Holidays with Phil's Family

We spent the week between Christmas and New Year's visiting Phil's family in Joplin, Missouri. Unfortunately due to a couple of hospitalizations, we weren't all in the same room at the same time. So, it was a bit of an unusual visit. Luckily, everyone is doing fine now.

The Shilane Chanukkah gift exchange would not be complete without a bit of humor.

Dave with all of the unopened gifts


Phil's Mom


Phil's Mom with a marionette that we bought in Prague during the summer


Phil & Julie


Phil's Dad got a Snuggie!

A few traditions have been started in the last few years. The first is that Dave and Phil continue to exchange the same Dave Chappelle DVDs over and over again.

Surprise, Phil!

The second tradition is the exchange of mystery gifts. At this point, the only rules of mystery gifts seem to be that the rules are still unknown. The point is just to give silly gifts not necessarily to the person they are intended for and then have fun or swap.

This year, Amy gave Nerf guns to the guys so that they could have a war.

Dave and his mystery gun

Phil and Brent with their guns and the aftermath of the gift exchange. Phil appears to be plotting his next move against Brent.

More of the mystery gift exchange. Amy got Canasta cards, which were meant for Brent.

While we were in Joplin, we were able to get together with a couple of Phil's good friends from high school: Ryan Pierce, who was a groomsman in our wedding, and Eric, Carry, Eli, and Wyatt DeGruson. We spent New Year's Eve with Eric and his family, but unfortunately, we didn't take any photos.

Phil, Julie, & Ryan

Happy Holidays from the Shilanes!

Holidays with Julie's Family

Aunt Mary & Bob had us over on Christmas Eve for dinner and to exchange a few gifts. Thanks, Aunt Mary & Bob!

Kevin and a George Foreman grill for his new house

Bob & Dad

Dad

Aunt Mary and an embroidered doily that we bought in Germany this summer

Phil and a 12 in 1 game set

On Christmas day, Mom, Dad, and Kevin came over to exchange gifts and for dinner.

Before the unwrapping began

Kevin bought a house this fall about 10 minutes away from us in Morrisville, PA. Julie designed and cross stitched a gift for Kevin's house.

Kevin & his Home Sweet Home cross stitch

Tissue box cover Kevin made for Julie

Happy Holidays from the Joneses!
Phil, Julie, Joyce, Don, & Kevin

Happy Holidays!

December 2009

Dear Friends and Relatives,

Happy holidays to you and your family! In 2009, we settled into our home and traveled quite a bit.

Our big vacation for the year (and the last few years) was a two week tour through central Europe. We visited a graduate school friend in Belgium for a few days and then joined a bus tour that started in Germany and covered the major sites in six countries. Our favorite places included Krakow, Poland and Budapest, Hungary because of the history, architecture, shopping, and beauty of the cities. We posted photos and a summary of our trip on our blog.

Wedding season was busy this year. We attended the wedding of Phil’s cousin Beth Shilane and Daniel Kotkin in Old Bridge, NJ, where we visited many of Phil’s relatives. We also attended weddings for college and graduate school friends in Cambridge, MA, Bethlehem, PA, and Toronto, ON. We extended the trip to Toronto by stopping at Niagara Falls on the way and enjoyed the waterfalls surrounded by the beautifully changing leaves on the trees as well as the Maid of the Mist boat tour.

This was our first year hosting Thanksgiving. We had six guests including Phil’s sister and her boyfriend, as well as Julie’s parents and aunt and uncle. Cooking the turkey was not as difficult as we had feared, and everyone brought delicious dishes for dinner. Our table was able to seat all eight of us, but some of the side dishes did not fit.

2009 has been an active year for our companies as well.

Phil’s company, Data Domain, was purchased by a much larger computer storage company, EMC. His work remains the same, research and development to improve the company’s products, and the larger company should be more stable in the long run. Patent and paper submissions are currently in progress about his work.

Julie has worked on a couple of pharmaceutical consulting projects this year at Light Management Consulting, but she has also played an important role in expanding a sister company, Light Knowledge Resources. Since October 2008, Light has launched four Web sites that each specialize in a terminal or chronic disease. Julie is managing a team of student interns who write about news and research related to each disease.

