Here you'll find all the news that's fit to print about Ben, Kathy, Ariana, Ross, Hollie, and Noah. Plus an occasional pet.
2020 in Review
"All in all it’s been an up and down year (with no mention of the constant anxiety caused by the global political situation), so we’re hoping for a much improved 2020!”
That’s how I ended my 2019 news update. Sadly, as we’re all aware, it was not to be.
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2019 in Review
Here we are at the end of another year, another decade, in fact. Time flies when you’re having fun and maybe not so much fun.
We started the year off on a sad note, when Debi, our close friend of many years, finally succumbed to the cancer she had been fighting for some time.
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Grandson Noah!
Big news here is our first grandchild, Noah Mathúin Littauer, arrived February 13 (15 minutes short of being a Valentine baby). We’re finding ourselves in New Haven more often so that we can spend time with Noah and Ross & Hollie, who are still very busy finishing up their residencies at Yale New Haven Medical Center.
…2018 in Review
We had a very busy 2018, with a good deal of less-than-wonderful stuff, though overall we still are doing fine and are quite optimistic about a better 2019.
We started the year off with a wonderful, though too short, trip to Israel to visit family. We visited in Moshav Herut and went up to Naaman Winery to stay with cousins in each place, and also saw Ben’s last remaining aunt Judith, who is still in remarkably great shape.
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Very Late Update 2016-2017
It’s been nearly two years since I published news, so sad. I’ll try to be better this year, honestly, though I’m planning on focusing on getting pictures organized and published.
Since the last update so many things have happened!
Kathy left her job at Fortress Technologies / General Dynamics in June 2016. …
January 2016
Well, I’ve been remiss in updating this site. Some changes in my photo environment have made the updates enough harder that I never seem to get to them. Anyway, thought I’d populate with some news here.
The fall flew by, with some nice trips involved. …
Late summer 2015 update
Well, here we find ourselves almost at Labor Day 2015 with another summer under our belts. We’ve had a very nice one, which may explain why updates here have been few and far between.
Kathy and Ben went to London and France in late June to early July. …
Wedding? What wedding?
Almost two years and no news? Well, some, if you’ve been watching the photos pages, where all the real news happens.
But there’s been plenty going on with us, of course. Many trip documented through the photos pages. We haven’t moved in years, which is nice; our pet situation is stable, also very good. …
Solar Summer
After a good deal of thinking and researching, Kathy and Ben decided to put solar on the house in Bedford. While it does not have the ideal, South facing roof, it has good exposure anyway (especially since we had to remove a couple of large maple trees a couple of years ago).
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Edie & Nemo
February has brought us two big events, the addition of puppy Edie to our household and our "historic" snowstorm, Nemo.
I've done the nerd thing of having a doggie bloggie for Edie, so you can read more about her and see photos there.
Nemo was a huge storm over the northeast, but well predicted and well planned for, so no disaster for us here (though there were 9 deaths and hundreds of thousands without power). …
2012 Fall Recap
As usual, way behind on my news updates. We've been very busy, so lots to report. There is a collection of photos that go with this report, too.
We'll start with a kayak trip we took on the Charles where we saw these huge lily plants. Around Labor Day we went up to Highland Lake with Rick & Gitte. …
May 2012 Update
I have been totally remiss updating this site, but I'm trying to catch up. We've done so much since the last update, including:
- A week in Ithaca
- Ben's bike trip to Brittany & Normandy (photos still to come)
- Ben and Kathy visit to Israel to see relatives (photos still to come)
- …
July travels
July found us traveling down to Kathy's parents' place in Virginia to celebrate Karen's and Kevan's 50th birthdays. Al & Carole had put together a big party, and Kathy had put together the playlists for music, and everyone had a fine time!
