Dear Friends and Family,

           Happy New Year!  2006 was a year of increase for us.  We have a new granddaughter!  River Nova Wolaver was born to Matt and Crystal on November 13, so she’s still a wee thing.  She’s just beautiful and was born with lots of dark hair.  She’s a very good baby, but at this point is trying real hard to get her days and nights straight, and her parents are rooting for her.  This year we celebrated Christmas at Matt and Crystal’s home with Sarah and her family, so we had a couple days with River.  Matt and Crystal have an older home that was joined in years past to the barn.  The barn space has been converted to a really beautiful living space, and that’s where they had the 12-foot Christmas tree!  There’s a woodstove in the barn so it’s a great place to entertain.  Their house is wonderful—the charm of the old with the funky addition of the rustic barn space.  They’ve worked on a number of projects around the house since they moved in about a year ago, and have made some great improvements.   
          Sarah’s children, Alex and Addyson, are happy to have a cousin, but Alex wonders why River doesn’t do more, so he prefers to play with their cat, Yogi.  Addyson loves dolls, so she’s fascinated with River.  Alex is 3½ and goes to school three days a week, and Addyson (1½) has one day a week at a daycare.  Sarah and Steve have recently finished updating and expanding their home in order to put it on the market, and even with the slow market, it sold fairly quickly.  They’ll be moving mid-January to a house they’ve rented in Wellesley until Steve completes the addition on a home they own in Lyme, NH.  Busy people!  But remember, Steve is a contractor and real estate investor, so this is normal to them. Sarah has a horse!  It's a Hungarian warmblood that is beautiful, smart, graceful, and loves people.  The breed is rare and quite valuable.
         As for our activities, we are mainly working on our house (it runs in the family) and singing in our chorus.  We’ve just finished putting on “Christmas in the British Isles” with the Souhegan Valley Chorus.  The chorus grew this year by 50% and the larger size improved the sound tremendously.  This year we’ve done a lot of work on our property:  screened porch, new roof on the house, built a 10-foot-high bookcase in the den, put in a circular driveway, dug, planted and fenced a perennial garden, planted a few trees out front, and converted part of the barn into a garage.  Individually, I quilt whenever I can, and Dan is always doing something on the computer—processing pictures, arranging music or working for his consulting clients. He occasionally plays bass in a jazz quartet.
         We hope you’ve had a good year too and a very merry Christmas.  All our best for a happy 2007.