In het Nederlands
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Happy New Year, one and all.
For those of you who wonder why you didn't hear from us in 2003,4,5, and 6, no, we didn't forget you.
We just never got cards or family newsletters out the door. So, skipping over a good chunk of this
decade, here are some pictures and stories from 2006:
Saskia had decided to resign from that job after a challenging 4-month stint. She wanted to move somewhere where there were more people her age. She found a flat in Delft that she could sublet for the exact amount of time she wanted to stay and in December...
we spent an actual white Christmas with our friends Petra and Willem in Neede, spent time in Delft with Ivonne, Bert and their kids,
and Evert and Donnie in the Hague treated us to a Bach choral performance. The days were packed...
January, 2006 we helped Saskia move into her new digs, actually a flat we knew well from when Hubert was a student in Delft last century - small world. We also had a family party for Hubert's parent's 55th anniversary, where entire family was present. Only rarely can you get the relatives from the US, Brazil and England to come to Holland all at the same time. We stayed in an historic farmhouse where the beds were actually in closets! Very cool! It was wonderful to spend time with Hubert’s mother, who was recovering from a knee replacement and the stroke that was the result of surgical complications. She is, thankfully, doing better and is more mobile now.
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Spring, 2006: Hubert and Niels (17) started visiting colleges in preparation for Niels’ graduation in 2007. This turned out to be both exciting
and anxiety provoking. Where do you apply? The truckloads of college catalogues started clogging our mailbox. It was and is
overwhelming to say the least. On the Spring trip they got as far as San Diego, where they also visited David Lawrence and Meg,
whom we hadn't seen since the early 80's.
Summer, 2006: Saskia returned from her year in the Netherlands speaking excellent Dutch. While in Delft, she realized that she did not want to go to Reed College in Portland, but to Wageningen University in the town of Wageningen, NL, to study international land and water management, a 5-year program leading to an engineering degree. She took a math class over the summer to warm up her math brain and we prepared for her to return, found a room for her and packed her up. If you’d like to know more about her or her studies email her at ssvanhecke@gmail.com .
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Summer found us traveling early to Baton Rouge for a brief visit with Lorene, Deb’s Mom, and the other Pollards. Also got to see Hubert’s
aunt, Suze, and Sissy Wiggin. To those of you we couldn’t see, we will visit you next summer when the weather is nice and warm.
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Niels attended the German Summer School in Taos, NM, sponsored by University of New Mexico. This is a 5-week German immersion program,
primarily for undergraduate students, graduate students and teachers of German. There is a strict “no English” rule and it works.
He has attended this
program twice and learned an incredible amount. This year he was also their computer systems guy, setting up a network and a bank
of laptops, TV’s and related software and hardware. He is a true computer geek.
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The rest of us traveled to Taos to get in some good hiking. Later in the summer, we also traveled to Mesa Verde and Black Canyon
of the Gunnison, CO. Mesa Verde has impressive Indian cliff dwellings that are so much more easily viewed since the fires there over
the past 10 years. Black Canyon is gorge cut in volcanic rock by the Gunnison River. Think Grand Canyon on a smaller scale with a
raging river running through it. The flow is amazing, even though a significant amount of water is diverted into the adjacent valley for
agriculture. The boat excursions on the river were booked full. We will return someday when it’s less busy and make the river trip
in a boat, not a raft!
Summer ended, Saskia left for Wageningen and Niels entered his senior year. Work for Deb and Hubert went on as usual, except that for Hubert the federal science budget mess left his group without the funds to run their experiment in Brookhaven, NY. He hopes that this will be resolved with the new Congress, but who knows? He also started his 10th year as 'Mr Science', one hour every week in a 6th-grade class in the neighborhood primary school. Niels narrowed his college choices to the Rochester Institute of Technology (NY), New Mexico Tech, Full Sail (FL) and UNM (Albuquerque). We may encourage a couple of other alternates. He has his heart set on computer programming/game design but also requires that any school have a German Department. December found Saskia home for 12 days at her brief Christmas break. We all did lots of cooking and visiting with friends.
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The weekend before New Years, Deb’s brother Jeff from Baton Rouge arrived with his family in a Chevy Suburban with real-wheel drive and no
chains in the middle of the biggest snowstorm since they began keeping records. At least 2 feet, in many places 29”, fell in a high
desert town that is not used to dealing with more than a few inches of snow at a time. It snowed for about 2 ½ days. The interstates
were closed. Jeff figured that he’d rather drive here than being stuck in lovely downtown Amarillo, TX, so they got off of the interstate
and took back roads. They managed to get behind a snow plow and crept along to Santa Fe, narrowly missing cars that had skidded
out all over the place. By some miracle they arrived here unscathed just as the very roads they’d traveled were being closed and the National
Guard was distributing sleeping bags and food to stranded motorists.
Snow skiing and boarding were, of course, incredible. Saskia and Niels got to spend time with their cousin, Peyton, sledding and skiing/snowboarding. They bopped ‘til they dropped. Driving was pretty much out of the question. We got around on our cross country skis or on foot. The morning after the snow stopped falling, Saskia and Hubert headed to the downtown Plaza to make a snow sculpture. It turned into a popular attraction, and a picture of this guy appeared in newspapers as far away as Taiwan. We hope that the snow from that storm and since, another 2-4 inches or more, depending on where you are in the mountain terrain, will help to end the drought that has plagued us for many years. Snow melt = drinking water for us.
Wishing you and your family health and happiness in the New Year,
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