Hughes and Judy Look Back at 2010
What a year! Joys and challenges as usual, except if
you’ve read our quarterly newsletters you’ll note the challenges seem
to have overshadowed the many joys we had. We marked personal
milestones and we enjoyed travel to both familiar and new areas. We
experienced health issues we are relieved to put behind us. When we
cast about for a flattering New Year’s photo, we couldn’t find one;
Judy said it was an ugly year. And we are, without question, happy to
put 2010 in our rear view mirrors and look forward to the year ahead
with renewed optimism.
Most of our tales of woe and good times are detailed
in our periodic newsletters at <http://www.pigseye.com/hj/letters/>.
For this end of the year recap, we’re happy to look back at those
events that brought us joy and satisfaction.
Milestones
Hughes hit 70 in March. Judy executed a
perfectly
planned surprise party that drew curious friends and family from miles
away to celebrate. (Judy is a bit younger. We’ll report on her
milestone in a few years.)
Our grandson, Griffin, graduated from high school in
Massachusetts
this past June. Thayer Academy
lost a varsity tennis player and
cross-country runner, a Cum Laude Society member, and their resident
Latin scholar. Wake Forest gained an excellent student who finished his
first semester this month. (Julia, Griff, Dan in back, Grandparents
Norm and Townley, Debra in addition to Judy and Hughes)
Judy won her age group in the Bolder-Boulder
10K for the umpteenth
time. For that she received another medal. She also won her age group
in Avery
Brewery’s
4 on the 4th and brought home a case of beer—a more practical
award.
The first hummingbird arrived on April 21, a bit
later than usual. A foot of snow fell three days after Mother’s Day.
Travels
Who knew the Pensacola airport would be snowed in on
the February day we had planned a Gulf Coast get-away? Come on!
Pensacola, for gosh sakes!! What a surprise to the residents of the
Emerald Coast and the few visitors who came to Destin
for some warm R&R. It was warm to us and we enjoyed our visit.
Most of March we found Death
Valley and southern Arizona much warmer. In addition to ghost
towns, hiking and biking, London Bridge, and bird watching, we enjoyed
our camping trip with cousins Carol and Ken. We visited with cousins
Bob and Ginny in Tucson, Boulder running friends David and Lada in
Patagonia, and Nederland neighbors Jim and Sandy in Marana. Judy even
won an unscheduled 5K race in Nogales.
Camping in August at Turquoise Lake near Leadville
was a week of relaxing—fishing, hiking, running, and biking.
Judy competed in the 205-mile Reach the Beach
relay race in September. She and eleven teammates won their age group
in a race along New Hampshire’s scenic back roads from Franconia south
to Hampton Beach. We got a chance to visit Debra’s family in Milton
both before and after the race.
By the first week in December, we were looking
forward to our customary week in Puerto Vallarta. Ideal weather for
beach sitting, Shanghai rummy, light shopping, and great dinners with
cousins Carol and Ken, plus nightly celebrations—parades, music, street
food—during the 12-day Festival
of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We also learned how rough the back roads
of the Sierra
Madre are on a day trip that left us shaken, not stirred. (This was
not a highlight of our week in PV.) See photo below.
Visitors
Dick Sanders blew in and out of town twice during
the year for two furious and intense afternoons of Shanghai rummy, plus
news from the Toledo area. We dissed him at the game table.
Xavier University’s Leslie Prosak-Beres, one of
Hughes’s former doctoral students, paid her maiden visit to Nederland
for several days of sightseeing in May. She was game to hike in the
high country in addition to shopping Boulder and dining at Chautauqua.
To our surprise and delight, David Delo, who sang,
drank, and studied with Hughes during their undergraduate days at
Antioch College, popped up after nearly half a century. It was like a
mini-college reunion: just the three of us recalling names and events
from our undergraduate days, and telling stories of our post graduate
lives since 1962.
What
Kept Us Busy
We continue to enjoy volunteering in
our area. In addition to working at the Visitors Center, Hughes joined
Judy working at the new carousel
that has drawn thousands of visitors since it opened on Memorial Day.
Judy also greeted visitors from the front desk at Boulder Community
Hospital.
We both bought new bikes and together we have tried
to follow the
lead of our bike enthusiast son, who logs well over 100 miles a week.
We occasional join him or ride
on our own in the Boulder area. We’re still casual, fair-weather
riders. We're also looking forward to doing more biking on our travels.
Judy has continued taking Lucy to training classes
with mixed success. While Lucy’s much better for the training, her
behavior, unfortunately, is still too unpredictable to qualify as a
hospital therapy dog. Both Bella and Lucy continue to bring so much
richness to our lives.
Socially, we played more bridge this year than ever
before since we moved here. Hughes continued to read mysteries and
played the trombone in the Barker Dam Brass Band again in the 4th of
July parade. Judy joined an informal women’s hiking group during the
summer and found many places in the area we hadn’t discovered in 18
years living in the mountains.
Health and Aging
We have always felt comfortable in the
Boulder County area, in large part because folks here are active,
healthy, and generally young (or young acting). People are outdoors in
all seasons running, biking, skiing, climbing, and all the other
activities that
keep one fit. This was one of the several reasons we came to this area.
We figured these young folks would keep us young as well. Perhaps they
have.
In spite of Hughes’s heart attack, Judy’s second
cancer and later a colon resection, we’re holding our
own keeping up with the younger crowd. (It should be noted that
Judy continues to outrun most of the younger women on race days.) In
our heads, we’re still 18 or 23. If only our
bodies paid attention to what’s in our heads.
Finally
Enough said. 2010 is gone and behind
us. No more ugly. We’re only going to look forward to a future of more
good travel, interesting local activities and community involvement,
and more
good times with good friends.
Happy New Year
to you and your family. All the best in 2011.
Judy and Hughes
