Happy Holidays!

This year was busy as usual, and since I can’t decide on the most important things, I’ll just start at the beginning of 2012.  We suffered from a lack of precipitation, which means we had lovely weather here in the valley for tennis but not enough snow in the mountains for good skiing until later in the season.

I flew back to West Virginia in late January when my grandma was hospitalized for a UTI and possible pneumonia.  I stayed with her almost constantly while she was there.  Before I arrived, the really stupid attending physician had decided to take her off her Valium, which she had been taking for half a century for anxiety and nervousness.  Apparently, he didn’t take into account the possibility of psychological withdrawal symptoms, but for two days a lot of long-dead people visited us, I had to find places to hide her money, and she killed a chicken and did a lot of cooking.  It took me over 24 hours of petitioning, including an appeal to a higher authority at the hospital, to get the Valium back for her, by which point I was sure I was going to need something even more potent to deal with my stress. 

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Grandma returned to the nursing home on Feb. 1, and she rallied.  However, this only lasted for a couple days, and she became lethargic.  The physician assistant advised us that the end was near.  I stayed with her as much I could, although my attention was divided, as my dad fell and broke his hip on Feb. 5.  The actual surgery went well, but the staff made a mistake inserting a catheter, so he was suffering from the consequences of that!  At least he was in the same room at the hospital where Grandma had been, so I felt right at home and the nurses all knew me.

Grandma at 105

All five of Grandma’s grandchildren were able to visit her before she passed away peacefully on Feb. 7, one month shy of her 107th birthday.  I sang her favorite hymns to her during her last hours.  Just a couple days before she had been keeping time with her hands and feet; a couple weeks before, she had been singing along.  Grandma was amazing!  She had remained alert and had not suffered from any terrible diseases or memory loss.  Both my parents were at the funeral as well as her five grandchildren and their spouses, her ten great-grandchildren (with two spouses) and two great-great-grandchildren (with another about ready to be born).

Later in February, the four of us went to southern California, mostly to visit universities.  Our first stop was the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.  The tour really excited Matthew.  The next day we visited UCLA, another wonderful school that interests both Katya and Matthew.  We spent time with our friends Dianne and Geoff in Marina Del Ray.  We also enjoyed Hollywood, finding the footprints and signatures of favorite stars, and the Getty Museum. 

Matthew at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood

Peter and Matthew flew back home after a couple days (Matthew had school.), but Katya and I continued to explore on our own during her one-week winter break.  We headed inland to see Redlands University and see our friend Teddy Burchett, who is a student there.  Then, we drove south to visit UC-San Diego in La Jolla and see some sights such as Balboa Park in San Diego.  Heading back north, we stopped in to stay with Dianne and Geoff again and went to the Getty Villa in Malibu before making our last school visit at UC-Santa Barbara.  We were also able to hook up with Dan Conway, who was a student at the Brooks Institute, for pizza.  (He has now graduated!)

In late March and early April, my niece Kirsten came to stay with us for a week.  We did some local sightseeing, including Fort Sutter and the gold discovery site in Coloma, and spent a day in the mountains skiing and having dinner by Lake Tahoe.

Kirsten and Peter on the west shore of Lake Tahoe

A lot of my time in the spring was devoted to planning our summertime adventures.  Our holiday travels began on June 8 when Katya and I, with her friend Katie, left for Japan for a 10-day sightseeing extravaganza—and a chance for the two girls to practice the foreign language they had been studying for three years.  We spent the first four days in Tokyo and celebrated Katie’s 17th birthday at the Ghibli museum, built and displaying work by one of their favorite filmmakers, Hayao Miyazaki.  After Tokyo, we visited Nikko, Kanazawa, Kyoto, Nara, Hiroshima and Miyajima, all of which are fascinating.

Katya and Katie at Lake Chuzenji

Katie and Katya ready to go the onsen at the ryokan in Nikko

Our next country was South Korea, where we spent four days with our friend Lori and her two children.  She works for the US Embassy in Seoul and lives on the main military base.  We visited museums, temples, palaces and shopping areas; enjoyed a night of traditional dancing at a Buddhist restaurant; and toured the DMZ on the border with North Korea.  Katya and I took our next flight to Russia while Katie, who had never travelled abroad before, returned to California on her own.

Lori, Sherri, Katie and Katya at the Sanchon Buddhist restaurant in Seoul

Elizabeth, Lori, a guard at Deoksugung Palace, Sherri, Katya and Katie

Peter and Matthew met Katya and me at the airport in Moscow.  We stayed three days in two rooms at a lovely boutique hotel a couple of blocks from Red Square.  We explored the Kremlin; walked through historic neighborhoods; visited many ornately decorated Russian Orthodox churches; and toured the Romanov museum as well as the Novodevichy Convent and Cemetery. 

