Christmas Letter, 2009

Christmas greetings!

What a full year 2009 turned out to be! The central focus of our year was learning to sail Buen Tiempo, our new trimaran, but we scattered a lot of other activities around the sailing adventures. The year started out as one of the snowiest winters we've had in Michigan. We enjoyed snowshoeing, but enough was enough, and we escaped to Puerto Vallarta for a week in March. The sunshine, beaches and snorkeling quickly took our minds off the snow we left behind.

In April, we drove to Annapolis to pick up Buen Tiempo. We picked a wet windy weekend, so the test sail proved to be a bit of a challenge. The drive home was also a little nerve-wracking, considering I had never pulled anything quite that large, but everything went well. Preparing her for the big launch date consumed much of Spring. I took a break from the action to spend one week in Orlando at a surgery conference. We launched the boat in early June and spent much of our weekend time "e;learning the ropes."e;

Mom and Dad celebrated their 50th anniversary this year. We all joined the party with a large family getaway to Maine in August, where we enjoyed wonderful weather, hiking, moose viewing, sightseeing and good food.

Having mastered the basics with Buen Tiempo, Kathy and I took her up the coast for our Fall vacation. We had a great time visiting the ports along the Lake Michigan shoreline, and the weather and lack of crowds combined to give us a very nice cruise.

In October, I headed to Tennessee for the annual Father-Son outing, while Kathy took her mother on a trip through Indiana and Kentucky. Hiking was good, and we covered the Mountains-to-Sea trail segment in the Smoky Mountains without incident. Kathy and Betty reported good times as well and returned with some samples for me from a couple Bourbon distilleries they encountered.

We'll be celebrating Christmas at home this year. We hope you all have a very enjoyable holiday season and wish you all the best in the upcoming year.

Steve and Kathy