2011 was difficult year for us

Kitty's accident last December turned out to be quite serious because of the head trauma and resulting brain damage. She had a brain bleed and spent three days in the ICU then two more days in the hospital. Her doctors told her she was lucky to be alive.

Kitty spent most of the beginning of the year doing various therapies to help her recover. She had difficulty with walking, memory, fatigue, and word retrieval. This impacted both her work and her bridge. Many memories from 2010 are just gone.

Celebrations

Kitty's nephew Geddes got married to his beloved Jill (click for the extensive NY Times write up!) at the end of March in Salt Lake City and the celebration was delightful and full of special touches: a photo booth, a creative DJ, Shipley's genealogy presentation, and much dancing! Even Steve had fun and danced; the picture to the left is evidence of this.

We went to Aunt Trudi's 90th birthday party in Rochester in August. Both her granddaughters had babies this year. Laura and Kent had a little girl, Lyla Rose. Lindsay and David had a little boy, Jonah. At the gathering, Kitty presented each of them with a baby blanket she had crocheted for them.

Travels

Our first big trip of the year was in April to Mesa, Arizona followed by San Diego, California. These two bridge tournaments were two weeks apart so we experimented with snow-birding locations. Several days in a seniors only RV camp in Mesa pleased Kitty but Steve hated it. We did play some terrible tennis. Onward to San Diego, which we always love. The longer visit was so delightful that we decided to come back for the winter: good friends, good bridge clubs, good weather, and an RV park right on Mission Bay. We returned to San Diego after the Palm Springs regional this December and are there until the end of February.

On the way back our RV almost didn't have enough power to climb up Eisenhower pass on I-70 in Colorado. We were doing about 5 mph when we finally made it over and this was the last straw. In May we traded in our big old RV for a smaller one, a class C, with a better layout, the same engine for much less weight, so more power, and much easier to drive.

Although Kitty's bridge was still poor, we went to the Summer Bridge Nationals in July in Toronto because we won the right to represent our district in the Grand National Teams. So this trip was combined with Aunt Trudi's 90th birthday party in Rochester and visits to friends Dave in Iowa, Grace in the Catskills, the Blooms, and Steve's cousin Bernie and his wife, Trish. Nice to have two summers in a row in New York State!

In October we went to a wonderful tournament in Scottsdale, visiting Albuquerque on the way, but then we foolishly came back to Fort Collins. When a freak snowstorm demolished the yard and downed branches all over, Steve asked Kitty why they were not in San Diego already! A few weeks later we left for the winter, stopping in Salt Lake City to see Kitty's Dad as well as her brother and family's new home. The next stop was the Fall Bridge Nationals in Seattle.

After the Nationals, we visited Kitty's cousin Marty and her partner Johnny in Cottage Grove, Oregon (just South of Eugene) and then drove the coast down to San Francisco where we had dinner with Kitty's family: nephew Geddes and his wife Jill, nephew Chase Munson and his girlfriend Tay, and cousin Lee Munson. We also visited with the Woolseys and Karen McCallum, all of whom joined us at the Palm Springs Regional a few days later.

  Bridge

Early in Kitty's recovery she counted a few suits to 14 cards. Needless to say this impacted her bridge game severely. Several disappointing regionals early in the year convinced Steve to skip the Spring Bridge Nationals. Slowly her game improved at teams but matchpoints is still too tiring for her, even now in December she fades as the session progresses.

Highlights were winning the District Grand National district teams (already mentioned but since it was the only big success we have to say it once more) again at the Denver regional, Kitty playing a two-way club system (mental therapy) with son Paul at the Summer Nationals, and Steve and Kitty cleaning up at the Oklahoma City regional with their friends the Peters and the Kirkhams. We were glad to be with Jim at one of his last regionals.

We played a few more tournaments than usual this year (therapy for Kitty) and Steve often played with other partners so that Kitty could rest. Steve has won over 1000 points for the year for the first time in his career! He played almost every day in the clubs here in San Diego this last week of the year in order to go over. Thank you Rick and Lynne for your help! Steve will also make Grand Life Master in about July of next year.

Our job as the editors of the district newsletter seems to be going well; we have received many compliments on our columns which are also published online at http://www.d17acbl.org/index.php?page=columns

We had no national successes to report this year. We were second going into the final session of the Senior Mixed Pairs in Seattle but Kitty faded a bit as usual and we had some bad luck to end up sixteenth.

Kitty moved her free bridge materials to a new site - bridgeteaching.com

Open Sky Web Design

After losing a few of her newest clients in January, Kitty appealed to every designer who had ever worked with her to pitch in and help. So for several months, much of the work was outsourced to them. Kitty's established clients were very patient, thank goodness. Fortunately Kitty's share of the work for the new ACBL home page was already complete and her designer was able to finish this on time.

Kitty's current designer and current intern both did wonderful work for the new District 17 (shown above left next to "Bridge" heading) and the Phoenix unit web site (shown to the left). These also were delivered on time and the feedback has been extremely positive. The Phoenix site includes a private membership directory and online pair summaries after tournaments, which involved some programming work by Kitty.

Even after most of her therapies were completed, fatigue was a major issue for Kitty for getting work done. Also loss of some lateral thinking abilities affected work and bridge.

Genealogy

Kitty recently found an amazing genealogy site - geni.com - which is set up to allow easy collaboration with the research of others in order to build a world family tree. Membership is free but you need a pro membership to merge profiles there, which Steve was told he gave Kitty for Christmas. Kitty is having a wonderful time adding ancestors and merging them with existing ancestors already listed there. Would you have guessed that the Munsons are descended from Attila the Hun, King Solomon, Cleopatra, Charlemagne, Alfred the Great, King Harald the fine-haired, and several Roman emperors according to the data there? Details to be posted at http://kittymunson.com/Munson/ soon!

Here is a link to Anna Lee's family tree at geni:
http://www.geni.com/family-tree/index/6000000014788247611

Here is is a link to Lawrence Josiah Munson's family tree at geni:
http://www.geni.com/family-tree/index/6000000014788247611

Here is is a link to the Thannhauser family tree at geni:
http://www.geni.com/family-tree/index/6000000014797801079

A third cousin, Kjell Stubberud, a retired airline pilot who lives in Drammen, Norway, emailed Kitty with a different view of Stubby, Kitty's great-grandfather H. H. Lee's second wife and Kjell's great-aunt. Stubby (Anne Stubberud) was actually the niece of H. H. Lee's first wife, Maren Wold. Kjell's words have been added to our family site here: http://kittymunson.com/Munson/DaddabyAlex.htm#stubby

Another newly found third cousin on H H Lee's side, Craig Stevenson, a veterinarian in Illinois, has sent Kitty letters that H.H.Lee wrote to his sister Anna, plus pictures, and information about Craig's branch of the family who have a reunion in Illinois every year at the end of July. Any Lee family relatives are welcome to attend.