101 GIDEON LAWTON LANE • PORTSMOUTH, RI 02871
Christmas 1995

Dear Friends,

Greetings from Rhode Island! We have lots of snow on the ground, houses beautifully lit with exterior lights, and much activity. We hope you are well and happy and enjoying the holidays.

We look back on this year and see the children growing. Dan and Susan have both shot up, Dan at a little over 5’9” is now taller than Alli. Susan is looking a very grown up 12. Both now have contact lenses, and Susan just got braces (she’ll have them for two years) — signs of growning up.

Dan is doing very well in school and especially likes math. At 13, he now likes to stay up late, often past when his parents go to sleep (!), then tries to make up for it by sleeping until noon on weekends. Dan discovered soccer this year and played on his school varsity. He has gone on some ski trips with his school and finds that he loves to ski (though we aren’t sure yet how well he knows how...) He continues playing hockey with his Newport team.

Susan’s activities seem to focus outside of school (though we of course encourage her to focus on school too!). She likes to read and hang out with her friends. She is now doing a fair amount of baby-sitting for neighborhood families, continues with some of her dog care business, and seems to hang out (and babysit) at a neighbor’s house down on the water where they have four dogs, a miniature pony, and who knows what other animals. Susan is having a good year playing hockey on an all-girls team; Alli is one of the coaches. They’ll be off to Connecticut for a hockey tournament after Christmas.

Anson is a happy third-grader. He’s playing hockey and loves it. He’s also finishing his second year of violin lessons, and it is remarkable what he can play. He also is a good singer. He and Dan like to play games on the computer (the latest is golf, of all things!) He also now has a good friend in the neighborhood (Thomas MacBain at the bottom of the hill), so he is getting pretty independent, too.

Alli has a varied schedule split between driving kids (to school, to hockey, to friends), being organist and choir director at Church which she enjoys, doing a fair amount of volunteer fundraising (Brown University hockey, Providence Singers, Church), some of which she enjoys (but it’s getting a little too much now and needs to be cut back), and taking a course in financial planning. She’s finishing up the first course now and will have four more. Alli had a wonderful time touring Scotland, Wales and England with her mom last October. Alli’s father died last June (heart attack while he was out for a walk), so it has been an adjusting time for her mom. It was nice they could spend time together.

Mark is still working hard managing the News Bureau at Brown. His vice president is retiring the end of this month, so things could change a bit for him. But so far, no one knows what is going to happen (who is reporting to whom, organization changes). He is playing tennis once a week, but otherwise wishes he had more time to play or exercise. He has kept us in good supply of Stollen, a delicious German holiday bread with nuts and raisins and lemon sugar, plus good cookies that we’ve all helped on.

So that’s the general news from here. We wish you all the best, and it’s always good to hear from you.

With love and best wishes,

Alli and Mark
Dan, Susan, Anson