Shannon graduates from USAF tech school

Shannon, who entered the U.S. Air Force just after Christmas, this week completed training as a pharmaceutical technician at the Medical Education and Training campus in San Antonio, Texas.

"Congratulations to my amazingly resilient daughter who is officially graduating from Tech School today at the top of her class," proud mom Mary wrote on Facebook.

"Keesler AFB Biloxi Mississippi in two days," Mary added, so we're guessing that's the next posting for Shannon, now with the rank of Airman.

Nolan discovers Charleston, S.C.

On the occasion of his Aunt Lizzie's graduation from Elon University, Nolan took his first airplane trip this month, flying to North Carolina with his parents, Gerrit and Angela, and his grandfather, Owen.

After the commencement ceremonies, they traveled down to the family's house in Charleston, S.C., and Nolan explored the city with his parents.

As Gerrit posted on Facebook: "Bringing my son to our house in Charleston that I've been visiting for nearly 30 years has been one of the most exciting experiences I've had as a parent so far. This city means so much to me and to see the pure excitement in his eyes every day when we step out onto the streets has been a real trip."

2017 edition of Doug & Lisa's Preakness party

Lisa (above with friends Hillary and Shelley and mint juleps) and Doug once again played hosts to a large gathering of family and friends on the day of the Preakness Stakes, May 20.

The weather was pleasantly cool, and the party spread throughout the house and grounds.

Gathering to watch the race

Liz and her friend Sarah supervise the pool

Here's video of the scene as the crowd watched the race.

As you might guess from her reaction, Christine was one of those who picked the winning horse, Cloud Computing.

Meanwhile, breaking a 10-year streak, Liz (right, with mom) did not pick the winner this year. It doesn't seem to have affected her good cheer.

Along with food and drink, highlighted by Lisa's fresh-mint juleps, there were indoor and outdoor games, including croquet action that continued until it was too dark to see any of the balls or wickets.

Are Grandmom & Pop providing croquet tips?

After dark, those same players had a little marshmallow roast, while card games broke out inside the house.

Many thanks to Lisa and Doug for their magnificent hospitality!

(Photos by Dan and by Hillary)

Lizzie graduates from Elon University

---Updated 5/29 with more photos---

Lizzie graduated May 20 from Elon University, where she majored in education. The photo above, taken as Lizzie reviewed the program before the ceremony, appeared in one of the local newspapers, the News & Record of Greensboro, N.C.


Lizzie's father, Owen; brother, Gerrit; sister-in-law, Angela, and nephew Nolan all traveled to North Carolina for the big event.

It was the 127th commencement at Elon, and according to the university, the largest ever, with nearly 1,400 degrees conferred. More than 10,000 people gathered for the ceremony.

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."

Dan & Julie enjoy sunshine & music in New Orleans

Listening to music in Jackson Square

Dan and Julie are back from a mini-vacation in New Orleans, where they spent most of their time listening to live music. They were there for the French Quarter Festival - four days filled with music on stages set up in parks and on the streets.

The Preservation Brass playing in Jackson Square

An amazing 190 acts performed at 23 locations around the French Quarter. "We only caught about 10 of the festival performances in the three full days we had," says Dan, "but we saw plenty of other music day and night."

Singer Aaron Neville and his band at Woldenberg Riverfront Park

"We spent two evenings checking out bands in clubs along Frenchmen Street, plus the various bands playing out on the street. We took in a show at the famous Preservation Hall. And we saw more musicians in the streets at every turn.

Meschiya Lake and the Little Big Horns

"In all we must have caught at least 25 bands, not counting the ones whose music was spilling out into the streets as we walked by various bars."

Music and dancing in the streets

Although they spent most of their time in the Quarter, Dan and Julie also took a quick ferry ride across the river and back to get another view of the city...

...and took a street car out to the Garden District to look at some of the old mansions and an example of New Orleans' above-ground cemeteries.

And they enjoyed some fine (and pricey!) meals at restaurants including Tableau, Bourbon House, Court of Two Sisters and Borgne.

It was Dan's first visit to the city, and Julie's first in a long time. The biggest stroke of luck was the weather - sunny with temperatures in the low 70s and pleasant breezes every day, making for a very enjoyable stay.

Dan will probably post more pictures soon, so check back!

