Highlights of 2007

Greetings to all our friends and family around the world! 2007 has been a very busy year for us, with lots of travelling abroad. Below are some highlights:

January / February


Julianna travelled to San Jose for the Electronic Imaging conference, and met up with relatives on her mother's side, including cousins April (and David), Jenny (and Charlie), Kevin, and April's newest toddler, Julianne. Later, Julianna took the train to San Francisco to meet her parents as their cruise ship called in San Francisco.

May


Julianna and Greg travelled to the Finger Lakes area (about 45 minutes away from Rochester) for the Memorial Day Weekend. There, they visited the gorge in Watkins Glen State Park, which was quite picturesque. They also met up with their friends Quentin & Marlene for dinner in Ithaca, another pretty town.

June


Greg travelled to Ireland, Germany, and The Netherlands for conferences and vacation. In Ireland, he spent time in Galway and Dublin and places in between, and managed to drive on the left without killing anyone. In Germany, he attended a conference in Munich and visited Berchtesgaden (home of Hitler's Eagles' Nest) and Nuremberg, before travelling up to Amsterdam for a few days before his flight home... where he promptly got stranded in Chicago for 2 days (darn thunderstorms!).

August


Julianna travelled to Austria to sing in the Festival Chorus of the Classical Music Festival in Eisenstadt, which is a small city near Vienna. Eisenstadt is well-known for its connection to the famous composer Josef Haydn, who spent most of his life there, working for a rich family called the Esterhazys. After the festival, Julianna met up with her brother, Isaac, for an additional five days in Vienna.

Also in August, Greg attended the SPIE Annual Meeting in San Diego, where he met up with his friend Brent B., who wondered where Julianna was... (answer: at home in Rochester)

September

Julianna's parents came for a visit in September, and the four of them travelled down to the Finger Lakes region for a birthday celebration. Later that month, Greg broke his pelvis in a cycling accident on his brand new road bike. This was a very painful experience and put him out of action for a few weeks. He is completely healed now. Julianna had a nice birthday, including a visit from her friend, Tanya D., who showed her how to make apple pie -- the easy way (thank you, Pillsbury!)

October


Greg was invited to speak at a conference at Osaka University, so he and Julianna travelled to Japan in October. They spent several days in Osaka, with Julianna taking day trips to Nara and Ohara while Greg was stuck in a boring conference room. Julianna had fun visiting with her uncle and her cousin, Susie (Yoshie), whom she hadn't seen in 12 years.

After the conference was over they took a day trip up to the SPring8 Synchrotron and Himeji Castle, accompanied by our host from Osaka University Mimura-san. They then spent a few days in Kyoto, seeing spectacular sites such as the Shogun's Palace, the old Imperial Palace, and lots of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples.

November



Greg attended a workshop on adaptive optics in Lake Arrowhead, California. Julianna's sister, Karen, and family came to Rochester for a short visit. Nephews Matthew and Stephen enjoyed looking at all of their aunt's old toys, including a wooden duck and a stuffed frog. (Yes, that strange thing with a white belly is really supposed to be a frog.)

Greg had a nice birthday, with his parents visiting for the day, before heading to Toronto for his brother Mike's wedding. Yes, Hell finally froze over and Mike got married (blame him for the cold winter!) Most of Greg's family was up in Toronto for the wedding, which made for a nice mini-reunion.

Later that weekend, Greg and Julianna travelled out to Albion Hills for Julianna's friend's wedding celebration. (Smile for the camera, Yi & Desi!) They also went to North York to visit Julianna's sister Karen & family. Stephen was able to impress his Aunt Julianna with his new math skills, as they ate their lunch in the nearby restaurant, Swiss Chalet.

By coincidence, Greg and Julianna were also in town for Grey Cup weekend and Saskatchewan's epic victory, but alas they were unable to secure tickets. Greg watched the end of the football game in Rochester and celebrated the victory with his favourite take-out food: pizza!

December


Christmas in Montreal! Julianna's family was all there, including her two nephews: little Matthew (who had just turned 2 yrs old) and Stephen (who is 4 and a half). As expected, the two little boys were quite a handful, and always full of energy. Poor little Matthew's legs are not quite long enough yet to keep up with his older brother. This made running around the house rather hazardous: Matthew would only make it half-way up the stairs before big brother Stephen would come running down them again (!)

Nevertheless, Auntie & Uncle had fun playing with the boys, and Uncle Greg even taught Stephen a few things about dinosaurs... like how much easier it is these days for them to order a pizza to share, instead of trying to eat each other. (For some reason, the triceratops kept winning its battles against the tyrannosaurus rex anyways -- go figure. I guess those plastic toys weren't built quite to scale!)

Last but not least...

Best wishes to all for a happy and prosperous 2008!

Greg and Julianna

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