CHRISTMAS 2015

We were very busy this year buying and selling houses. We purchased a house in View Park, a quiet unincorporated area in West LA which is close to Gary's office. Our "new" house (address at bottom) is a 1950s ranch that required a lot of work. It needed new heating, wiring, drainage, and windows. We made some additional alterations to create closet space. The house is half the size but twice the cost of our house in Lisle (which finally sold in April). Later this year (in October) Carolyn's family home in Wales was sold. She, her brother, and her family stayed there one last time in July and repairs, house clearance, and legal preparations were completed for the sale. All these changes have taken an emotional toll but we are all gradually accommodating to them. Carolyn's mother, Pat, is very contented at Warrendale Cottage where she receives excellent care. Her address there is Warrendale Cottage Residential Home, The Old Warren, Broughton CH4 OEG. Pat's room phone number is 01244 530712.

This year was Carolyn's 40th anniversary arriving in the United States on 30 June 1975. Gary and Carolyn spent a very enjoyable week in Washington, DC with Gary's brother Bruce & sister in law Flora while Gillian dog sat. Washington DC was Carolyn's first destination after landing in New York and once again, she enjoyed the fireworks at the Washington monument on July 4th.

We have watched with great distress as several in our circle have had to deal with significant health issues: surgeries, cancer, stroke, dementia, and other awful maladies. Carolyn also had a difficult year physically following an accident at the end of January that left her in physical therapy for the rest of this year; first to regain the use of her right index finger, and then to treat a tear in her rotator cuff and seriously frozen shoulder. She is now finishing up the treatment for her shoulder but now has to start therapy for a strained hip flexor. Meanwhile she is enjoying a fantastic health club where she is able to receive all the services she needs as well as exercise and is making friends there too. She began looking for work this fall after the moves and sales of houses were completed. Two positions did not work out but one will begin sometime next year and she is continuing to look for something else in the meantime. She has been enjoying cooking which has been an enjoyable outlet utilizing the fresh California produce.

Gary continues to work at Symantec. He's recently been moved to a new project, reporting to the same person. He finally discovered a route to work that appears to be relatively safe, so he's bicycling to work several times per week. He's back practicing judo as a student and during weekends when it is cool enough he's off with Gusty scootering. He was folk dancing again earlier in the year, but there just isn't time for everything so folk dancing had to go. He has observed that the average age of folk dancers has continued to climb through the years; he was still one of the younger participants. Vita has let it be known that running no longer interests her, so he is back to a single mushing dog. He's also gotten involved with one of the local dog rescues (SoCal Samoyed rescue). Our dogs are in love with our new house. It is built on the side of a rather steep hill, and they love charging up and down the slope.

Gillian had rather a long drawn out adventure with insurance this year. She applied for insurance within a couple of weeks of moving to California; the company she contacted insisted she had to get a driver's license to establish residency. Once she got her license (not an easy task in California) they (illegally) refused to give her insurance, claiming she had waited too long before applying, due to the length of time the state took to grant her a license. It took a couple of dozen phone calls, a dozen letters (including letters to the state insurance regulators, governor's office, and other government regulators), and a threat of a law suit, but finally Blue Shield granted her the insurance ... 8 months after she applied. Included was two months of back-charges for insurance they didn't provide; again more threats on our end of law suits and further complaints to the board of regulators, and they finally backed off that as well. That took only about a month to clear up. Things seem to move very slowly in Southern California. We applied for permission to dig out to the street for a heavier electrical cable so we could install air conditioning and we are still waiting. It took two months to get a dishwasher, and we were without phone service for 6 weeks after moving in (broken promises and misinformation from T-Mobil was to blame).

Ryan is still studying Computer Science in DeKalb, IL. He anticipates graduation with a BS in computer science sometime in 2016 and moving in with us in California as there are plenty of job openings here in technology.