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We have added four new pictures from the Holidays. This is the largest
tree that we have had. Chris had to trim two feet from the top of the Noble
Fir to get it into the middle of the living room. |
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Christmas Day under the tree. Furball is on Emily. |
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The cats had lots of fun playing under the tree and with their treats.
Forte is peeking out from the presents.
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Many of our friends sent cards this year.
Andy, Jeremy, and Louis-Arthur made ginerbread houses.
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This is the Place of Miracles (Piazza di Miracoli) in Pisa. The leaning
tower of Pisa is in the background. The baptisery is in the front and the
duomo is in the middle. Please keep off the grass. This place had more tourists
than anywhere else that we went besides the St. Peters Basilica in Rome. |
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Chris went to the Litton Advanced Technology Symposium at the Portofino
Bay Hotel on the grounds of Universal Studios, Florida. The hotel was designed
to be a copy of the town of Portofino in Italy. This picture was made from
the photograph negative and placed on a CD by Ritz Camera. |
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So when we went to Italy, we had to visit the town of Portofino and compare
the same view. Certainly, the boats in the harbor are much more functional
and the paint is more faded. The background is more hilly. We thought the
hotel did a really good job of copying the style of the Italian town. |
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This is the view of the harbor entrance at the Portofino Bay Hotel. Even
the pattern of the blocks on the surface of the walkway was copied. |
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This is the same view in the town of Portofino. There was less space to
walk around here, but even the Delfini restauant had the same name. We had
a very deluxe meal there. Everyone had a good time feeding the leftover
bread to the fish in the water. |
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Elaine and Arthur Charach came to Palm Springs and stayed at the Ocotillo
Lodge. Lots of people from Winnipeg were there. We went out to visit them
for a weekend. We played Scrabble. We visited the camel at the Living
Desert Museum in Palm Desert. The cat show at the convention center was
very interesting. Any cat that meowed during the competition was disqualified.
We had the best license plate in the parking lot, however. Ours is PURRR.
This photograph was scanned into the computer.
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At the end of 2000, Arthur and Phyllis Newman went to visit Katy in Big
Sur. That is Anarion next to Katy. We saw her house in the redwoods, the
Phoenix Shop, and all the sea creatures at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Of course, we had to then visit the Acquario di Genova in Italy. Both
were very interesting.
This photograph was also scanned into the computer.
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Here is Louis driving the Gator (yes that is its real name). It is a combination
off road vehicle and dump truck. It is used on Ron and Marilyns island to
travel the back trails and haul brush and logs around the island. Louis
cleared off a large section of brush and trees in front of the house. |
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Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, Germany. There are other pictures of
the area in the set of Italy trip pictures. |
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This is a duplicate of the Venice gondola ride picture in the Venice section,
but Chris said we had to include it in the montage of pictures of the year. |
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The tower was closed for straightening, but they failed.
It is now open again for tourists to climb up to the top. |
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Chris Geosling(left) and Hank Abbink(middle) at the Portofino Bay Hotel
conference area. The picture was taken by the official Litton photographer.
He gets to go to every event. |
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Jeremy engaged in his favorite activity, playing videogames. |