Late-summer days on Long Island

Current London residents Vivien, CJ, Charlie and Austin were able to spend August back in the States, mostly on Long Island. They enjoyed time visiting with Vivien's sister, Genevieve; their mom, Kathy; plus John, Bea, Jack and Robert. Dan and Julie were able to join the crowd for a couple of days in late August. This photo captures a rare moment when everyone was awake and in the same spot.

Dan and Kathy were able to take a sail on Loridan, along with Robert. As previously reported, the venerable sailboat is ship-shape again after a few years out of service. Dan and Kathy were last aboard together back in 2016, on a cruise that exposed its need of repair. "It's great to have it back in its home port," says Dan.

Rebecca to curl at world tournament in Scotland

Rebecca and her teammates from the Rochester Curling Club will compete against teams from around the globe in the World Mixed Curling Championship tournament this October in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Rebecca's parents, Doug and Lisa; her Aunt Julie and Uncle Dan; her Aunt Cathy and cousins Christopher and Stephanie all are planning trips to Scotland to cheer her on and do some sightseeing on the side.

As previously reported here, the team won USA Curling's 2022 U.S. Mixed National Championship, held on the Rochester club's ice in April. The team has launched a GoFundMe campaign, "asking friends, family, and curling enthusiasts for a small donation" to help defray travel expenses. Anyone interested can donate here.

Meanwhile, Rebecca earlier this year started a new job in a new field, literally: a flower farm. She is now part of the small crew growing and harvesting blooms at Trademarks Flower Farm in Clifton Springs, N.Y. 

Rebecca says she's happy to have made the switch from an office/lab job to working outdoors in nature. When not on the job, she can be found tending her own home garden, leading hiking trips for RIT students as an adjunct instructor - and, of course, curling.

Midway through summer season on Eastern LI

Your faithful reporter, Dan, paid a quick visit to Noyac this week along with Brien, staying at Fair Play and visiting with Kathy, Robert, Genevieve, John, Bea and Jack.  

Loridan has returned to Kathy's dock on Mill Creek, after some needed refurbishing. The intrepid vessel has been in the family for over 50 years.

Dan and Brien arrived Sunday evening, at the end of a long stretch of 90-degree-plus days. Monday was windy as a cold front approached, but threatened thunderstorms never hit, so they were able to check out the area beaches - including the oceanfront in Bridgehampton, where the surf was churned up by the winds.

Tuesday saw pleasant weather, and Genevieve brought the kids to Kathy's house to play in the yard and then talk a walk to the "back beach."

Later, Kathy, Dan and Brien enjoyed paddling kayaks around Mill Creek before Dan and Brien headed back to the city.

Cathy at the Philadelphia Flower Show

Cathy volunteered at the Philadelphia Flower Show on two Sundays in June, which gave her the opportunity to take many beautiful photos.

These are just a few of the pictures Cathy posted on Facebook.

The annual event is produced by The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. It is typically held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in early March, and is said to be the oldest and largest indoor flower show in the world, attracting more than 250,000 visitors each year. But last year's and this year's shows were held outdoors, due to Covid-19, and later in the year for better weather.

This year's event at FDR Park included a butterfly exhibit in a large tent. Cathy's volunteer job on the second Sunday involved checking visitors as they left the exhibit - to make sure no butterflies were hitching rides on their clothes or hair!

Dan and Julie visit Christine, Jamie and Dan in California

Dan and Julie traveled to California in early May and had a wonderful time visiting Christine and Jamie in Los Angeles, and then Dan in Santa Cruz.

This was D&J’s first opportunity to see the apartment where Christine, Jamie and their cats have settled in since their cross-country move in late November. It’s in a quiet residential neighborhood in West LA, close to the Santa Monica city line and just two miles from Jamie’s office at Riot Games.

Over the next couple of days, the quartet visited the Santa Monica beach and pier; Griffith Park, in the Hollywood Hills overlooking the LA sprawl; and a botanical garden on the UCLA campus.

Following their weekend in LA, Dan and Julie took a short flight to San Jose, rented a car and drove to Santa Cruz, meeting the younger Dan at his apartment just a half-block from the beach on Monterrey Bay.

The trio visited the Santa Cruz pier, where they looked down at the sea lions and out over the bay toward the Big Sur mountains in the distance. They paid a brief visit to a small lighthouse just up the coast, where they could see more sea lions sunning on a rock and surfers riding low, long waves.

Then they drove several miles inland and uphill to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, where they walked a loop trail through a forest of towering Coastal Redwood and Douglas Fir trees. 

“Although it was a quick visit, we packed a lot in, and it was great to catch up,” said Dan.

For a full report on the trip - plus albums of photos - click here.

Mother's Day visit in Maryland

Dolores and Hugh were joined for Mother's Day by their son, Doug, daughter Cathy and grandchildren Christopher and Stephanie. They enjoyed brunch in one of the restaurants at their Oak Crest complex.

Easter in London: Kathy visits Vivien, CJ, Charlie, Austin

Vivien, CJ, Charlie and Austin spent their first Easter in their new hometown of London, and enjoyed a visit from Grandma Kathy.

CJ took these photos during a Saturday visit to Holland Park, blocks from their flat in the Kensington neighborhood. Kathy tells us it's one of the city's Royal Parks. "It includes the boys' favorite playground - and peacocks!"

Gold medal for Rebecca's team in national curling tournament

Winning a national championship in your own house is about as good as it gets in any sport. That's what the team from Rochester Curling Club accomplished Saturday in USA Curling's 2022 U.S. Mixed National Championship.

With Rebecca playing the role of Second, the team won the gold-medal game in thrilling fashion. The game was tied 6-6 going into the final end. Rochester's skip, Caitlin (at left in photo), sent her last stone toward the center of the rings. Rebecca and teammate Jason (at right) swept hard, joined by vice-skip Jeff (2nd from left), to bring it to rest right on the button (the bulls-eye of the scoring area).

Split-screen view of the finale: At left, Caitlin begins celebrating. At right, Rebecca lifts her broom after sweeping the stone to the button.

VIDEO: Watch the final shot!

Rebecca's parents, Lisa and Doug, attended the competition and joined in the celebration.

The victory earned the team the berth to represent the United States at the 2022 World Mixed Curling Championship - date and location yet to be determined.

The same Rochester team took the silver medal at the last pre-covid Mixed Nationals, held in Colorado in 2019.

MORE: Read USA Curling's press release here!

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.