A band plays amid the statues of jazz greats in Legends Park

Stephanie, Cathy take band trip to Disney

Stephanie and her Hilliard Darby High School bandmates marched through the Magic Kingdom last week as part of the band's semiannual trip to Walt Disney World. Stephanie is front and center in the photo above, and at right below.

Once again, Cathy was part of the team of parent chaperones for the adventure. We're sure there was plenty of hard work involved, but these photos show there was time for fun too.

Fifth annual St. Pat's parade-watch at Brien's

Family members and friends gathered once again at Brien's apartment on McLean Avenue to watch the Yonkers St. Patrick's Day Parade.

The early arrivals

The parade, which the McLean Avenue Merchants Association first held in 2012, has been growing every year. It is now the official Yonkers parade for the holiday. And this year Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York, served as Grand Marshal, so the event has certainly come into its own.

The cardinal waves to us

Brien's party, first held in 2013, is now a well-established tradition. This year, with a chilly wind and flurries, his apartment was certainly the most comfortable viewing spot. Brien's guests included his siblings Dan (& Julie), Kathy, Kevin (& Kathy); his nieces Genevieve (& John) and Shanna; nephews Patrick and Kevin; grand-niece Bea; cousin Owen, who traveled down from Cape Cod; and friends Robert, Bob and Adele.


Bea was this year's youngest guest - her second birthday was two weeks earlier. She watched the parade avidly, barely budging from her seat on Grandma's lap. "More coming!" she kept saying. And indeed there was more, and more, as the parade went on for more than two hours.


Among the marchers were contingents from schools that some of the guests attended - and in Shanna's case, the school where she currently teaches.

Shanna greets her school's marchers

Click here to see still more photos of the parade and the party.

The Birch Street Web is 10 years old!

Ten years ago, The Birch Street Web debuted on the internet as "A Family Site for Keeping In Touch."

Dan writes: It was Sunday evening, March 18. I had made a weekend project of creating a space, on a platform called "Googlepages," where I could collect news tidbits, photos and videos of family members and their activities. It was sort of a digital successor to a printed newsletter called "The Mail" that I operated for a while several years earlier.

As the Birch Street Web grew, it became difficult to manage as web pages, so on Nov. 11, 2008, I relaunched it as a blog on Google's Blogger platform. Today, there are more than 1,000 entries in the blog, plus links to expanded articles, special-feature pages, photo albums, YouTube videos and archived content. (Unfortunately, changes by Google over time have broken some of the links, especially to photo albums; I'll try to restore them as I can.)

Thanks to everyone in the extended family for sharing words and pictures. The result is an ever-growing chronicle of family events - which, as time goes by, turns into family history. Please continue to contribute, and I hope you'll turn to it often as a resource for remembering big and small events in our lives.

Stephanie selected to National Honor Society

Stephanie was inducted into the National Honor Society on March 16 at Hilliard Darby High School. "This is an outstanding accomplishment," writes proud mom Cathy. "Besides having a strong academic record, students must have completed at least 20 hours of community service and obtain five teacher recommendations affirming their character and leadership skills."

HAPPY SAINT PATRICK'S DAY!

Statue of St. Patrick with Croagh Patrick in background,
County Mayo, Ireland.
(Britannica.com)

Spring is coming, really, right?

-- Updated 3/17 --

Somewhere under there are the crocuses that had begun to emerge from the cold ground outside Birch Street Web headquarters a few days ago. We hope to see them again soon!

About 8-9 inches of various types of frozen precipitation fell in our part of New Jersey during Tuesday's nor'easter.

Meanwhile up in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. --

"This is how my morning started, lol," Mary writes. "It is beautiful though upstate!"

And in Rochester, Rebecca reported on Tuesday afternoon that the snow was "1/2 a Murphy deep" - Murphy her dog, that is. On Wednesday morning she posted a video of Murphy playing in the snow. You can watch it here if you have a Facebook account.

Down in Yonkers, city workers were busy Wednesday clearing away the mounds of plowed-up snow from along McLean Avenue, where Brien has his apartment. "The cops are closing a block at a time and four big and two small shovels dump it into trucks," Brien reported. Why were they being so thorough? McLean is the route of the Yonkers St. Patrick's Day parade, scheduled for Saturday. "Archbishop Dolan is leading the parade this year, so Yonkers wants it to go off without a hitch!"

Also in Yonkers: Kathy sends along this picture of her home: "Cold, but pretty!"