Rebecca's team reaches finals at Mixed Nationals

Rochester, N.Y.-based Team Maroldo, with Rebecca playing second position, has won a berth in the playoff round at the USA Curling Mixed Nationals Championship in Lakeville, Minn.

The team finished third in the round-robin portion of the tournament, with a record of 6-3.

The semi-final games take place Friday evening (3/30) at 7 p.m. CDT/8 p.m. EDT. Rebecca's team, representing New York, plays North Dakota, with the winner advancing to the final "gold medal" game Saturday at 1 p.m. CDT/2 p.m. EDT. The losing teams from the semi-finals will play at the same time Saturday for bronze.

You can follow the results here - and watch live video here.

It's been a busy curling month for Rebecca, who was also a member of a women's team in the USA Curling 2018 Nationals, held in Fargo, N.D. Her team finished fourth in that tournament -- and Rebecca was chosen the winner of the Ann Brown Sportsmanship Award. The award is "presented annually at the National Championships to one male and one female athlete who are judged to best embody the USCA Spirit of Curling as voted on by their peers," according to USA Curling.

Brien hosts St. Patrick's parade-watch party

For the sixth year in a row, family members gathered at Brien's apartment to enjoy an unbeatable view of the Yonkers St. Patrick's Day Parade, held Saturday, March 24.

Joining in the festivities this year were Dan and Julie, Kathy and Robert, Kevin and Kathy, Genevieve and John and Bea, Shanna and Rick, Vivien and CJ, Kevin, Patrick and Owen, along with Patrick's friend Kelsey and Owen's friend Ellen.

The weather was cool but sunny for the parade, a pleasant contrast to last year's chill and flurries.

The party featured plenty of food and drink, including two home-baked loaves of Irish soda bread - and a cake for celebrating three March birthdays: Vivien, Kevin and Bea.

Here's a batch of additional photos by Dan and Brien. Click any image for an enlarged view.

The Birch Street Web marks its 11th anniversary

It was on St. Patrick's Day weekend of 2007 that Dan created a web site, on a now-defunct platform called Googlepages, to post stories and pictures of events and activities from around his extended family.

The Birch Street Web's very first entry, posted on the night of March 17, announced the move of Marie, Brian and Xander from Nevada back to California, a couple of years before they returned to the East Coast.

The site, which later switched to its current format on Google's Blogspot, now contains more than 1,100 posts, along with links to feature pages, photo galleries and videos.

Dan writes: "Eleven years on, I'm proud of what the Birch Street Web has become: An extensive collection of our history, cataloging family gatherings, everyday events and milestones. It's a resource for remembering where we've been and what we've done together and individually."

"I hope to be able to continue this for years to come - and I ask everyone in the family to help me by continuing to share photos, videos, news and other tidbits.

"While Facebook and other forums connect us with family and friends, their mysterious algorithms and other limitations make it difficult to find specific items from the past. Only The Birch Street Web provides a single, chronological archive of our extended family, which I hope people will continue to use for many years."

To sum up: Keep in touch!

More musical events for Stephanie

Stephanie participated in the Darby High School Winter Band Concert in the first week of March. Then on March 10, she performed with the school's Symphonic Band and its Wind Ensemble at the Ohio Music Educators Association large-group adjudicated event.

No photos, videos or recordings are allowed during the OMEA event, so the Winter Concert provided a preview of the groups' competition performances.

Along with these photos, Cathy has provided two videos:

• Prelude and Fugue in G-Minor by J.S. Bach
• Transcendant Journey by Rossano Galante

Florida girl gets to frolic in the snow

Florida resident Courtney was visiting her mom, Nanette, on New York's Shelter Island when she got "snowed in," as the third in a late-winter series of Nor'easter storms rolled up the East Coast.

"I can't complain about getting stuck in this beautiful place," Courtney posted along with these photos.

A day or two earlier, Nanette and Courtney checked on the progress of the house Nanette is having built to be her new Shelter Island home.

Rebecca anchors her team at Nationals (Updated 3/11)

In this picture captured from a live webcast, Rebecca takes a shot early in her team's first match at the USA Curling 2018 Nationals competition in Fargo, N.D. Playing as "fourth" for Team Rhyme, Rebecca took her team's final two shots in each end of play.

After an early string of losses, Team Rhyme came back with four wins in a row, ending the round-robin portion of the tournament with a winning record (4-3). That was good for fourth place, while the top three of the eight teams went on to the finals.

"Fourth place, winning record - no playoff spot, but still proud," Rebecca wrote. "Thanks, Fargo!"

Next up for Rebecca: The Mixed National Championships, as part of Team Maroldo, one of ten teams competing in the tournament that starts March 23 in Lakeville, Minn.

In 2013, Rebecca was on the championship team at that annual event.

Rebecca to compete in 2018 curling nationals

Curling is enjoying a surge of popularity following the Olympic Winter Games, where the U.S. men's team won its first-ever gold medal in the sport.

Next week, the focus will be on the USA Curling 2018 National Championships.

Rebecca will be there, as a member of one of eight teams competing for the women's championship in the tournament, March 3-10 in Fargo, N.D.

Team Rhyme - Rebecca, Kim from Minneapolis, Katie from Brown Deer, Wis. and Amy from Blaine, Minn. - will start round-robin play on Sunday, March 4, playing one or two games a day through Wednesday in hopes of making the playoffs Friday and Saturday. (Updates and results will be posted on the USA Curling website, which will also have live webstreams of at least some of the games.)

Rebecca previously competed at Nationals in 2014 and 2016, as well as Junior Women's Championships in 2009, 2011 and 2012 - and was on the team that won the Mixed National Championships in 2013. She'll be returning to the Mixed Nationals this year as part of Team Maroldo, which won a regional championship in January. That competition was held on Rebecca's home ice at the Rochester Curling Club.

The Mixed Nationals competition takes place March 23-31 in Lakeville, Minn.

Correction: An earlier version of this post said the Olympic men's team would also be in the tournament. Although the USA Curling website lists it among the teams that qualified, Rebecca informs us it will not be competing in Fargo.

More musical events for Stephanie

Stephanie with Columbus Youth Symphonic Band

This month, Stephanie performed in two concerts with groups of select student musicians.

The Darby trio

The first was a performance by the Ohio Music Educators Association All State Band. Student musicians from around the state rehearsed for two-and-a-half days and then performed their program in conjunction with the annual OMEA Conference for music educators, held at the Columbus Convention Center.

Cathy writes: "Stephanie was one of three students from Darby High School that was selected to participate. She enjoyed meeting other band students from all over Ohio and having the opportunity to perform with guest conductor Alfred Watkins, a retired band director from Georgia."

No photos or recordings were permitted during the performance, but Cathy took the picture above during warm-ups. Click here for more photos, from rehearsal and after the show.

The following weekend, Stephanie performed with the Columbus Youth Symphonic Band. Stephanie auditioned last year and was accepted to the group of Columbus-area high school musicians.


The group held weekly rehearsals starting in November to prepare for the first of two concerts, presented at Capital University.

Here are two videos from the program:
Variations on a Korean Song by John Barnes Chance
Country Gardens by Percy Grainger

The musicians are now learning new music for another performance in April.