Paul, Alison, Claire and Julia

Following Ben's model, here's a quick snapshot of our year!

The big highlight was of course the Hawaii trip to celebrate Grandma Grace with the whole ohana. Unforgettable! It was also notable that Claire and Julia did *not* change schools this fall -- a first time ever for both girls since preschool. Alison traveled to Banda Aceh, Indonesia in May and started a new fellowship at Penn. Paul started a sabbatical year (2009-2010) and put the finishing touches on an edited volume on copyright and modernism. 2010 will see him making great progress on his second book. We renovated our second floor home office in time for his sabbatical to start. We had a super trip to Portland Oregon to visit baby Ty, and Paul returned in October to help "ease the burden." We love Portland and look forward to more trips!!

Claire and Julia discovered Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Homer, and Greek mythology this year -- all wonderful, timeliness stories, to be sure. Much knitting was done as well. We've been biking to school whenever possible. Piano lessons continue.

As I write, we await the arrival of the whole Saint-Amour - O'Meara - Coulter gang and we're so excited to host the family here in the City of Brotherly Love (and Iron Chef Jose Garces, a parent at C&J's school!).

It's been interesting watching Obama tackle his first year in office. We're still rooting heartily for him and for change in Washington and around the globe. The political, diplomatic, social and environmental challenges we face seem enormous -- hopefully we can all do our little bit in 2010 to create a just, peaceful, sustainable world. Here's hoping!!

(More Paul/Al/Claire/Julia pics on here: http://katsura-ohana.blogspot.com/2009/12/paul-alison-claire-and-julia.html )