GREETINGS JANUARY 2016


Andrew, Muzquiz, Deb and Saskia

Happy New Year!

Greetings from Santa Fe! 2015 was a big year. The big news in last year's letter was Saskia's wedding, and this year Niels got married in October. But here is 2015 in the proper order:

Since Saskia and Andrew have birthdays in January, we drove to Silver City for the MLK weekend to celebrate with them. We hiked in the warm, sunny weather. The only part that was chilly was when we crossed a tributary of the Gila River and had to take off our boots. We all regained the feeling in our toes after a few minutes....


Kitchen Mesa, top left
Ghost ranch is a beautiful place where Georgia O'Keeffe painted many of her famous landscapes. We hiked up a canyon to the top of Kitchen Mesa, which affords beautiful views of Ghost Ranch. The top of the mesa is covered with tuff. It looks like the surface of the moon, gray and soft and crunchy under your feet.

French Quarter festival
In April, we made a trip to Baton Rouge to visit our cousin, Donna Saurage. Her Husband, Norman, is Deb's first cousin. He passed away in February after a brave fight with ALS, Lou Gherig's disease. Donna is a strong, bright woman who also happens to be so much fun to visit. We enjoyed our time together. From Baton Rouge, we traveled to Abita Springs to visit our long time friend, Sissy Wiggin. While there, we caught the French Quarter Music Festival. The scale of the festival was pleasant, with small and large stages scattered throughout the quarter. All musicians are local artists (no problem in new Orleans), and it's all free. As a bonus, you sometimes bump into the musicians on the street and get to chat.



Tante Suze

Hubert's aunt Suzanne lives nearby and now is in an assisted living facility in Mandeville. The family had been unable to call her since she had no phone in her room. We took her our for lunch: She was not interested in eating until dessert arrived, heap high with whipped cream. At this point she seems to subscribe to the "eat dessert first" philosophy. Getting her a rotary-dial telephone completed our mission to keep her in touch with the family.

The biker gang: Dorothy, Tom and their sons, H&D, and Lynette and Bruce
Our friends Bruce and Lynette invited us to join them and their friends in mountain biking in Cortez, CO. Though we bike a lot in Santa Fe, we had never biked off of cement. We had great fun. The trails are near Mesa Verde National Monument, one of our favorite national parks. Since the others had never spent time in the park and since we now hold life-long national park passes, we were able to obtain free entry for everyone to the park. The group visited Balcony House. We thought we had seen every site in the park on previous visits, but somehow had missed this spectacular one.

Jazz on the street, when it was not raining
In June, Hubert went to Montreal for a conference, which was held at the same time as the the Montreal Jazz festival (what a coincidence!). Certainly something to go back to one day (the jazz festival, that is). Also got to spend a day with our friends Barbara and Ted (see last years' missive).


From this spot at Cape Perpetua at sunset, I saw the green flash - first time ever
Summer, and time for the great American road trip! Our target was Portland, OR, to visit Toby and Katherine, Deb's cousin. While New Mexico had a record amount of rain this summer, the northwest and California did not. There were many fires in the area. We managed to dodge these, although we were forced to make a fortuitous detour up into eastern Oregon to an area called Hells Canyon. It is a gorgeous area that is well worth another visit in the future. On the way home, we drove down the Pacific coast. We cut inland to visit my old soccer buddy Lloyd in Chico, CA, and the smoke from the California fires followed us all the way home.

You can add a peanut maybe, but not more
In early September, we went to Silver City to help Saskia and Andrew pack up for their move to Alpine, TX. Andrew had gotten a teaching position there at Sul Ross University, full time with benefits and all that. Much better than the situation at Western New Mexico University. Packing up the whole house proved a challenge, but in two days we managed to squeeze everything into a rented truck and their little pickup. Off to the Big Bend area of Texas and new adventures.


Himeji castle

Later that month, Hubert went to Japan for meetings in Tokyo, followed by a week-long conference in Kobe. Japan is a wonderful place to visit. He stayed a couple days extra, spending one day in a village with many hot springs, soaking for hours.

Miles, Linda, Mary, Rebecca, Niels, Debbie, Saskia, Hubert, Glenda and Jeff


Dave, Anne, Rebecca, Niels, Debbie and Hubert
Of course, the biggest event of the year was the wedding of our son, Niels, to Rebecca Birch on October 18th at Las Golondrinas here in Santa Fe. Wedding events stretched over several days. In attendance were both of Deb's brothers, Miles and Jeff, and sisters-in-law, Mary and Glenda, as well as Hubert's sister Mirjam and brother-in-law Henk. Niels and Rebecca's friends converged in Santa Fe from all over the US, the UK and Germany.

We feel so grateful for our new daughter and her family. They are a great addition to our clan. Niels and Rebecca live about 4 blocks from our house, but we try not to spy on them and don't show up at the door without being invited!


Petroglyphs are Andrew's speciality

We spent Thanksgiving with Saskia and Andrew in Alpine, a 9-hour drive. The group included Andrew's parents, Gerry and Cheryl Tegarden, his brother Gregory and wife Amanda, and Amanda's family. We had to borrow tables from the Sul Ross art department in order to seat everyone. We visited the McDonald Observatory and the artist colony of Marfa. Unfortunately, the weather was uncooperative due to rain and freezing rain on Thanksgiving, but on Saturday we had great weather in Big Bend National Park. We hiked into a canyon that had lots of petroglyphs along the south-facing wall. We also got to see Clay Henry, the late mayor of Lajitas, now taxidermied and on display in Terlingua.

Squinting into the winter sun

Christmas was so much fun this year! Santa Fe had more snow than we've had in about ten years, El Nino is right on track. Saskia & Andrew came to stay with us for a week. We were able to spend time with friends we haven't seen in a long time. Because of the record snowfall at the Ski Santa Fe area, Hubert and Saskia were able to introduce Andrew to snowboarding and a grand time was had by all.


We hope that your 2016 will be a happy, healthy one filled with the love that friendships and family bring. We look forward to seeing some of you on our travels this year.
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