Sharon and Sandy’s FriendsnFamily 2004 Newsletter

Greetings FriendsnFamily. We hope this letter finds you and your family in good health. We are online freaks so this years Christmas card as in the past will be shared through our friendsnfamily.com website.

We want to share with you a few highlights of our eventful 2004. We’ll walk you quickly through this year with brief summaries . More detailed pictures are available if you click on any of these words (hyperlinks) that are underlined.

On the career front we both telecommute and work from our 423 Marigold home office and travel to our respective prospects and customers. Everyday we appreciate our commute which is one flight of stairs for Sandy and two flights for Sharon. Life is good when our toughest duty in the morning is to not spill the coffee on the way to work! Sharon continues to enjoy her Business Development position at Kimball Office where she furnishes corporate offices in Orange County and the Inland Empire. Sandy works as the Director of Channel Sales for Dorado Corporation which offers mission critical, on demand solutions for home lending. Sandy utilizes his skills with First American Corporation fostering their partnership with Dorado.

We were blessed with the opportunity to travel this year and started with a wonderful weekend in Heavenly Valley skiing with John Allen and staying with an old friend of Patsy’s, Patty Olson.

Seems like in America, with hectic job schedules, a week is a long vacation. Fortunately, we had two week long trips this year. The first was a trip to –>Ligonier, PA to visit Lanny, Annie and family. We enjoyed fun on the Dunollie Farm and spent time rafting, biking and hiking. Brad and Polly joined us for the usual festivities at Rolling Rock Club. We then traveled to Sharon’s home town near Bennington, Vermont and visited with Olavi and Sue Wirkki. We canoed, played golf and bonded with Sharon’s wonderful family.

In the early summer we traveled to Puerta Vallarta with many old friends to celebrate David Obbage’s birthday. David hosted us at a large hillside Mexican villa with breathtaking views in the southern part of the city. Laughing out loud, catching up on old times, having a few margaritas and our usual all sports all the time itinerary filled the days quickly. Sharon, Mark Burns and Sandy explored the tree tops during a Canopy Tour. Fortunately for all, the tequila tour and tasting was after the sliding on the cable adventure.

We then traveled to Cabo San Lucas for the Greg Stanton and Theresa Fatino extravaganza wedding at Palmilla. Our timely weekend getaways this year included trips t Pala Mesa over Labor Day, the wine country in Napa Valley, St. Malo, Mammoth and Palm Desert.

Sandy indulged in his annual boys trips including a surf trip to Costa Azul (seen to the right with friends Jeff Morgan and Art De La Parra), the Annual Judge Smails Memorial Invitational golf tournament in Lake Tahoe ; Bajamar for the Ryder Cup; and the pinnacle of tennis called the Vineyard Classic conducted in 2004 at the lovely Doral in Miami, FL.

While Sandy played with the boys, Sharon by no means stayed at home knitting. Sharon usually entertained friends at Marigold, or dined at her favorite spots in Laguna. Sharon cooks like the pros, violently shakes famous Marigold Martinis, introduces new friends and throws a fabulous party. We all enjoy!

For Thanksgiving, we housed Sandy’s brotherTony, Sandra, Jack and Henry Lyon. The entire Chisholm Clan gathered at Patsy and Bob’s and feasted on turkey and relished in tradition including JD Soda Tall’s and the always entertaining “Grab Bag”.

We experienced the loss of Sandy’s father, Allan MacDougall, in October. Allan lived a dynamic and energetic life filled with love for his family, athletics and zest for learning. We will remember him fondly.