Our Christmas Card for 2007

Scroll down for more pix and our letter

By Idyllic, we refer to our lovely home,  peaceful vista, and superb weather  (mostly) - creating a mood of absolute contentment.  Our fruit harvests have been bountiful (mostly), the kids have grown a year older and still talk to each other (sometimes),  and this year the hurricanes have given us a complete miss (whew)!!

     Of course our annual letter begins with the latest on the raising of our two lovelies, Samantha and Jennifer, who are now 11 and have started Middle School.   They now attend a “Fundamental”  Middle School which requires continuous direct parental involvement in all aspects of school life - including mandatory attendance at monthly PTA meetings.  It is also requires that a parent sign all daily homework papers, the daily agenda book, and all returned test papers.  This of course necessitates that the parents have a working knowledge about the subjects the homework is all about  (I seem to remember  having difficulty with long division in 6th grade).  We are currently involved in their science project experiments.  Jenni did hers on measuring the changes to the viscosity of oil at different temperatures.  Sammi did one measuring the effects on the freezing point of water by adding salt.  This is 6th Grade?????

Our mini orchard continues to flourish, but in March this year we  had a tremendous windstorm which  decimated our mango tree – blowing off all young fruit and blossoms – so no 2 pound mangos this year.  Our pink grapefruit and tangerine trees will also have greatly reduced crops.   Our avocado tree however ,  finally forgave us for a major trimming several years ago and we again have a few fruit.  Pen makes a killer Guacamole dip!!  Our banana trees are delivering big bunches of fat bananas all year round- and we can’t eat them fast enough!  We also had our first crop of key limes this year. Pen recently found she was growing thousand of frogs in our bird baths (we even found them in our swimming pool).  In good Thai tradition of not killing animals- she elected  to repatriate the tiny frogs to a nearby pond (the first time anyway)!

In June we went on a 2000 mile road trip vacation - driving north to Virginia, Long Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and back through NYC.  We had intended limiting our road miles by taking the AMTRAK car train to Washington DC from Orlando - but the train was cancelled...so we set off on I-95 North- along with the first tropical storm of the season which just happened to be going our way!

In Richmond we attended the annual meeting of the "Cornet Conspiracy"- a loose amalgam of brass instrument collectors; instrument restorers; musicians; educators; and curators. These meetings involve playing US Civil War brass band music on authentic period instruments; bartering or trading horns,  jazz sessions and mostly  hanging out talking about horns and music – usually over a suitably lubricated meal!

We then drove to Huntington, Long Island NY where the girls were shown around the town where Daddy grew up.   We later took a car ferry from  Montauk to the seaport of Mystic Connecticut and then on to Massachusetts to visit Phil’s instrument repairman.  The kids had a great time having walks in the countryside and learning to drive a tractor -mower. 

On the return trip we spent two days in NYC courtesy of Phil’s sister’s posh timeshare apartment. A highlight was our visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a special behind-the-scene tour of the musical instrument collection by the curator.  Sammi and Jenni were  amazed they were allowed to play a Bartolomeo Christofori Piano c.1740.  Phil also had a hands-on try of some of the rare and old brass horns. In the photo he is playing a superbly engraved Conn double bell euphonium c. 1935 (with 9 naked ladies depicted!).We visited the Top Of The Rock (Rockefeller Center), Times Square, F.A.O. Schwartz's toy emporium and Madam Toussauds Wax Museum. 

Phil continues to refine his brass instrument collection and this year acquired some rare 19th century horns and a very unusual sarrusophone - a huge metal beast which can emulate the sounds of a blue whales mating! We still need to thin the collection to display all the horns properly.  We still receive the occasional enquiry about our horns or carpets and sell or trade a horn or rug  from time to time!

St Pete Beach Brass quartet in our basement. His capabilities as a tubist are probably better now than when he was a student!  Sammi and Jenni have joined the school band with  Sammi playing Clarinet and Jenni on the Cornet.  We play trios with Dad on tuba.  They were really excited to play their first school band concert to a packed house!  They also continue their piano lessons and won 1st prize at this year’s recital.  Oh yes,  just in case you were wondering,  Phil is playing an electric “Stick Bass” on the cover.   His brass Tuba is still his instrument of choice! And yes, he is wearing his tux (for the very first time!).