Christmas Newsletter & The Boys Are Hard At It

                                                               Have A Very Merry Christmas

I’d like to dream of a White Christmas and a toasty fire but it’s predicted to be 70F here.

An evening walk in the falling snow was always one of my favorite things to do. 

As usual, it seems like we just took down the Christmas decorations but wow the weeks are just flying by.  Bev and I continue to be in pretty good health except Larry remains way too heavy.  Cindy is having lots of joint/ pain issues and had a knee replaced in August and will have a hip replaced on 12/31.  Hopefully I’m done with major surgeries and Bev will never need one. 

From a traveling standpoint, we are out of the RVing business and our coach is for sale but in lieu of that kind of traveling, we went to Italy for a month and invited each of our kids to spend a week with us – three of the four were able to join us.  We had a great time and rather than spending time on the typical touristy things – seeing the sites in the cities, we spent most of our time touring around from our base at a working farm (grapes and olives) in Castellina, Tuscany where we spent a lot of time with the Italians, eating good food and drinking great wine.  The last week of the trip was spent at an apartment in the heart of Sorrento where we did much of the same things plus touring the famous and spectacular Amalfi Coast.  For the trip, we did many wine tastings, took four cooking classes, ate at good restaurants, and just enjoyed spending time with the very friendly Italians.  There was, however, a two-night stay in Siena and a half day tour of Florence to see some of the historical sites. 

We made an August trip to Fairmont, WV for my cousin’s 80^th BD then went a little south for our other major travel event.  We spent a few days at the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulfur Springs, WV which has been on my bucket list since I was a kid and we had a great time along with our neighbors, Pat and Steve, getting to experience how the rich and famous live. 

Bev and Pat made their usual three week visit to our Marco Island, FL timeshare where they were joined part time by members of the Walker family while Cindy and I stayed home, watched the dogs, and ate as much fish as we could (Bev has a limited fish palette). 

The kids and grandkids all seem to be doing well with Rhett and Beth continuing to travel all they can since retiring, Kathy and Keith are still looking after the local golf club and café in Hartington, NE, Ann has now moved to the DC area where Eric is the American University Chaplin, and Wende is still working at Spectra Tech in Oak Ridge, TN and raising eight year old Eliza.  The major events for the grandkids were Lauren’s graduation from Texas A&M, Luca’s (Eric) high school graduation and Katelyn’s (Kathy) graduation from nursing school and marriage to a great young man. 

The only other family event is that Bodie (Madison’s Maltese) is still with us and enjoying life but it now gives us three dogs to attend to. 

Larry continues to enjoy cooking and his meals can be found on his blog at https://bigdudesramblings.blogspot.com/. 

Well, that’s all from here and we wish you and yours the Merriest Of Christmas’ and the best ever in the New Year. 

Beverly & Larry Doolittle

 The Boys All Excited About Christmas