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Happy Holidays and Best
Wishes for the New Year!
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Mountain Girl
June 1,1997 - July 24,2003
Mountain Girl had two years of quality life after being diagnosed with a high-grade sarcoma in her butt. She was a real trouper, bouncing back from every treatment with zest. She lost her leg, part of her pelvis, and her tail, yet she was still full of the joy of life. At the very end she suddenly crashed. We had arrived in Long Beach for the National Bridge tournament when she got much worse. The vet there prescribed pain killers and seemed to think there wasn't much to be done. So we left the tournament and headed back to CSU in Colorado, where we had been treating her, thinking that if anyone could save her they could. She died a few hours before we got there. The preliminary autopsy showed that the cancer had spread everywhere.
- We bought a new, larger motor home with a slide-out and took it to California in July.
This was to be our last trip with Mountain Girl.
We visited Big Sur and spent the night by the side of the road (legal on Highway 1)
when Steve's favorite campground was full.
- We next stopped at the Hearst Castle, San Simeon so that Kitty could take the garden tour (Steve stayed in the motor home with the dogs preferring to take a nap). Click on either picture to get pages of more photos.
- We also visited with Dave Spahn and Linda Reed in La Jolla, where she lives and Steve once lived. A very beautiful place indeed.
- Steve has started working one day a week at the local animal shelter.
- Kitty took the Master Gardener training and completed the volunteer work (garden hotline, 4H presentations, and home visits to local gardeners), so she is now a Master Gardener.
- Kitty's son Paul has been promoted to Vice President at Bear Sterns and got a handsome Christmas bonus.
- Kitty's brother Shipley has started a great new job as vice president of campaign marketing for Lincoln Financial Group, so his family will be moving to Philadelphia. His son Chase is going to Reed College in Portland next year.
- Kitty's parents have moved again, to a condo in a retirement community in Acton, Massachusetts. Now her mother can smoke in her home and they have more privacy. The cafeteria and other services can be paid for when used, a much better arrangement.
- Kitty's web design freelancing is going well, so the Bridge CD is on the back burner. Open Sky Web Design is her business web site. Most of her work is doing programming for other web designers and setting up online Bridge Clubs, for which she has created an online pair summary feature.
- The Bridge in the Schools program is struggling a bit this year with smaller class sizes. However the kids we have are terrific.
- The ACBL hired Kitty to complete her teacher's manual for school children, which combines Minibridge and the Club series. Kitty gave a presentation at the New Orleans Nationals about the program and will do that again at the Spring Nationals in Reno.
- Felix Moore and Kitty again ran a kid's summer camp at the Duke City Bridge Club. A few of our kids even play at the club occasionally with their grandparents.
- We won over 600 masterpoints this year, going to regionals in San Diego, Tucson, Amarillo, and Denver
- Steve will win Silver Life Master of the year in Albuquerque again this year, and Kitty will win the local Diamond Life Master title for the first time.
- We went to the Nationals in New Orleans and won a lot of points (about 70) despite not winning a single event and making only one National finals (we finished 46th). Kitty loved the food in New Orleans but Steve didn't; his dislike was furthered by the Case of the Three Cheese Ravioli Appetizer at Emeril's – little did he suspect that $10 was buying him three cheese ravioli, not a serving of ravioli made with three cheeses – and by having his iced tea served by being poured onto his shirt.
- In May, Kitty went to NYC for her 35th High School Reunion. Clelia hosted a lovely dinner party. Click on the picture of Kitty and high school best friend, Michelle Gerber Klein, above for more Brearley reunion pictures.
Seb and Paul 
Herbert, Nancy, and Kitty |
FAMILY VISITS
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