It's me... the one who never speaks to you. Who knew that fall 2011 would fly by and suddenly we'd find ourselves smack dab in the middle of 2012?
Well, I guess that's what happened. And I say good riddance to 2011 and welcome 2012! Although the last few months of 2011 were pretty ok. Some highlights:
Aunt Kay visited for a day while on a cruise. We gave her a whirlwind tour of the island in a few hours and then waved goodbye as she returned to the boat to set off for more islands.
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| Aunt Kay and us at Drake's Seat overlooking Magen's Bay on St. Thomas |
I went to Baton Rouge, LA to attend a workshop and then on to St. Louis, MO to judge student presentations at the American Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students. UVI had a big showing and two of my undergraduate mentorees (not sure if that's a word) were presenting. Akima gave an oral presentation on work she'd done with my collaborator in South Carolina over the summer. Stephan presented on work he'd done in Hawaii with another of my collaborators and for which I guided him on the analysis since there was tons of data. Receiving an oral presentation was already an honor for Akima (only around 10% of students are selected to give an oral presentation) and Stephan went on to win "Outstanding Poster Presentation" in his division (Computational Biology). I was so proud!
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| Stephan, me and Akima at ABRCMS |
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| I like to call this "Chuck and the Marilyns" (photo credit: Doyle) |
Not long after I got back from St. Louis Tyler went off to Austin, Texas for a meeting but was able to sneak over to Houston to visit our friends Adrienne and Thiago. At the time Adrienne was expecting. Expecting what you aks? Well, a little boy (Caio) who arrived two weeks ago. Congratulations Adrienne and Thiago!
We had big plans for Thanksgiving - a sail to St. Martin with Shaun - but those dreams were dashed as the boat required some maintenance. Sigh. But instead we attended two different Thanksgiving feasts: one at our friend Bobby's house and one at the house of three of our new graduate students. Both were fantastic but resulted in much groaning from overeating.
The start of December was INSANE. The end of the semester is normally crazy but tack on three meetings on two different islands and that spells some serious nuttiness. In the last two weeks before we left for the holiday break we flew to a two day conference on St. Croix, flew home, had two days in the office, flew to a two day conference in Puerto Rico, flew home for the weekend, flew back to Puerto Rico for another but different two day conference and then flew home for three days before flying off to New York. Phew! I'm tired just thinking about it but it was fun!
Speaking of flying, the holidays were great but they definitely flew by. We arrived in NY to spend time with the Brandt side of the family first this year. After a few days relaxing (ha! I mean I was frantically Christmas shopping while Tyler spent most of the time frantically finishing a report) in the Woodstock area we drove down to Philly to visit Chung and Mike. As usual, we had a fantastic time eating our way through Philly with them and we even fit in some historic site visits.
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| In a series of Chung, me and Tyler performing death defying feats in front of historic places, here we are in front of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. Whoo hoo! |
Back in Woodstock I took Tyler to the green (the center of town) for the annual arrival of Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. It's big deal in Woodstock and includes a small parade and lots of cheer. This is always one of my favorite parts of the holidays because of the people we see. This year we met up with Sarah and her family, including Kyle and their adorable new daughter Quinn. We then made our annual appearance at the Norton Christmas Eve party - a festive event as always.
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| A fairly blurry photo of Tyler at his first Christmas Eve on the Green |
Christmas day was different this year. I knew it might be hard to go home for the holidays since it would be the first time without Will, but it was even harder than I thought. Will never visited me in St. Thomas; it's the only place that I've lived that he didn't visit. So we have photos of him but those are the only reminders. In Woodstock reminders and memories of him were everywhere.
So instead of Christmas in Woodstock we had dinner and gift opening at the newly redone Red House Nine. Which is G-O-R-GEOUS. Ed and Kelly did an incredible job and the house looks amazing. See Kell's blog about the process and for the photos. Walking into their house you would never imagine what it had been before. Christmas was a collision of Brandts and Nortons and Winstons and Smiths and it was fantastic and just what we all needed. Big fat kudos to Ed and Kelly for a lovely (and very tasty) Christmas. Unfortunately my photos didn't come out that well, but Kelly's got some nice ones on the Red House Nine blog.
The last couple of days in Woodstock flew by - and we spent a lot of it continuing to Christmas shop - this time for the Smith side of the family (I think next year we'll do more internet shopping so we don't spend our whole vacation in stores). Soon enough we found ourselves in Colorado. Thankfully all of our Christmas shopping was done and so we spent the time truly relaxing and hanging out with the family. Thanks to Mindy and Bill for hosting us for 2 nights (one on each end) in Denver, and to Mom and Dad Smith for the nights in between! Colorado, like New York, was unusually warm and unfortunately, warm does not equal snow which also means no skiing. But we got in a beautiful hike in Estes Park and a gorgeous snow shoeing adventure.
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| Having lunch before our hike in Estes Park |
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| The Smith siblings on our snow shoeing adventure |
The time in Colorado was much too short and suddenly we found ourselves back on St. Thomas. Our semester began last month and we're now back to our routine. We've also just recently enjoyed a visit from Mom and Dad Smith. 2012 promises to be exciting. Visits from almost all of our family members, a trip to Australia and more!
So stay tuned to see if I stay tuned to keeping up with this blog! Ha!
