New Year's Stories

Hello everyone!

Well, here is our belated New Year's blog. We were on vacation for 2 weeks, which was wonderful. The first leg on our journey was to Palm Springs, CA where Dan's maternal grandparents live. It was their 60th wedding anniversary, and the entire 22-person family was there to celebrate. We had a special Mass to celebrate (at which Dan played the music and several other family members sang and played instruments). Katie and I loved this part of the vacation because there were so many willing, eager babysitters including aunts, uncles, and teenage cousins. And the 75 degree heat sure beat snowy, icy, NYC); we got in a lot of games of cards, board games, chess, you name it; eating; drinking; and just feeling like normal adults for a little bit and not 24-hour baby monitors (not that that job is so bad). A highlight for Dan was going to the Rose Bowl with his brother, Alan, and watching USC trounce Penn St. with 80,000 other football fans.

After Palm Springs, we flew up to Portland, OR to hang out with Katie's family and Dan's various paternal-side relatives. Evi finally met her Papa (Katie's Dad) in person and he inducted her into the family traditions of watching sports (mostly golf) on HDTV (see the pictures link for photo evidence of this). We also went over to the house of Papa's Uncle Shorty, a decorated WWII vet and all-around great story-teller to get a 4-generations of Ponsfords picture (see the above picture). We also drove up to Seattle to see Dan's paternal grandparents, which meant that we got 4-generation photos on each side of the family (double that for Dan--paternal and maternal sides). That's pretty special.

Katie also had an agenda of types of food to eat, including Mexican (which seems to taste slightly different in the NW...maybe it's the water?) and non-NYC-syle pizza. Katie just really dislikes the ultra-thin crust of most true NY pizzas (I, on the other hand, LOVE LOVE LOVE NY pizza). Dan's goal was to drink as much local beer as possible, the kind you can't seem to find most places in NYC...can you say Henry Weinhard and Alaskan Amber? :) And eat local sea-food. Steamed Pacific mussels in vermouth sauce, baby!

Dan's parents threw a generous, festive open house to which many family friends came to say hi. Some of our friends have got married since we last saw them, or had babies, so it was a great time to catch up with all these wonderful people.

Now we're back in slushy, cold NYC. Back to the grind. Dan is teaching, though not as much because he quit at Hofstra to spend more time helping out at home. And Katie is looking for PA jobs and studying for her PA certification exam. The management of our building is upgrading the electrical wiring (I think it's STILL from the 1920s) so there is dust and crap everywhere: in the hallways, the lobby, and our own apartment, whose walls were punctured recently to install a new fuse box and thread new wires through several other newly-hewed holes. But we've had visits from some friends since returning to the city, which has been nice. Dan's been playing gigs again (after taking some time off after Evi was born), lately in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center and at Brooklyn's Bargemusic this coming weekend, both relatively well-known venues back here.

We're looking forward to warmer weather when we can take Evi to the nearby Botanic Garden for morning walks and work off some of the excesses of the holidays. One of our New Year's resolutions is to blog more frequently, so check back soon!

PS I guess I forgot to remind everyone to check out all the new pictures at flickr (which we actually have been updating much more regularly than the blog).