Katya in Moscow

We had a sleeper cabin on an overnight train to St. Petersburg.  Since the hours of darkness are so minimal in the height of summer, we could enjoy the scenery when we weren’t sleeping.  We checked into our hotel apartment a couple blocks from the Hermitage, on one of the lovely canals, and started exploring the city at 6 a.m. in a summer drizzle.  It was great to view the architecture of the planned city before there were any crowds on the streets.  The Hermitage is astounding, and I found its art collection eclipsed by the sheer grandeur of the rooms and hallways.  A highlight of our stay was a nighttime--or rather extended twilight--canal boat ride out onto the wide Neva River, where our boat jockeyed for position with hundreds of others to get the best view of the festively-lit drawbridges opening between 1 and 3 a.m. for ship traffic as fire balloons, launched by revelers on the banks, floated overhead.

Katya, Peter, Matthew and Sherri with the Neva River and the Hermitage in the background

Our next destination was England, where we enjoyed time in various parts of the country with Peter’s family and friends.  In Poole, where we visited Uncle Peter and Aunt Helen, we stayed at and toured the Royal National Lifeboats Rescue Institute, which was fascinating, and spent part of a day on Brownsea Island, famous with Boy Scouts around the world as the place where Baden-Powell started the organization.

Peter and Matthew with a statue of Baden-Powell in Poole

Michael Katya, Sherri, Ali, Peter, Aunt Helen, Polly, Uncle Peter and (kneeling) Matthew and George

After a couple of days in London visiting with Wendy Sykes and her family, we continued on to Oxford to see Peter’s old school and the Bravington side of Peter’s family.

Uncle Tim, Matthew, Peter, Sherri, Aunt Rosemary, Helen, Katya and Desmon

From Liverpool, we took the ferry across the Irish Sea to the Isle of Man, where Peter’s family lived for a few years and his mother died.  Peter had made arrangements for a cemetery monument to be placed on her grave in the churchyard of the small chapel where she is buried.  We also explored parts of the island, where we enjoyed bright, sunny skies the whole time—in comparison to England itself, where rain was the norm.

Peter at his mother's grave

The final part of our summer trip was the east coast, where we visited with Mom and Dad while staying in New Cumberland, West Virginia, my hometown, and went on the annual Rodgers family beach vacation in Ocean City, Maryland.  (The extremely long and detailed travelogue of our summer adventures--with a small number of my plethora of photos of temples, churches, and historic sites--can be found at http://around61.blogspot.com/.)

The Rodgers grandchildren:  Jared, Katya, Michael, Kirsten, Matthew, Kes, Rachael, Liv, Rick and Cindy

We arrived home with a little over two weeks to prepare for the school year.  Katya immediately started practice with her high school’s tennis team, and Matthew quickly got involved in Boy Scout activities again as well as karate and fencing.  Peter decided to become more active in Boy Scouts and attended a couple training camps to become an assistant scoutmaster.  I started tutoring through the local school district’s home school program.  In mid-September I was hired to be the main tutor for two boys, in the fourth and seventh grades, and I began working 20 to 25 hours a week.  It has been a delight to work with this family, which also includes 4-year-old twins, and the other staff.  I feel very fortunate to have this position.

Katya as "Time Flies" and Katie "Just Killing Time"

Katya and Katie took the prize for best costume at our Halloween party at our Halloween party yet again, although there was some stiff competition.  Katya was “Time Flies” while Katie was spooky as “Just Killing Time.”  We flew back to West Virginia for the Thanksgiving holiday in November.  It was great to have all 27 of us together again this year. 

Peter and Matthew ready to hike at Pt. Reyes National Seashore

For Katya’s 18th birthday on Dec. 9, we celebrated with a weekend trip to Point Reyes National Seashore.  On Saturday, Peter and Matthew went on a hike with the Boy Scout troop while Katya and I took a quiet 9-mile hike to the cliffs above the Pacific.  We rode on Sunday through the forest for two hours with a private guide who allowed us to go faster than a walk with our horses (which is what Katya specifically had wanted).

^{Katya with the guide's horse}

We hosted a Japanese exchange student for five days.  Hina was a delight.  We all went to see a wonderful production of the Nutcracker one evening, and she enjoyed and was probably a bit overwhelmed by the Christmas party we had with 50-60 guests.  She loved the Christmas lights on the houses, and was thrilled when we celebrated her 17th birthday with cake and a present.

^{Matthew, Sherri, Katya, Peter and Hina}

A prodigious amount of rain has been falling for a few days, accompanied by strong winds, so it seems like winter in California—and there is plenty of snow in the mountains!  We are looking forward to a quiet Christmas at home and a brief visit to San Francisco to see the Conway’s as the year draws to a close. 

We hope that you have been enjoying the holiday season and send our wishes for a happy new year.  As crises and tragedies continue to occur throughout the world, let us remember the sentiment of Tolkien as expressed by Gandalf in The Hobbit:  “I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”

With much love,

Sherri, Peter, Katya and Matthew