The New Year 2011

Greetings for the New Year 2011!

For those of you tuning in to our Raff Update blog for the first time because you saw the link on our holiday card, a little history.

We started this blog site back in June 2009 when Gil was diagnosed with leukemia. It was the perfect way to give information about his condition -- and thank God -- his subsequent recovery during and after his successful bone marrow transplant in October 2009.

Since then, we try to update the site twice a month. I'm going to try to provide updates on the 1st and 15th of each month so there will be a reason for you to check back here to learn what the Raffs are up to.

It will be a year for a wedding, and a college graduation and some travel for business and pleasure.

The photo above shows Evan and Marika walking our two dogs, Jamie and Willow, on our local Milford Bike Trail a few days after Christmas. It was a cold, windy day and we came upon only one other person on the trail.

We had a house filled with family over the recent holidays. My mom (from Kentucky) and my brother (now living in Rochester, NY) were here. Adam (without Laura who was still working in LA), Evan and Marika were all here.

Slowly over the past week we've made multiple trips to the airport to get everyone back to their homes. We're down to only Marika at home now. And she leaves for Santa Barbara this Sunday to start the Winter Quarter of her senior year. (Spring Quarter will be her last academic quarter as a college student.)

Then it will be back to our "nuclear family" -- Gil, me, Jamie and Willow.

We're planning a trip to North Carolina in early January attending a 2-day retreat/workshop which will be of the meditational variety. We've never done this before. Don't know exactly what to expect except we're supposed to bring our yoga mats and pillows! Marika teases us and taunts that we're headed to an ashram! (Will let you know what it was all about in my next blog entry.)

Oh, and for those of you who are new to our site, I usually close with a haiku:

Holidays over

Hate waiting another year ...

To do it again.