December 2005

Greetings of the season to all, far and
near.

We’re relieved to report that 2005 has been a year
with good health, interesting work, and fun travels.  We even finished a few of our
“home improvement” projects.

We started the year with a trip to Las Vegas in January.  We saw Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity and
Celine Dion’s show at Caesars
Palace.  Neither of us is a Celine fan, but she
puts on a good show and we enjoyed it.
Toss in beautiful weather (good for walking), a few spa appointments,
some gambling (we didn’t come out ahead this time, but we had fun), and
meals at nice restaurants (including the Las
Vegas outpost of Spago), and
it was a terrific weekend break.

In April we spent a week in Orlando where we took in most of the parks
that we hadn’t visited before --  Universal Studios, Universal’s
Islands of Adventure, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and Disney-MGM Studios.  Also saw Cirque’s La Nouba at
Downtown Disney.  The weather was
great and the crowds were manageable (spring break had come and gone).  The morning of the day we left we
wandered about in downtown Disney and purchased custom made gold rings as a
souvenir of the trip.

We fulfilled one of our “before we die” wishes
with a trip to Boston
over 4th of July weekend.
For years we’ve watched the Boston Pops celebration, with the
greatest fireworks in the world, on television and finally took the plunge to
see them in person.  They were
fantastic.  We’re now spoiled
and will likely find all other pyrotechnic displays mundane by comparison.

Another highlight was attending a Red Sox game in Fenway Park.  What a trip into the past!  The “Fen” is reminiscent of
the old Minneapolis Millers ballpark on Nicollet even more than of Met
Stadium.  Outdoor baseball, on a
beautiful summer day, with the Boston
skyline in the background . . .
Only sour note was that the Sox didn’t win.

We also took in other Boston sights – visited the Museum
of Fine Arts,  took a duck boat
tour, the trolley tour (a couple of times), a walking tour of Beacon Hill
(right past John Kerry’s house), a harbor cruise, and visited Faneuil
Hall.  Also
managed to fit in some shopping, lunch at the top of the Pru
tower, and lots of walking.
A great trip – we loved Boston.  And there’s still plenty left to
see on our next trip.

In September we went to Indianapolis
(actually Carmel) to watch the Solheim Cup, a biannual golf tournament between the women
of the USA and Europe.  What
fun – and the USA won
(after a disastrous loss in Sweden
two years ago).  There may be other
things to do in Indianapolis,
but we didn’t venture beyond the tournament.  It was hot and humid, typical for that
time of year in Indiana.

We continued our pursuit of Cirque du Soleil experiences
when the newest show, Corteo,
came to Minneapolis this fall for its US
premier.  Like all the others it was
highly entertaining.  It’s
amazing what the human body can do (actually what other human bodies can do!).

Thanksgiving week we spent in Scottsdale – relaxing and doing some
serious retirement home hunting.  If
all goes as planned, we’ll be buying a house in a relatively new Del Webb
development in Sun City West.  Stay
tuned . . .

We’re excited about the prospect of a new phase of our
lives, but a bit daunted by the work involved.  Deanne’s cutting back on work this
coming year – an experiment to prepare for full retirement (or at least
retirement from full-time law practice).
This should provide time to work on the details of the new house and to
try out some other pursuits – plus work on her golf game.  You may have noticed that we
didn’t play golf on any of our vacation trips this past year.  Not because we don’t still enjoy
it, but because everywhere we went there were other attractions.  Pictures of us and some of these attractions
are on our website – http://.grfamily.net.

Deanne’s year as president of Ordway Circle of Stars ends on New
Year’s Eve.  It was a
challenging year in many respects.
And, instead of the usual ball in October, there’s an even bigger
gala on January 21, with Bebe Neuwirth as the featured
entertainer.  The event is being
sponsored by two other organizations in addition to OCOS and promises to raise more than the usual amount of funds.

Hope this finds you and your loved ones doing well.  All the best in 2006.

Deanne and John