The Holidays are behind us and exciting stuff like the Golf Show, Myrtle Beach and our Spring Vacation are on the horizon. While the memories are still warm, take a minute to enjoy these scenes from our Christmas season. The low resolution image of this year's Christmas tree in our family room was captured on my Palm VII.
Our Christmas tradition begins with Christmas Eve with Angie's parents. Good food, good games, good laughs, and a photo-op with the donkeys made for a wonderful day. The cold, crisp air kept us indoors most of the time, but we managed this shot plus a walk through the snow in the woods. We even caught a glimpse of Santa in the clear night sky on our drive home.
At Vince's parent's on Christmas Day, neighbors offered us their Eclipse Glasses to view the last lunar eclipse on Christmas until 2350ish. Very cool. It wasn't much warmer than Christmas Eve and only Amy, Angie and Vince braved the cold for a walk around Antrim Lake.
The rest of the clan drove down for this group shot on the deck at Antrim. The day wound down with food, naps and laughs. Despite the clear night, Santa must have already been back at the North Pole, because we didn't see him flying home. A Merry Christmas was enjoyed by all.
During the inter-Holiday week, Vince and Angie accidentally became ski-owners. Intending merely to ski around the golf course, we discovered that Blacklick was getting out of the ski rental business. Thankfully, we both found skis that fit and now look forward to exploring the parks and wilderness areas throughout central Ohio.
Our Holidays were capped off with a quiet New Year's Eve at home. We toasted the new millenium with friends in the hot tub. What began as a dare turned into a wave of good karma as Jeff and Angie lept from the hot water to make laps around the house and trees. 2001 promises to be a good year! Thank you.
Here's a copy of our 2000 Chrismas Letter.
Merry Christmas!
Both of our jobs are going well. Angie's job at the surgeons office keeps her working about 50 hours a week, but that will hopefully get better soon with the addition of a part time nurse. Vince has been at Chardon Laboratories for almost seven years already and is quite happy there. He doesn't do as much travelling as he used to which makes Angie happy. Our house has continued to undergo major renovation. The past year, Angie's dad replaced all the doors in the house with six panel doors. Angie painted all the woodwork and all the doors in the whole house. It was quite time consuming but the house looks like a different place with ivory woodwork instead of dark walnut stained woodwork. We also replaced the carpeting in the entire upstairs with a nice neutral carpet. Angie is still working to put everything back in its place. Why miniature donkeys instead of horses? They are the most friendly, loveable animals you can imagine and are much friendlier than horses. They are easier to care for than horses, are hardier, require much less feed, and are much less expensive. They only grow to a maximum of 36 inches at the withers so they are quite small and easy to handle. Angie and her mom have been training the two weanlings to lead. Angie has also taught Sterling to jump and hopes to show him in "Coon Jumping" classes at the shows next year. Angie had the opportunity to show Sterling at the Ohio State Fair and won Grand Champion Foal 2000! Everyone is really looking forward to showing both boys next summer and to the arrival of two new foals. Pine Lane Miniature Donkeys is the name of our (Angie’s parent’s really) farm. Check them out on the web at www.geocities.com/pinelane donkeys. The next morning we saddled mules and headed into the Weminuche Wilderness area of the San Juan Mountains. The mules were accompanied by eight draft mules carrying packs and gear for the entire party of seven. We would ride about five hours a day, set up camp, enjoy dinners of steak, chicken and fish, and then camp under the stars in the most beautiful country you have ever seen. Vince climbed 14,083 ft Windom Peak while Angie stayed in advanced base camp enjoying the solitude of Chicago Basin. It was definitely the experience of a lifetime. You can get the whole story at www.geocities.com/vresor. Have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
Seasons Greetings! We trust this finds you and your family healthy, happy and prosperous. 2000 was a good year for us and as usual, we managed to stay quite busy. Time continues to pass by at an alarming rate. Our house is finally decorated for Christmas. We continued our tradition and cut our own tree the Sunday after Thanksgiving. We will be spending Christmas weekend together with our families.
Angie and her parents missed their horses so much that they made a new addition to the family. Angie's parents purchased two male miniature donkeys (jacks) in September. Stetson and Sterling are half brothers and were born in May just twelve days apart. We fell so in love with the two jacks that we bought two pregnant females (jennies) in October. One will deliver on March and the other will deliver in July!
The highlight of our year was our Fall trip to Colorado. We began in Durango where we boarded the Durango Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad and traveled 50 miles through the San Juan Mountains to Silverton. We rented a jeep and drove four-wheel drive jeep roads through the mountains to Ouray, Colorado. We spent some time there hiking and then drove jeep roads to Telluride where we spent two days hiking. We took jeep roads back to Silverton, dumped the Jeep and took the train back to Durango.