Christmas Letter

Happy Holidays from Wisconsin!

We are posting our Christmas letter for anyone that didn't receive it in the mail.  With all the moves this year, we aren't sure everyone received it.

Jet Skiing on Lake Geneva

Our New Milwaukee Home

This was a year of big changes for us as we both left Pfizer.  As you may recall, we had bought a house a number of years ago in Madison with the plans to retire back to Badger-land once we were ready to leave the corporate world.  Well...we didn't quite get to Madison - and we didn't both leave the corporate world - but we have taken steps closer to both.  We now live in Milwaukee - just an hour and 1/2 east of Madison.  Jo took a job as the head of HR at Northwestern Mutual, a financial services company, and has been spending her time learning her new industry and role.  While it's a lot smaller than Pfizer, she's enjoying leading the whole function for the first time.  Eric has spent his time transitioning into semi-retirement, meaning he has spent a little time consulting in the pharmaceutical industry but most of his time taking care of our transition to our new city and things on the home front.  This has turned out to be more than a full time job as we purchased an old home for the first time in our lives.  With every other home we have owned, we have been the first residents, so our home improvements have been adding new things to new things - e.g., finishing the basement, adding a porch or patio.  With our new-old house (new to us but almost 100 years old to the world), we have had to update some parts, remove multiple layers of wallpaper in other parts, and we have learned the pleasures and challenges of an old home with character.  Most of the time the character is charming but sometimes it can be frustrating, like when the door knob fell off of the door one day, just like it does in the movies (how cliché, right?)  Since we've moved in, Eric has been chief in charge of everything in the home and that has kept him more than busy.

Jo with our Great-Niece, Maggie

Go Badgers!

A big benefit of being back in the Midwest is the ability to reconnect with family members plus old friends.  Jo's sister, Kathy, lives in Madison so we can conveniently see her and Badger sports at the same time.  Eric's sister, Cheryl, lives in Chicago so it's an easy train ride to see her with the added benefit that Eric's parents can visit Cheryl and us each time they fly back to the Midwest.  In fact, that is their plan for Christmas this year.  We also have two nephews who currently live in the city and we've enjoyed spending time with them and their girlfriends.  Finally, we've reconnected with other friends from when we last lived in the Midwest and are genuinely enjoying our time back in the heartland. 

Visiting Trosa, Sweden

With our move, we have needed to find new places to run and a new gym for weights and other activities.  We've found lots of fun running routes given we are a block from Lake Michigan and there are many paths in the area.  Our house is in a city block with great sidewalks that give us lots of new neighborhoods to explore as well.  The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is just three blocks away, so we've joined their gym and lift weights with the college co-eds.  Talk about an interesting experience - did we ever look that young?

Fried Clams in New London, CT

Even with our move, we've had the chance to take a few nice vacations.  We celebrated our 30th anniversary with a trip to Sweden.  We met up with a former colleague of Jo's from Pfizer, which gave us a sense of Sweden from a local's viewpoint.  We've also arranged trips around a few conferences that Jo has attended - one to Phoenix in which we stayed with Chris, Dan and our great-niece Maggie, and another to Boston which we linked with a visit back to Connecticut to see our Pfizer friends.  We also fit in a trip to Omaha to visit with Jo’s sister and family and got to see our great-nephew for the first time.   

We hope you have a great holiday and a wonderful 2012!