Category: Uncategorized

Last Couple of Years

It’s been a few years since I last sent out a Christmas letter. Let me see if I can summarize the last three years. When we retired in March of 2018, we fully expected to spend 3-5 years traveling (with occasional breaks.)

In the first two years we did manage to put a dent in our travel plans. We made it to Spain, Mallorca, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Czech Republic, and Netherlands that first spring. After summer in New York, we rounded out the first year with Australia, Fiji and New Zealand.

2019 started off great with a winter swing from Florida through New Orleans and west to Arizona. As we left Utah in early March, an unexpected winter storm pushed us south, but we made our way back east to South Carolina.

Later in that second year of retirement, we also managed a cruise to Alaska and a visit with Tim’s sister in Juneau. 2019 finished with us hitting France, Spain, Portugal (and the Azores). We had just returned from a transatlantic cruise when something they were calling Covid-19 started making its impact.

Moving to Florida

As we headed north after spending the 2019-20 winter in Cape Coral, Covid-19 was pushing the cancelations of our travel plans. Unable to travel, we rented a home in Bonita Springs, Florida for a year.

As that lease was running out and Covid-19 was maintaining its grip, we recognized that buying a home down here made sense. Before we know what hit us, we bought a place in Lakewood Ranch, near Sarasota, FL.

Noteworthy Events

Mom Kreher
My Mom had a stroke soon after we returned to Florida last year and passed away on July 31, 2020. My brothers were with her and I was able to speak with her on the phone during her final hours. She had just turned 90 on May 31. So she had had a good long life with many blessings, as she liked to remind us.

Another Grandkid!
In October of 2020, our son, Shawn, and his girlfriend, Suzy, blessed us with a baby boy, Conrad. He is such an adorable, cheerful little guy. He’s now one and full of vim and vigor. We are looking forward to going to their home for a couple of weeks in December.

2021 Holidays

Monica, Nate and their two children, Sydney (8) and Reid (5), are hosting us over Thanksgiving. We are very excited to see them in person, though we have quite a few facetime calls with them each week. It’ll be a short visit, but we hope they will be coming to Uncle Shawn’s for Christmas.

That’s where we’ll be spending Christmas – at Shawn’s house outside Rochester, NY. The weather there is quite a bit different from our now home. So, while it may be a bit cooler than Florida, and we’ll more than likely have more snow, having the whole family together with kids running around make it worthwhile.

Retirement Living
The house we purchased this past spring is outside of Sarasota. It’s in a new community and we love it! We live right across the street from the pickleball courts and the clubhouse. There is ALWAYS something going on. We have clubs focused on everything you can imagine, and an amazing e-gym. Never a dull moment.

Grandkid Camp
This summer we all were at Shawn and Suzy’s for “Camp” with the grandkids – We had the pool, an obstacle course, trips to nearby parks and lakes, museums, and an “overnight” in the backyard. We had a great time! After Camp, Tim and I flew back to Florida and began our drive out west.

Colorado and Points West
First stop was in Colorado to see my cousin, Ellen and husband, Larry. From there we headed up to Steamboat Springs. That part of Colorado has plenty of hills. One day we rented e-bikes and took a 28-mile bike ride. Phew, even with Turbo, it was a real work-out, but we made it. We were also able to meet up with one of my friends from elementary school, Joanne Yankovich. This was definitely exciting for me as we hadn’t seen each other since 1974.

Continuing west, Dinosaur National Monument was on our list. It sits right near the Colorado-Utah border. If you’ve never been there, I highly recommend it. We reached our next destination, Glacier National Park by way of continued on to Park City, UT, Grand Tetons, and then Yellowstone National Park. All lovely places to visit.

From Montana, we headed to Oregon to meet up with our friends, Deb and Steve Thompson. In Oregon our travel plans changed due to fires in northern California. We diverted along the coast instead and saw the awesome Redwoods. I just love these trees!

The next stop was a few days in Death Valley – truly one of the hottest, driest places I’ve ever seen. In spite of the heat, we did manage to play golf there a few times at the oasis. After that it was a beautiful drive to Bryce Canyon, Moab and down to Tuscon. By the time we’d returned to Florida we’d traveled just under 10,000 miles….most of which Tim drove!

Future Plans
We continue to hope for travel opportunities in the future. We are vaccinated, and recently had our passports renewed. We hope to go back to Europe next summer – Ireland, Iceland, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal– if you are interested in traveling any part of that with us, go to our travel website and check it out. Better yet, email Tim or me so we can include you in our planning with travel agents.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Seven Principles for Immigration Reform
“The last big immigration bill was passed in 1986 when Ronald Reagan was president and both houses of Congress were held by Democrats.” – Booking Institute

I strongly believe that the time for immigration reform is long overdue. As with many issues, partisan politics have created a log jam on immigration. However, looking back I came across this set of principles that I can and do support –

“The main idea that underlies each of these seven principles is that the American people are fundamentally pro-legal immigration and anti-illegal immigration.  We [should] only pass comprehensive immigration reform when we recognize this fundamental concept.

The following seven principles are all based on this concept, and comprise what I believe to be the framework for a bill that [should] receive overwhelming Congressional support:

1. Illegal immigration is wrong, and a primary goal of comprehensive immigration reform must be to dramatically curtail future illegal immigration.
2. Operational control of our borders–through significant additional increases in infrastructure, technology, and border personnel–must be achieved within a year of enactment of legislation.
3. A biometric-based employer verification system with ‘tough enforcement and auditing’ is necessary to significantly diminish the job magnet that attracts illegal aliens to the United States and to provide certainty and simplicity for employers.
4. All illegal aliens present in the United States on the date of enactment of our bill must quickly register their presence with the United States Government, and submit to a rigorous process of converting to legal status and earning a path to citizenship, or face imminent deportation.
5. Family reunification is a cornerstone value of our immigration system. By dramatically reducing illegal immigration, we can create more room for both family immigration and employment-based immigration.
6. We must encourage the world’s best and brightest individuals to come to the United States and create the new technologies and businesses that will employ countless American workers, but must discourage businesses from using our immigration laws as a means to obtain temporary and less-expensive foreign labor to replace capable American workers; and finally
7. We must create a system that converts the current flow of unskilled illegal immigrants into the United States into a more manageable and controlled flow of legal immigrants who can be absorbed by our economy.

The first of these seven principles is that illegal immigration is wrong, plain and simple. When we use phrases like “undocumented workers,” we convey a message to the American people that their Government is not serious about combating illegal immigration, which the American people overwhelmingly oppose.

Above all else, the American people want their Government to be serious about protecting the public, enforcing the rule of law, and creating a rational system of legal immigration that will proactively fit our needs rather than reactively responding to future waves of illegal immigration.

People who enter the United States without our permission are illegal aliens, and illegal aliens should not be treated the same as people who entered the United States legally.”

Remarks by U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer, 6th Annual Immigration Law and Policy Conference