'm giving it a try. The station now has its own web site, its own Facebook page and a Twitter feed where I've managed to get it noticed by some small record labels and indie artists.

So I have two messages for readers of Birch Street Web:

• First - Please have a listen! Maybe you'll like it! It's a mix of new rock and rock-ish music, classic rock and folk-rock, bands and singer-songwriters from the 60s to now. You'll hear well-known and obscure songs from stars and unknowns. Once in a while you'll hear me say something pithy.
• Second - I called the station Birch Street Radio when I started it as a sort of spin-off of this blog -- but now I'm being careful to keep it completely separate, with no connection to this family-only site. So I'm not even posting a link to it here. You can find it easily just by Googling "Birch Street Radio" (but skip any old links to Live365). The Birch Street Radio web page gives you various ways to tune in and listen. 

Thanks for your support!

A delayed Julie's-birthday gathering in Maryland

Julie planned to visit her parents on her birthday weekend, but a little blizzard got in the way. So she and Dan and Andy made the trip a week later and spent this past weekend with Hugh and Dolores at the Oak Crest community in suburban Baltimore. They were joined for dinner in the community's "pub" by Doug, Lisa and Liz (Lisa took this photo).

Good times in the big snow

Besides the digging and shoveling, family members had some fun in the snow on Sunday after the blizzard passed. Here are some photos collected from Facebook. We'd always like to add more!

Bea and Dad. Do we dare venture outside?

Yes! And isn't this cool! Snowy Central Park.

Just chillin'

Xander and his friend relax in their fort.

Meanwhile, Brian takes care of serious business.

Now that's a snowman!

Blizzard of 2016 brings beauty, hard work

Kathy shares this beautiful photo of her house as the Blizzard of '16 was winding down Saturday night. A National Weather Service spotter in nearby Scarsdale measured 19 inches of snow from the storm.

Reports for the Baltimore suburbs were in the range of 30 inches. Doug and Lisa managed to do quite a job of digging a path to their door on Saturday night.

Here at Birch Street HQ, where the snow and wind continued until late Saturday night, we waited until Sunday morning to tackle the shoveling. By then the sun was shining brightly on the thick coat of snow. Dan measured 20 inches, while an NWS spotter nearby reported 24 inches. And those drifts by the car were certainly higher than that.

Christine takes a brief break

Making good progress

Nanette took this picture from her home on Shelter Island. Daughter Courtney, in Florida, wrote: "Not going to lie -- a li'l jealous of my mom's winter wonderland."

The storm also reached up to Cape Cod, where Owen took this next photo in his driveway. "It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be," he writes, "but I wish I had a two-car garage."

"My guess is we got at least a foot," Owen says. "My plow-and-shovel guy came twice to clear the snow, and the roads are not bad, so I'm not stuck in the house. Hope there's no repeat of last year!" Just about a year ago, he and brother Austin, visiting from Florida, were snowed in by a blizzard that dropped about 2 1/2 feet on the Cape (See that story).

Now back to Maryland, where Hugh and Dolores were able to watch as workers at their Oak Crest Village home shoveled the path from the entrance to the parking lot. Hugh then started working on digging out their car.

The Blizzard of 2016 climbs up the East Coast

Updated at 5 p.m. with new info and photos

We hope all our family members in the path of today's blizzard are hunkered down safely!


In Virginia, Marie reports it started snowing about noon Friday, and during the night "came down so hard you could hear it hitting the house." When the snow and wind let up a bit on Saturday morning, Xander was more than ready to venture out. "Judging by how high it is on Xander, it's got to be a foot and a half so far," Marie said. And the snow was expected to continue all day.

Lisa sends along this photo of the front yard at the Riderwood house, where the brick wall along the street was just about buried by 2 p.m. As you can see from the pre-storm photo, that wall's a couple feet high at least, but presumably the snow is drifting. The pre-positioned measuring is hard to read, but it had shown 15 inches at 9 a.m. so it's probably over 1.5 feet.

UPDATE: The wall is gone! Fully covered as of 4:30 p.m. "Still coming down," Lisa says. "Twenty-seven inches in 25 hours."



