We hope the year has been as much fun for you as it has for us. This year has been a busy one for us - graduations, seminars, travel and new settings.

Catherine graduated from 8th grade and has transitioned well into high school. In the spring, as part of her social studies class, Catherine participated in Law Day. For one day, she was the Assistant Superintendent of Mount Laurel Schools. During the summer Catherine was on the local Great Whites swim team. This fall, Catherine played field hockey on the Lenape freshman team. Catherine and I spent some quality time together as we traveled to see relatives in Cleveland and do some tourist things in Niagara Falls. One high point of the Niagara trip for Catherine was staying in a hotel room on the 21st floor, overlooking the falls.

David spent the spring and summer semesters working full time as part of his engineering co-op program. He worked at a local Blacksburg firm started by one of his professors. David and fiancée Paula, came up to Matthew's graduation in Ithaca at the end of May. They also made the trip back to Mount Laurel for a week near the end of June which included Father's Day, Sonia's mom's birthday, Matthew's birthday, Catherine's graduation, David's birthday, and a joint graduation party for Matthew and Catherine. This fall, David is attending classes. He will be working full time again in the spring as part of the co-op program. Paula will be receiving her Master's degree in Health Promotion this month and has already been accepted into the doctoral program.

Matthew graduated from Cornell, getting his BS degree in Mechanical Engineering. It was a proud day for all of us! During the spring, Matthew took time from his regular schedule to interview several perspective companies for employment opportunities. He settled on a job with Lockheed Martin in King of Prussia. There was spring break, which for Mathew was spent on a live aboard scuba diving cruise to the Bahamas. The month after graduation was a busy time for Matthew, finding an apartment, moving his stuff from Ithaca, and getting some essential furniture for his new place. Matthew is living in Audubon, PA which is about 45 minutes from us - depending on traffic. Matthew is enjoying the benefits of a full time job. He has traded in his 'rice burner' for a much newer Nissan Maxima. Matthew has also enrolled in a Master's program, but still finds time for biking and soon, snowboarding.

Sonia has had the busiest year of any of us! She continues burning a lot of 'midnight+' oil, taking care of planning lessons, writing lesson plans and correcting papers for her classes. This spring she was making arrangements for lodging for Matthew's graduation, helping Matthew with apartment and furniture shopping, and planning and preparing food for the 'week in June' - which also happened to be her last week of classes with grades due, etc. Then after a very short rest, it was off to Princeton University for a two week workshop of seminars and labs on DNA science and techniques. Next it was off to California (Yosemite National Park) for a rendezvous with her sister Marisa. After three days in California, the sisters headed for Hawaii where they spent two weeks touring four of the islands. Discretion prohibits me from any mention of the amount of luggage on this trip! This fall, Sonia is teaching biology and life science (last school year it was earth science and life science).

Michael continues to spend large amounts of time in front of a computer screen both at work and at home. On the home front, Michael has combined his interest in training with the web. He gave several presentations on "How to use the Web" at a local K-8 teacher in-service. He authored an "Internet Basics" distance learning course and participated as a teaching assistant in several distance learning courses. In June, Michael took a weekend trip to Miami Beach to chair a professional certification evaluation panel. He retained his 'mover' license by helping Matthew move all his stuff from Ithaca.

Michael, Sonia, Matthew, David, Catherine, and Callie

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