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2002 in the Muncy Family
December 2001 through December 2002
(Click on pictures for an enlarged pop-up window)
What happened in 2001
What happened in 2003
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| Christmas 2001 &
New Years |
We did a lot of traveling over
the holidays, to Grandma Hardie's in central PA, and to Grandma Muncy's
on Long Island. Everyone stayed close to home for the New
Years celebration. |
| January 7, 2002 |
Erica celebrated 11th birthday
with a bowling party at the local alley, followed by cake and games back
at the house. The first big snow of the year started as the kick
ball game ended. |
| January 2002 |
 Todd
& Darlene, confirmed cruise-aholics, booked their first cruise since
Erica was born. The cruise,
from Beijing to Tokyo, is in April and the children will not be
joining us. If you are looking for a great deal on your next
cruise, we heartily recommend Nancy D'Andrea at
Top Sail Cruises.
Great service and a great price. |
| February 2002 |
 Todd
took delivery on a new state-of-the-art Gateway
700XL computer. Among other things, it has a DVD burner built
in, which will allow him to publish his digital video editing projects
on full quality DVD's that can be played in most set-top DVD
players. He's just completed the final production of Guy
& Susan's Wedding. With eleven years of archival
tapes, dating back to Erica's birth, in need editing and preservation,
the work will never end. |
| Feb 15, 2002 |
Todd and Darlene celebrated
their 26th wedding anniversary. |
| March 2002 |
We are now planning a summer
vacation with the kids in late June. There is a reunion of all the
descendants of Darlene's great-grandparents, who originally emigrated to
Edmonton, Alberta from the Ukraine. The tentative plan is to fly
to Calgary for the Calgary Stampede. We would then tour
the Banff/Lake Louise/Jasper area of Alberta, before moving on to
Mundare, outside Edmonton, for the two day reunion. |
| April 2002 |
 At the beginning of the month,
the entire family and Cathie took a mini-cruise of New York harbor,
spending most of the day at the Ellis Island,
followed by a quick stop at the Statue of Liberty, which hadn't yet
reopened. Darlene and Todd finally took their cruise,
from Beijing to Tokyo, by way of Korea for the last two weeks of the
month. They had a wonderful time, particularly on their
stops in Nagasaki and the other Japanese cities of Osaka/Kyoto and
Tokyo. Click here to see the photo
album of the cruise. |
| May 2002 |
We arrived home from the Asian
Cruise on May 1st. Unfortunately we were greeted by the
terrible news that
Darlene's mother Laurine had just gone into the hospital for surgery and
diagnosed to have a very advanced cancer. |
| June 19, 2002 |
Darlene celebrated another
birthday. We don't count them anymore. Laurine began to
recover from her surgery, working herself from the hospital, to a
physical rehabilitation program in a nursing home and finally back
home. She is absolutely determined to have her doctor declare her
fit enough to travel to Edmonton, Alberta for the family reunion. |
| July 2002
The big trip to Alberta and the family reunion. |
Our family left for Calgary
almost two weeks before the family reunion so we could do the full tour
of Alberta, before arriving at the reunion in Mundare, outside Edmonton,
near the end of our vacation.
A huge photo album
of the entire trip can be found here. We arrived just as the world famous Calgary
Stampede opened. After a two night stay, we rented a mini-van
and moved on to Banff
National Park in the Canadian Rockies. While there, we
took two side trips to go
 white
water rafting in British Columbia and canoeing on Lake
Louise, the prettiest place on the planet. The next leg of the trip was an all day drive north
along the continental divide on the Icefields Parkway to Jasper National
Park. Along the way, we stopped and toured the Columbia
Icefields in a massive Snocoach, designed specifically for
glacier travel. We spent a day in Jasper and took a thrilling ride
to the mountain
 top on the Jasper
Tramway. Next we departed for Edmonton and two nights at the Fantasyland
Hotel inside the enormous West
Edmonton Mall. It is the largest mall in the world (larger
than the Mall of America)
 according to Guinness.
 The
girls particularly enjoyed spending a full day at their "world's largest"
indoor wave pool with a dozen multi-story water slides. We stayed
in the hotel's Canadian
Rail Fantasy room, where the girls got to sleep in their own upper and lower Pullman
berths. After a couple
nights we joined up wit h the rest of Darlene's family in Mundare for the
reunion.
 Her
mother Laurine, brothers Tom and Bill, and their wives,
Margaret and Melinda were all in attendance. About 150 other
relatives, mostly from Alberta, were also on hand. This marked the
100th anniversary of
Laurine's maternal grandparents having established
a sod house homestead in Mundare, after emigrating from the
Ukraine. Laurine was very weak from the cancer and the stress of
travel, but was thrilled to be there and the extended family was very
happy to see her after many years.
The
reunion was a major event for the family. They even received a
personal
letter of congratulations from Canadian Prime Minister Jean
Chrétien. After an overnight stay and a
reunion brunch the next morning, the rest of Darlene's family headed
back home, while we moved on to our last stop in Drumheller,
Alberta, a.k.a. "The Dinosaur Capital of the World", and
home of the
 Royal
Tyrrell Museum. The museum claims to be the finest, most
complete collections of paleontology anywhere in the world and we would
be forced to agree. After a good night's sleep, we got up
early and drove straight to the Calgary airport and flew back to New
Jersey. |
| July 25, 2002 |
 Darlene's
mom Laurine lost her battle with cancer and passed away less than two
weeks after her return from the family reunion in Alberta. Here
is our tribute to Laurine and the wonderful life she led. |
| July 31, 2002 |
 We all celebrated the birth of
Nolan Michael White, to our previous
nanny Sarah, joining his brother Jake, who turns five at the new
year. Click on their picture for a closer view. |
| September 2002 |
School starts once
again. Paige has entered the second grade and has the
"teacher of the year" Miss Hess, as did her sister four years
earlier. Erica has moved onto the middle school and now has many
different teachers, as she gets to change classes. |
| October 2002 |
 Todd
had yet another birthday on the 13th and has lost count completely.
The girls went all out for Halloween,
 as
usual, and we all went on the traditional hay ride to find the
really good pumpkins. This year's costumes featured
Erica as Minnie Mouse, in a c ostume
Mom created, while Paige was Blossom the Power Puff Girl. Erica's
friend Stephanie was Little Bo-Peep. |
| November 2002 |
 Paige celebrated her 8th
birthday on 11/7 with a big party doing the aqua fun run at a local
health club. It's a floating obstacle course in the middle of a
big indoor pool.
We also had a lovely family dinner party on 11/26 to commemorate
Cathie's 36th birthday.
Both girls came home with straight A report cards. Erica is now on
the High Honor Roll at her school. |
| December 2002 |
 Erica and Paige both performed
in the Christmas cantata at our local church. Paige sang with the
Kids of the Kingdom choir and danced with the God's Gift of Grace dance
group. Erica, after 5 years of working her way up from manger
livestock, to
 angel, to star of Bethlehem, finally got the starring
role of Mary. The following Sunday Erica (who was drafted for her musical talents), rang with the
talented adult bell choir. Our 2002
Holiday Card was just added to the site.
 You can find it here.
Much to her delight, Paige received a pair of Russian
dwarf hamsters for Christmas, along with a fancy cage. Needless to
say, she just loves them. |
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What happened in 2001
What happened in 2003
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