Liz adds these photos from downtown Baltimore.


Here are Birch Street Headquarters, no one's going anywhere for the day, and we figure we'll just let the snow pile up and deal with it tomorrow.


In this 11 a.m. view of the back yard, you can kind of make out the picnic table in the foreground. It looks like it had 8-10 inches on it so far. By 2 p.m. it was at least a foot, and the forecast called for it to continue falling until midnight or later.

UPDATE: At 3:20 p.m. Dan measured 18 inches in the front yard and trudged through it to take this photo of HQ from the street.

Let us know how you're doing and send us your snow pictures! birchstreetweb@gmail.com

Yonkers Christmas party - Photo Album

Here's a collection of photos by Dan from the Dec. 27 party at Kathy's home. Click here or on the slideshow below to see the album. Enjoy!

Christmas gathering in Yonkers 2015

Kathy hosted a wonderful party at her home on Sunday - the 2015 edition of the traditional Christmas gathering in Yonkers. Joining the crowd this year was 9-month-old Beatrice, up front with her Mom and Dad in this photo of the happy crowd.

We present two versions of the photo: one where Brien's face is blocked, the other with Kevin disappearing. Choose your favorite!


Actually, the third version of the photo is definitely the best!

We'll add a collection of other photos from the party soon, so check back!

Sharing Merry Christmas images (Updated 12/25)

We're collecting Christmas-related images from around our family. Send us yours! We start off with the tree at Birch Street Headquarters, nicely decorated by Christine and Andy.

Kathy sends along this picture of decorated trees at the New York Botanical Garden, after a Christmas Eve visit there along with Patrick, Genevieve, John and Beatrice.

This photo of Kathy posing with Bea and Leo was taken earlier in December, but it certainly belongs in a Christmas-photo collection.

Gerrit posted this Christmas Eve photo with the caption: "The face you make the moment you remember that Santa is coming tonight! Nolan is ready!"
Nanette is visiting daughter Courtney in Florida, where they posed for this photo with two of their friends.

In Maryland, Hugh writes: "Dolores and I are at Deep Creek Lake for Christmas. We have a small tree here--not quite like Charlie Brown's.

"Though Christmas has come, winter has not! The ski slopes are green, and the temperature is more like Christmas in New Zealand. Dolores says that if we can't make a fire in the fireplace and watch it snow this year, we will have to make a fire and watch it rain." And back to Birch Street, where Andy and Christine carried on the Christmas tradition of opening presents under the tree.

Merry Christmas to all our family

Rebecca on curling team headed to Nationals

Rebecca has been spending some recent weekends traveling to curling competitions with a team that's preparing for the USA Curling 2016 Women's National Championships, to be held in early February.

"Was in Minnesota this past weekend; Wisconsin the weekend prior. Will be in a different part of Minnesota the weekend after New Year's," Rebecca writes. "Racking up the frequent flyer miles this season."

This year's Nationals are in Jacksonville, Fla. - of all places! It's the first time a national curling event has been held in Florida.

Rebecca competed in the Junior Women's National Championships in 2009, 2011 and 2012, the Mixed National Championship in 2013 and the Women's Nationals in 2014. This year, she's joined another team that competed in last year's Women's Nationals. The skipper, Joyance (at left in photo), is based at the Ardsley, N.Y., curling club.

"It's a new team for me this season," Rebecca writes. "One of their players from last year is expecting her first child soon, so took the season off. We've been doing a few cashspiels (competitions with cash prizes) leading up to the Nationals in February."

Stephanie performs in HS holiday concert

Sophomore clarinetist Stephanie performed in Hilliard Darby High School's recent holiday concert. Her mom, Cathy, sent along these two videos. Click on the images to watch Stephanie and enjoy the music!

Twenty-Eight show gets local media coverage

Gerrit and his bandmates in Twenty-Eight put on a holiday-season show Dec. 5 at the Red Nun Bar & Grill in Dennis Port, Mass. The Cape Cod Wave online magazine published a write-up and a video.