Last year's letter ended with us returning from Holland in the first week of January 2008.

Each year on the long MLK weekend in January, there is a soccer tournament in Las Vegas. Hubert went there to play in the over-55 division with his team, the Dinosaurs. Won some, lost some. Las Vegas is as weird as ever.

In February, Hubert went to India for a conference. A few days of meetings in Mumbai, then on to Jaipur for the weeklong conference. Jaipur, in the northern semi-desert state of Rajastan, is straight our of the pages of National Geographic. you are as likely to see an elephant around the next corner as a Mercedes. After the conference, he stayed a few more days, and visited among other things the Taj Mahal.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Deb's mother, Lorene Pollard, had cataract surgery on both eyes. While Hubert was off in India, Deb was in Baton Rouge for the month making sure that "Lolo" had a good recovery. This surgery requires a huge number of eyedrops to be put in the eyes each day, around 40 drops per day! The surgery seems to have been successful, so we are glad she did it. Unless you are very young, do not try having this surgery without someone to help you with the postoperative care!

Hubert had been invited to spend a year in Washington, in the DOE Office of Science, starting in March. Only at the last moment did it become clear that the Office could no longer hire foreign nationals, as they had done in the past (thank you, paranoid neocon bureaucrats). So the deal was called off. Hubert decided the easiest way around this was to become a US citizen - actually, a dual US-NL citizen.

[ wonders of the web: we found Cece, lost since 1978 ]

This summer, we were fortunate to have two of Niels' friends visit. Both are sort of adopted sons: Will Judd from England and Andre Rinn, our German exchange student. (We are still exchanging cards, emails and sons.) What a pleasure to have some young, enthusiastic people around. Their rythym did not include early rising, to be sure, but they could be counted upon to be entertaining. Will was here for the 4th of July weekend. We used his visit as incentive to visit the lovely Gila Wilderness in southwestern New Mexico. We stayed at a hippie B & B, the Gila Wilderness Lodge, with its communal kitchen and private hot springs. The commune-like spread next door was home to innumerable baby and mama goats. The Gila Cliff Dwellings date back to circa 1295 and were the home of the Anasazi for a brief period until drought or other climatic factors drove them away from this beautiful spot.

In July, Saskia came home from studying in the Netherlands. It was wonderful to have her with us. For a few days that month we managed to visit Lolo and some of our friends in Louisiana. Aunt Sue celebrated her 90th birthday at a big bash. It was great to see so many relatives and join in the fun.

In August, Saskia left for 4 months of fieldwork in Morelia, Mexico. She was studying erosion and methods for preventing it in this beautiful mountainous area of Mexico which is located to the southeast of Guadalajara. Unfortunately for her research, the cows ate most of the experimental crops so that the data were less than optimal. On the plus side, Saskia made lots of friends and perfected her Spanish. She has said repeatedly that she would like to return to Mexico to work.

In August, one of the sweetest women on earth, Hubert's mother Johanna, passed away from complications due to breast cancer. It was heartbreaking that Hubert, who was already on his way to the Netherlands, did not make it there in time to say goodbye. Deb couldn't leave due to work obligations. The van Heckes were able to spend some time together and created a celebration of her life worthy of such a remarkable woman.

We decided that Niels could have the Toyota up in Rochester. The First week in September Niels and Hubert drove to the Northeast - Three whole days, with a stop in St. Louis to ascend the Arch.

Five months and three weeks after applying, Hubert was sworn in as a US citizen in Albuquerque, and has a diploma, a little flag and a passport to prove it. The photo on the left was taken afterwards at our friends Doug and Gabi's (she is Austrian). We went to the zoo, where he registered to vote, pretty close to the registration deadline.

Halloween is a special holiday in our neighborhood. We love seeing the neighbor's kids and kids from the local elmentary school where Hubert has lead science hours for the last 11-12 years in his role as "Mr. Scince." (That's another story. See our home page for the Mr. Science link.) Here are some of Hubert's pumpkin creations from this year: Halloween came and went,...

oct: work on the campaign - and victory!

Meanwhile, this house, which was built in 1964 from a kit and when gas was cheap, had developed a bad case of leaky windows and little to no residual insulation. In addition, the plaster was pink (yuck!) and cracking. We decided to replace the windows, put 3 inches of insulating foam on the outside and replaster. Cold weather in November stalled the application of the stucco, so about 1/3 of the house still sports bright yellow foam. A huge pile of the plasterers' sand still blocks our driveway so that we are parking on the street and have to scrape our cars daily in this frigid weather.

So when in the best time to have to replace your furnace? Of course that would be in the midst of an expensive house remodel. We tried to nurse the furnace along and used space heater but when it was 55 degrees every day for 3 days running it was time to bite the bullet and go for broke.

In November we lost our dear feline friend, Moe, to an aggressive form of cancer. We all still miss this sweet, incredibly social cat.

The day after Moe died, Niels came home from RIT. We took advantage of his 2-week Thanksgiving break to travel to Morelia, Mexico to visit Saskia. Favorite cousins, Katherine O'Neill and Toby Graff, joined us there. We saw some of the oldest and most beautiful Spanish colonial building, churches, monastaries and Tarascan Indian villages. We saw gorgeous copper pots being made from recycled copper wire, all manner of folkart being crafted, and went to a monarch butterfly sanctuary where there were literally millions of monarchs that had travelled from as far away as Canada on their way south for the winter. The weather was warm, although we saw many children and adults bundled up against the "winter cold."

The weekend after Thanksgiving, Niels returned to RIT, where people actually do have to bundle up against the cold. The climate change was a rude awakening. Luckily he likes his school and the friends and activities he's engaged in there.

In December, Saskia came back from Mexico for most of the month. It was a rare treat to have her here on the same continent, let alone having her at home.

Saskia went to Denver for a week to visit her friend Julio. At the end of the week she was joined by Deb as they visited Deb's college suitemate, Netta Hares. Netta's daughter, Martha, did us a huge favor is that she helped us adopt a cuddly lab kitten from the veterenary school laboratory at Colorado State, where Martha works. We named him Lalo and he is a joy to have around.

dec: niels home

A few days before Christmas we had a snowstorm the likes of which we only see evey few years, with lots of snow of just the right temperatures to make snow sculptures - irresistible!