Happy Holidays!

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Our year began with a 45th wedding anniversary dinner,  catered by the kids with an elaborately printed menu of the 5 course dinner.

 Instead of giving each other a gift or card,  we said to each other, in front of the kids, how we felt about being married for such a long time.  It was pretty cool.

Then we headed to Florida for our usual winter snow-bird experience and worked again at the Koreshan State Historic Site,  a restored 1900's commune and 14 building open-air museum.   Here John continued working on various machines and kitchen stove and Joan ran the two day Quilt Show which drew 2,000 into the Park.  We left in a hurry to drive to Utica, NY where we celebrated the life of Daniel's father and John's brother-in-law,  Doug Preston,  who died of colon cancer.  The family McMahon came from California to lend support.

In April,   John bravely underwent double knee replacement  (at the same time) and has since done an amazing job of recovering after 5 months of physical therapy. The stripes on his legs in this picture are for circulation but it was quite the fancy outfit.  He was in the hospital rehab for 2 weeks.  He is looking forward to biking again in Florida this next winter.  Now he says he is an old man with some new parts.  He had both hips replaced 4 years ago.

John also celebrated his 50th college reunion (class of 1965) at LeMoyne in Syracuse just a month after surgery,   followed a week later by a trip to Vermont for a most excellent wedding for Annie's best friend, A.J.

Annie has been growing in her new job as Assistant Director of Student Academic and Career Services in the College of Business at Towson University. She oversees 5 professional staff and the advising of over 2500 freshman and sophomores. And each semester, she personally has to whip into shape about 380 advisees in a 10 week period.  Do the math.  She also coaches kettlebell classes at the local CrossFit Gym,  where she convinced Joan to join her in challenging workouts.

Carrie and Dave have made a big decision to sell their house and head out to medical school (hopefully osteopathic). As of this writing,  he is still interviewing for a slot.   Their house sold in 15 days, (with John and Annie on "spiff-up duty")   they are packing for parts unknown,  putting their stuff in storage,  and moving in with us until June 1.   Luckily for them, we will be in Florida for most of the Spring. Unluckily for them,  they will have to suffer through the February snows with our snow blower.

Carrie will also be teaching Business Law at Towson University until May 15 and Joan is coaching her on how to put her work online.   She plans to remain with her law firm,  working remotely  they are settled.   Dave is working at her firm while waiting for his interviews and is putting an Emergency Medicine course online for the Baltimore City Fire Department  and the University of Maryland Medical School.

Carrie also was inducted into the U.S. Supreme Court Bar in November and we were all able to go watch her sworn in front of the 9 Justices and then stay to hear two cases presented.   Supremely impressive.  For the money we invested in her education,  we got a good seat.

Murphy with Joan's hat

Joan is holding down the fort,  doing a lot of helping with family convalescence,  doing bi-weekly trips to Lancaster, PA, making quilts for the VA's oncology patients, and knitting for TinyToppers for newborns at area hospitals (they do about 450 hats per month per hospital).  She's taking a break from her business and enjoying more time with the family and house projects.

She tries to keep in shape at that same CrossFit Gym where Annie coaches.  In Florida,  she works out with the 20 year olds as she does most of the workouts at half strength and takes twice as long.

Thinking of you often and with much affection,

John and Joan