Hey folks. Without going into major details… Please keep my Auntie Susie in your prayers.

ppp|

Susie and Rebecca

|ppp

Susie, we’re praying for a quick recovery from your surprise surgery! We love you!

fff|ppp||ppp|fff

Since Becky and I are going to be visiting my family in Pennsylvania for Christmas, we did Christmas with Becky’s family this weekend.

Saturday morning we [exchanged gifts](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2005/lowe_christmas_morning/) with Ken, Dianne, and [Corey](http://corey.prwdot.org/). We got some nice stuff, including [Marriott](http://www.marriott.com/) gift cards so that we can have a weekend getaway before the baby arrives. We gave some nice stuff too, including a pair of magnetic mechanic’s gloves to Ken, some knitted wrist warmers for Dianne, and a [book safe](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2005/lowe_christmas_morning/P1060183.JPG.html) for Corey.

Saturday afternoon we had Christmas lunch with the Lowe family ([pictures available with family login](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2005/lowe_christmas_lunch/)). It was good to see everybody, and to have a chance to play with the twins. They’re getting quite talkative and inquisitive… it makes me look forward even more to having kids of our own. 🙂

On Sunday, we saw some of the Quitadamo family at Kevin and Susie’s Narnia Brunch ([pictures available with family login](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2005/narnia_brunch/)). It was quite a busy party, with lots of kids, ice skating, hockey, and sledding outside, Turkish Delight and Narnia memorabilia inside, and even an appearance by Santa!

Christmas Part 2 will be this weekend, when we will be driving down to [Schuylkill Haven, PA](http://www.schuylkillhaven.org/) to spend time with my mom’s side of the family. Alas, it is only for a few days, but that’s all part of the changing traditions of a [20something Christmas](http://prwdot.org/archives/2005/12/adult_christmas.html).

All is well here in Mount Vernon, OH. We have been enjoying the past few days, spending time with Mom, Dad, Kirsten and Mark. Our trip was very smooth, and we actually made the drive from Charlton, MA to Mount Vernon, OH in just 12 hours. Saturday night, we had a birthday party for me and Dad. On Sunday, we visited Mark and Kirsten’s [church](http://www.firstalliancemansfield.org/), at which Mark is the Youth Pastor. Today, Becky and I visited the [Airstream](http://www.airstream.com/) headquarters in Jackson Center, OH, and took their factory tour. Very cool. Tonight we had dinner with the fam and then made some “music videos”. If you’re *really* lucky, we might put those online. All in all, it has been great to be back in Mount Vernon, and to get re-acquainted with the town I grew up in.

On Tuesday, Becky and I are leaving for a quick trip to Saint Louis, and on Wednesday we’ll be headed up to Chicago for a few days. We’ll be back in Mount Vernon Saturday evening, and early Sunday morning we’ll be headed back up to Beverly.

We might upload some photos while in Saint Louis, if the hotel has a decent internet connection. It’s still dialup here at home, so uploading would take far too long. Otherwise, we’ll definitely have all of the photos online at some point during the week after we get back to Beverly.

fff|ppp|

Corey

|ppp|fff

CONGRATULATIONS to my brother ***Corey|http://corey.prwdot.org*** for finishing 57th out of 600 in the annual ***Mount Washington Bicycle Hill Climb|http://www.mtwashingtonbicyclehillclimb.org/hillclimb/index.cfm*** yesterday.

The Official Race Results can be found ***here|http://www.mtwashingtonbicyclehillclimb.org/hillclimb/results_05/index.cfm***.

For those of you (myself included) who would never dream of riding the 8 mile long road up the highest mountain in New England even once…Consider this: the photo to the right was taken last month during Corey’s PRACTICE RIDE. So now he’s done it twice! Pics from yesterday should be available soon. I’ll keep you posted.

Between Becky and me, there are two siblings, four parents, five grandparents, 25 aunts and uncles and 14 adult cousins. That’s 50 adult people. Most of these family members have a computer at work, school, or home, and most of them have Internet connections.

According to a recent* ***Pew Internet|http://www.pewinternet.org/*** ***phone survey|http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/113/report_display.asp***, 13% of adult internet users said that they maintained their own personal websites. 13% of 50 is 6.5 people… so one might conclude that in a family with 50 adults, you would expect to have at least six people with a website. Well, Becky and I have one, so that’s two, and Corey ***has one|http://corey.prwdot.org/***, so that’s three… but that still leaves us with three more people who ought to have a website of some sort. (Note: Even if we were to remove five people from our sample because, for whatever reason, they weren’t able to use the Internet, that would still leave at least 5 people who ought to have a personal website.)

Now, I know that many of our family members read this blog, so I’ll put the question to you:

qqq|

Dear Woods, Keefers, Lowes, and Quitadamos,

Where are your websites? Do any of you have personal websites that we don’t know about? If you do, please leave us a comment so that we can check them out! If you don’t, and are interesting in setting up a website, leave us a comment and we will help get you started!

