So to bring us up-to-date....here goes. When we returned to the states and a little later in 2014 Alison completed her college years with a Degree in film from Hunter College in New York City and has elected to stay in New York for now. She is a Producer for Sound Lounge, a company who works with movies and videos and commercials taking care to produce the highest quality sound. She's been at Sound Lounge a year now and continues loving the "City Life"! She has a boyfriend and a new roommate! I dream of the time she finds her way back to the West Coast!
Upon her graduation she came home as she usually does for Christmas and we all had a beautiful holiday then headed to Maui on December 30 taking Jillian's then boyfriend, Liam, with us also. We love Maui. It's so beautiful there. We spent 3 nights in the south part of the island and again, back up to Kaanapali for the next 7 days. Heaven!! That trip completed our 2014 and began 2015 for us. A relaxing way to start a new year.
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| Natalie, Alison, Gordon and me first night arrival into Maui! |
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| Alison, Jillian and Liam at Cheeseburger in Paradise on our way to the Maui Ocean Club. |
So let me catch you up a bit on the other girls:
Jillian finished her film this past year and successfully completed the film festival circuit winning many nice awards and lots of kudos for her film Trichster. She had been working in town, living at home and saving money but she was offered a job in Santa Monica early in the year which she could not turn down and in early March moved there and is still happily ensconced living and working in beautiful Santa Monica as a film/video/commercial editor. She has just recently had her film published on DVD and is available for purchase at Trichster.com!
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| The lovely Santa Monica Pier! |
Natalie finished school FINALLY in May of 2015. The animation program at San Jose State University is funded by Dreamworks and was a particularly challenging program AND on top of that she had to complete regular coursework through San Jose which is a heavily impacted school. Needless to say, some classes were hard to come by and other times her curriculum changed causing her to take additional classes. She even did some things that the staff advised against, like taking 3 art classes in one semester, in order to graduate sooner than her class. Even so, it took her 6 years to complete her Fine Arts Degree. Natalie is such a talented artist and this year she moved down to Santa Monica and she and Jillian are renting a lovely and huge townhouse style apartment (with their 2 cats!) about a mile from the beach. Natalie is pursuing her career as a Concept Artist in the commercial/movie world!
When Natalie graduated and as promised, we took her to Scotland in the fall for a trip I will tell about but let me go back to earlier in the year.
Heartbreaking news happened the end of January as my sister Sandy's longtime love, Terry, took his life. Terry had been struggling with mental health issues all his life and had successfully been able to control bipolar disorder using medication. But something happened in September 2014 that triggered some sort of breakdown that the doctors apparently couldn't figure out chemically. Try as she might, Sandy was unable to help Terry through fighting his demons and her worst fears came true on a Friday in January.
Needless to say our entire family was shocked beyond belief and Sandy has been reeling since though a year has passed and she is doing much better. I flew back in early February to spend a couple of weeks with her and help her get through the memorial service etc. I can't even express how deeply Terry was loved. He was the nicest person. He would do anything for anybody without them having to ask. He was an exemplary human being. Funny, kind, warm and he is so missed by everyone who knew him. His memorial service was literally standing room only. May he rest in peace.
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| Terry in red, my brother Paul and his wife Marcia and Sandy on a trip to California in Napa. |
The following month, Sandy came out to California to get away for a bit and be with me for my 60th birthday. While here on the 14th of March we learned that our mother passed away. That's both parents and Terry within a year and a half. Mother had been very frail and frankly we all were surprised she lived as long as she did. Fortunately all us girls with Jillian had gone up to see her at the nursing home she lived in in Pennsylvania while I was there in February. She was 93. Her ashes have been placed with her sister's in Falls Church, Virginia.
Sandy had always wanted to go to Santa Barbara so during her trip here we managed 4 days away going to Santa Barbara and staying on the beach (fabulous!) and then going down and spending one night in Santa Monica to see Jillian.
Jillian's film premiered at the Soho Film Festival in NYC in May 2015 so Gordon and I flew back for that and Sandy, cousin Susan and Maggie, a good friend of Sandy's came up to the city for the screening and partying. We were only there for a few days but had a wonderful time
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| The creator, director and editor of Trichster, Jillian at her premiere! |
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| The whole production team of women. |
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| Alison, who also helped with Trichster on photography and sound. |
We spent Natalie's birthday in April in Santa Monica and went to the Getty Museum and again I went back for Jillian's birthday in August. We LOVE it there!
So the year of 2015 was sad with the passing of two special people. I felt very sad last year and not much like my usual self. Gordon and I and with the girls spent a lot of time alone and together with just family. But as we headed to Fall and our impending Scotland trip we began to feel better and to look forward to spending time with our family in Europe.
The rest of the year was uneventful. Alison is never able to come home for Thanksgiving and because Jillian was employed we packed up Thanksgiving and took it to her cute apartment down south. All the girls and cats were with us here for Christmas and we had a wonderful time. We did not go to Maui for Christmas this year but instead spent a relaxing end of the year quietly sipping wine, watching movies and reminiscing with our favorite people in the world!
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| The Thanksgiving table at Jillian's with her presiding over and her usual funny faces! |
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