It's been almost 15 years since I send out Christmas Cards, so thought I ought to let people know I'm still kicking and this year was special because my son Thomas and his girlfriend Brooke Babineau both graduated from from UC Davis with PhD's in Neuroscience and announced their plans to get married.
Brooke is from the Hudson Valley in New York so the wedding will be there in the Fall of 2011.   See: donsnotes.com/brooke-n-tom.html

2010 was another good year volunteering for too many things in retirement.

I still haven't moved back to California, but have a target now which is sometime after the wedding.
However I have some commitments which may keep me in New Jersey a little longer, unexpired terms on the Deacon Board at church and the executive committee of the New Jersey Chapter of the Sierra Club.

Outings:
I got to check two things off of my bucket list.
1. Watch Lake Tahoe fireworks from Mount Tallac.
2. Hike to the top of Ben Nevis in Scotland, highest peak in the UK.

In January I went up to Lake Placid for the annual Murry Hill Canoe Club cross country ski / snowshoe trip, the only trip still existing from the old Bell Labs outing group. (No one in the club works for Bell Labs, now Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, any more).
I discovered my telemark boots aggravated a cyst on a tendon in my ankle, so I've got to decide whether to do surgery on my boots or ankle.

I ran an Introduction to Backpacking Trip for the Sierra Club at Donner Summit at the end of June. Extra heavy Spring snows caused us to find alternative camp sites and it almost turned into a snowshoe trip. A stranger from Truckee walked into our camp and took some of us to see a "secret" indian pictograph near Lake Watson just north of Lake Tahoe. I've forwarded pictures and the location to a leader in the Washoe Tribe, who is going to check on the authenticity of it.

Tom and I hiked up Mt. Tallac (9,700 ft) near Emerald Bay at Lake Tahoe to watch the fireworks around the lake on the 4th of July (A local tradition). An injured dog, failing lights and bad maps in our handheld GPS made it into more of an adventure than we had planned. See a description at donsnotes.com/recreation/tallac-2010.html

I got a last minute deal for a Sierra Club trip hiking The West Highland Way, 97 miles from Glassgow to Fort William Scotland, in September.
At the end I hiked up Ben Nevis. Only 4,400 ft, but you start at sea level and the weather at the top was as bad as they say, 25 ft visibility with horizontal rain in 50 MPH gusts.

EMT:
We get a lot of older people on our Sierra Club trips and I felt I needed more medical expertise than the two day wilderness first aid we take every three years. So I joined a rescue squad and drive an ambulance once a week. I've taken the Emergency Medical Technician (basic) (EMT-B) course and will be taking the state test next year.

Church:
Still working on scanning/photographing historical records for Liberty Corner Presbyterian Church and creating a CD.

I got the opportunity to wear a kilt at the church's Highland Dinner. I rented a MacDonald ClanRanald outfit.

I gave a talk about our church's most famous member a slave, Samuel Sutphin, who served with distinction in the American Revolution and should have been set free for his service but was sold and had to save money to buy his freedom years later.

Added some history for Roseville Presbyterian Church from folders that Mom and Dad had at: cafamilies.org/churches/roseville-fpc.html

Genealogy - Family History - Family:
Haven't added much to our genealogy.
Moved our genealogy information from freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cafamilies to a new web address:   cafamilies.org
I had links from the old web site forwarded to the new one but ancestry didn't like that so shut the old site down.

I went up to New Brunswick, Canada to repair Mary McBrides headstone, which broke again after Tom and I had it fixed in 2003, and cleaned the lichen off Donalds headstone.
See New Mills Cemetery.

I went to Davis in June where Thomas graduated with his PhD in Neuroscience. We had a nice dinner with our family and his girlfriends (she also got a PhD) family. They were both still finishing up their theses.

While in Scotland for the Sierra Club trip I paid a quick visit to our cousins, Christine, John and their Mother Margaret. They are still living in the old McBride place in Shannnochie, Arran. John, Christine and I checked the cemetery there again, but couldn't find any headstones for our direct relatives. John and Christine's grandfather and father are there. Picture at right at the old McBride croft about 1 mi. north of Shannochie.

I created an Antelope (where five generations of our family lived) web page with information I got from Roy Ackeret and Pat Kamrar. It has information on the Antelope Sewing Club, which Gram McBride, Catherine, Ruth and Mom belonged to and still meets today.
See cafamilies.org/places/antelope/antelope.html

Johnny McBride joined us for Chinese New Year dinner in El Cerrito, with Joanna's sister, Mary Chien, who he became friends with when she worked at his bank in the east bay and they found out they had common relatives.
Dale is getting another case of Lewelling wine, from our cousin's winery on the vineyard our G-G-G Grandfather, John Lewelling (Sara Lewelling King, L.L. King, Elva King McBride) established in St. Helena in 1864.

Other:
My web site with information I'm interested in or have researched moved from geocities.com after Yahoo shut it down and I now have my own domain.
donsnotes.com. See What's new for my most recent updates on everything from athletic shoes, to religion and politics.

I am also on the board of the Amateur Computer Group of New Jersey (ACGNJ), the oldest computer club still in operation, and involved in several genealogy groups.

Last Monday Tom and I skied at Homewood, after an 18 in snowfall. Tom took me into the trees where there was lots of fresh power. I usually don't like skiing in the trees, but the soft snow made it easy to stay in control. It was one of my top 3 days in 40 years of skiing at Tahoe.

I still play a little tennis, and dabble with fly fishing.