We also went to Santa Fe, NM with Julie’s colleagues and their spouses. We did quite a bit of hiking during the long weekend, including hiking the upper part of an 11,000 ft mountain.

We hope you had a healthy and happy 2009, and we look forward to talking with you soon.

Love,

Julie and Phil

Cookie Baking & Candy Making

The holidays wouldn't be complete without homemade cookies and candy! It's Jones family tradition to bake dozens of cookies and make several batches of fudge to give away to family and friends. This year, we also made peanut butter and chocolate truffles.

Of course, on the day that we made plans to bake cookies with Julie's Mom and brother Kevin, it ended up snowing quite heavily. But Mom made the drive down to our place anyway.

Yummy Truffles!

Julie and Batch 1 of the cookies. We made 4 batches all together.

Our snow-covered back patio

Joel's Performance in the Nutcracker

We were very happy to be able to attend Phil's cousin, Joel's, senior performance in The Nutcracker. Joel had several roles in the ballet, including the nutcracker who turns into a prince.

Joel as the nutcracker

Joel as the prince along with Clara and the angels

We took a number of videos of Joel and the other performers dancing.

Joel as the Prince along with Clara and Drosselmeyer

The prince and the Spanish dancers being watched by Clara

The Russian Dance - Awesome!


Joel, Uncle Bill, and Phil's Mom

The guys

Afterward, we went out to dinner to celebrate.

Phil, Bill, Rose, Anna, Joel, Sam, & Penny

Grandpa, Grandma, Roberta, Phil

Anna & Joel with their nutcrackers that we brought back from Germany this summer

Anna & Joel opening gifts at their house

Thanksgiving

This year was our first year hosting and cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Julie's parents, Aunt Mary, Uncle Bob, and Phil's sister Amy and her boyfriend Brent spent Thanksgiving with us.

We baked a turkey breast, which turned out to not be so difficult to do. We and our guests also made mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, glazed carrots, cranberry sauce, muffins, pumpkin pie, and coffee cake. Quite a feast!

Amy, Brent, Bob, Aunt Mary, Julie's Dad, Julie's Mom, Julie

Niagara Falls

On the way to a wedding for two of our friends in Toronto, we stopped at Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. Although it was misting rain outside and wasn't the clearest of days, the falls were absolutely gorgeous surrounded by the changing leaves of the fall.

A view of horseshoe falls from Canada

Horseshoe Falls

Julie in front of Niagara Falls

Phil in front of the falls

Julie & Phil in front of Horseshoe Falls

Panoramic view of American Falls

Julie & Phil in front of American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls

American Falls surrounded by beautifully changing leaves

We took the Maid of the Mist boat ride, which takes you right up close to the falls. They give everyone a blue poncho to wear. We sure needed them! We stood at the very front of the boat and would have gotten quite wet without our rain coats and ponchos.

The Maid of the Mist

Phil on The Maid of the Mist

Santa Fe, NM

Over Columbus Day weekend, we went on a trip with Julie's company, Light Management Consulting, to Santa Fe, NM. We stayed in the Hotel St. Francis, which was downtown and a short walk to the shops and scenic areas.

Mountains of Santa Fe

There were dried chilies hanging on most porches and balconies.

Dried Chilies

We visited Bandelier National Monument, where we saw Native American dwellings and hiked down the canyon to the Rio Grande River.

Foundations of Indian dwellings in Bandelier National Monument

Foundations of a town

Cave dwellings

Phil in the cave entrance

The cliff wall was filled with caves and the remains of buildings that were built up against the cliff

Turkey petroglyph

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There were lots of dried chilies in Santa Fe!

Frijoles Canyon - The Beans Canyon

A waterfall

Julie & Phil in front of the waterfall

Camel Rock

On the second day of our trip, we hiked part of an 11,000 ft mountain. We drove about 10,000 ft up the mountain and then hiked the last 1,000 ft. Some of us could definitely feel the decreased oxygen at the high altitude.

Santa Fe Baldy Mountain in the background

Deception Mountain in the background
This is where we aimed to hike to, but we didn't quite make it.

It was cold at the top of the mountain