From there Ben and Kathy went up to Nova Scotia with Ross and his girlfriend, Hollie. …
June 2011 Update
Life continues to treat us relatively well here. We're very happy in our still-new-to-us house in Bedford. Kathy continues to work hard at Fortress Technologies, but she and her team shipped the version that they had been working on for quite some time, and that has reduced the pressure a bit there. …
New Year, 2011
A long time since the last update. We've been keeping busy, as usual, with a wide assortment of stuff going on.
Over the summer we did a good deal of biking, including several longer treks here and there. One very nice one was visiting some of friend Jim Mac's old haunts on the south shore. …
Summer Update
Well, it's been a while since I updated the news, so here we go.
We're now well installed at 37 Fletcher. Still a few things in boxes, some minor jobs around the house left to be completed, but completely livable. We did a bunch of landscaping to clear the yard which had become terribly overgrown, mostly with very nice plants. …
Moved in to 37 Fletcher!
It was pretty complicated, but we managed to bring all the components of our move together like clockwork:
The renovations were completed more or less on schedule, but about a week before we needed to bring in the first load of furniture from Ithaca. …
Almost ready to move!
We're getting very close to moving to our new place over at 37 Fletcher Road. We made a bunch of modifications including opening up the wall between the living room and study, so there's now an open-plan room, and we added a large bay window overlooking the back yard. …
Jan 15 Update
Happy New Year, 2010!
We just got back from a lovely trip to Costa Rica. It was the four of us, plus our nephew, David. We left on Boxing Day after having celebrated the holidays with Kathy's parents and family at their place on the Chickahominy river in Virginia. The trip was an unqualified success. …
RIP Raphael Littauer, 10/19/2009
Ben and Celia's father, Raphael Littauer died on 10/19/2009. His obituary can be found at the Ithaca Journal. There is a guest book there as well, and we fervently request that visitors contribute any stories about our "Papa" that they might have.
The obituary itself is not particularly well formatted on the Ithaca Journal site; if you want to see a somewhat more readable version, it's …
House? - House!
Kathy & Ben made an offer on a house in Bedford tonight. Love the location and the yard, and it's in move-in condition. We've been keeping our eyes on the market and have discovered that the houses we like move instantly, so we put in our offer tonight, hope to hear positively tomorrow. …
Summer Update
We've had a fun and busy summer, so far. We're both trying to keep active, as well as trying - with good success! - to lose weight. We've done a lot of bicycling: Kathy rides the 11 miles to and from work three or four days a week, and Ben sometime accompanies her and other times does his own trips (which he tends to …
Renting the Ithaca House!
We've decided to start renting the Ithaca house. If folks are interested, please get in touch. See more about Cliff House here.
Italy Trip
Kathy and Ben just returned from a fabulous two and a half week trip to Italy. We spent the first week in Venice with our daughter, Ariana, and niece, Jessica. Then we met up with Toronto friends Tom and Michelle for a bike tour from Venice to Florence…
First Ride of the Spring
Kathy and I got out for our first ride of the spring, a 17 mile loop around the Concord river. First north through Bedford into Carlisle, then south to Concord, then back again. Lots of horse farms along the way. Image from Google Earth.
Spring Update
It's finally spring here in Boston, and it's beginning to look like Mother Nature is agreeing that it's going to happen. I took out my bike last week for a short ride on the bike path, and most of the snow is gone off the ground - just a few small piles left around.
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Holidays
We had a great time over the holidays, visiting Kathy's sister Lisa in Vienna, VA, where the grandparents, siblings, and all the cousins joined us as well. The only one missing, sadly, was Al J. Ross drove down from Philly with his friend Sabrina, picking us up at BWI, while Ariana flew in from LA. …
Welcome Artie
With TC's sad departure from the household foreseen by us for some time, we had decided that we should get another cat to be a playmate for Casey as soon as possible. So we've been back to the shelter, where we found Artemus, or Artie for short. First pix …
RIP TC 1992-2008
The last of the four pets we had while Ariana and Ross were growing up has left us for good. Ross's cat, Teela Comet, usually known as TC (except for RIck, who thought she was Tei Sei, or something like that), was suffering from cancer and we ended her suffering today.
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