Dear Friends,

We send you the very best of holiday and New Year greetings.

Two thousand nine included some very special moments for us. The high point was Randy's Graduation from New York Law School. Not only did he pass both the New York and New Jersey Bar exams,but he got a job; he is working for the regulatory division of the New York Stock Exchange. We are proud as the dickens of him. Graduation itself with Rand, Miriam, Miriam’s parents was just wonderful, and the family party afterward a real treat. Congratulations to Rand!

Another wonderful event this year was the wedding of our dear friends Rita & Dabney. They were the first couple married in Bradford, VT on September 1st, 2009 — the date that gay marriage was legalized in Vermont. We were happy to share their celebration.

We visited Aunt Barb, and cousins Rip and Angie, in Florida this year. Aunt Barb was sharp and funny. We were delighted to see her, and blessed; she passed away a week later. We miss her.

The year 2009 brought us some new friends. Carol and Dick Spirawk came into our lives in April or so when their son Richard was severely injured in Philadelphia and was hospitalized in a coma that lasted until his death in late July. Carol and Dick live in Pittsburgh and came to stay with us almost every week during that time. We were introduced through an old friend and we are grateful to have met them and shared their lives.

We were proud to again participate in the 2009 MS 150 bike ride. This is the largest MS fundraising event for MS in the country and we have now ridden it twice. This year our cousin Joelle, her family, our Derek and his family all met us in Ocean City at the end of the first day of the two-day ride. Scott and I each raised over $1000 to END MS.

Our children, grandchildren, and cousins remain a source of great joy. We spent time in Beach Haven, NJ with Rand and Mir, Derek and Nanette, Ben and Alex. We shared 4th of July with Grace, Joelle, and Mark.  We saw xcxcxcx.

Of course we biked this year. We joined old friends at a tandem rally on the eastern shore of Maryland, we participated in the Eastern Tandem Rally again after many years away, and we had a week tour in Vermont in October. We did the Vermont trip with dear friends from California and saw amazing fall colors. The best colors were along the lake of our own Baker Pond in New Hampshire at the start of the trip!

In addition, we had special visits with friends and family in California, New Jersey, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.  We helped celebrate Muffin’s 60th birthday and our goddaughter Eve’s 13th.

We were pleased to be part of the optimism and hope that swept the United States and the world on the inauguration of President Barack Obama in January 2009. We’re disappointed not to see more progress on many issues we care about, but the movements for peace, national health care, full employment, education, and environmental protection face powerful opposition. After years of governmental war-mongering, fiscal irresponsibility, callousness toward the welfare of ordinary citizens, and failure to address the health and future of our planet, President Obama has begun to address some of these issues and has made many positive changes. Let us all redouble our own efforts to build strong people’s movements that can bring about progressive change.

All the best to you and your families in 2010. May you have health, justice, personal satisfaction, and peace.

Love,

Nan and Scott