Sincerely,

Peter and Rebecca Wood

|qqq

* Actually, it’s two years old. So if anything, I would think that the percentage would have increased since then…

fff|ggg|vineyard_20050712/P1030637|Mom and Dad in Edgartown|ggg|fff

My parents have just left the North Shore to head back to Ohio. We enjoyed the time we got to spend with them this week…

On Monday night when they arrived, we went out to ***The 99|http://www.99restaurants.com/*** for dinner and then came home to do our Russia slideshow for my parents. That slideshow takes a while, and we didn’t get through the whole thing… but they really liked seeing the photos up on the big TV screen and hearing our commentary. We always enjoy giving the slideshow, so if you’re in the Boston area and you haven’t seen it yet, just let us know and we can give you the full narrated slideshow experience! 🙂

On Tuesday, we took a trip to Martha’s Vineyard. We drove my parents around on a tour of the island, went to ***Polly Hill Arboretum|http://www.pollyhillarboretum.org/***, ate lunch at Espresso Love Cafe (note: I found the website of the company that designed their website, but couldn’t find any links to the actual E.L. website itself!), and then relaxed back in Oak Bluffs. We went out to dinner at Slice of Life, which is run by the same folks who run ***The Sweet Life|http://www.sweetlifemv.com/***. (I had perhaps the best burger and fries that I’ve ever tasted in my life… I think that restaurant will merit its own entry.) We had a full and fun day exploring the Vineyard. You can see our photos ***here|http://gallery.prwdot.org/vineyard_20050712***.

Last night we had dinner at ***Acapulco’s|http://www.acapulcos.net/home.htm*** in Beverly, then went over to their hotel to swim at the hotel pool and look at the rest of our ***photos from Russia|http://gallery.prwdot.org/russia***.

All in all we had a wonderful time getting to see them and catch up on things, and we are looking forward to seeing them again later this year!

I am pleased to report that my parents are up in New England, and any minute now they will be coming by for a visit! Becky and I are taking off from work tomorrow so that we can all go on a trip to Martha’s Vineyard. We’re looking forward to it, as we rarely get a chance to see my side of the family.

Anyone who has greetings to send Stan and Ellie while they are here may do so on this blog entry!

Easter weekend saw Becky and I traveling separately, but ultimately ending up in the same place.

Becky left during the day on Friday to visit Gramma Q, and then headed out to Townsend for the night. I stayed at home and had some bachelor time, in which I attempted to write a ***PHP|http://www.php.net/*** ***flickr|http://www.flickr.com/*** photo uploader as an excercise. I never quite got it working, but it was certainly an educational experience. Thus far nobody on the flickr developers’ mailing list can figure out why it’s not working. If anyone wants to take a look, the source is available ***here|http://prwdot.org/flickr_upload.phps***.

On Saturday, I took the train in to Boston and did a bit of ***photography|http://gallery.prwdot.org/boston_20050326?page=1***. Primarily I took photos in and around the ***Boston Public Library|http://www.bpl.org/*** – a beautiful, old building in Copley Square. I also had lunch at ***Taco Bell|http://www.tacobell.com/*** with my cousin Mark, and got to check out the ***iZotope|http://www.izotope.com/*** offices in Kendall Square. Very cool. In the afternoon, I took a train from Boston out to Ayer (about a one-hour ride). Ken picked me up there (it’s 15-20 minutes from there to Townsend) and we headed to the Lowe house.

The rest of the weekend I spent with the Lowes. We had dinner Saturday night at Panda Wok in Townsend, and on Sunday we went to Easter services at Townsend Congregational, and then had a delicious Easter dinner at the Lowe house, prepared by Dianne. Becky and I left late in the afternoon, but not before we discovered that the horn on her Golf wasn’t working – a sure-fire way to fail the state inspection that she has to get this week. I had the idea to salvage the horn from the old VW Cabriolet sitting in their lot, and Ken did the actual grunt work of hooking up the wires and, er, bungee-ing the assembly into place. This is just a temporary fix until we can scavenge an actual replacement Golf horn. Thank goodness for the stockpile of old car stuff at the Lowes’!

Now it’s yet another busy week at work, and just four weeks to go until our Russia departure date! Our visa applications are still at the Russian Consulate – they take “no less than 8-10 business days to process”. Since the Consulate received them on Friday the 18th, that means the earliest possible date they would send them out is this Wednesday the 30th – if everything goes at top speed. I’m guessing we’ll probably get them back by the middle of next week, but we’ll see.

It’s been a while since we’ve had any birthdays! Today will make up for it as we celebrate THREE! (we’ll go in age order!)

My Papa Quitadamo is celebrating his 80th Birthday today. The fam will all get together on Sunday to party hearty!

ppp||ppp

And my beloved twin cousins are turning two! Can you believe it?

ppp||ppp

Yesterday while watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV, my Mom told me this story.

“You know, Bec, we spent your first Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa Lowe’s house. The boys (Dad, Grandpa, and the Uncles: Dave, Steve, Pete and Tom) had gone to the high school football game and Grandma was in the kitchen. You and I were watching the Parade in the other room. At the end of the parade, Santa came rolling into Hearald Square. As his float came to a stop he stood up to wave to the crowds. As he did, his red pants fell down around his ankles.” 🙂

Poor Santa!