paulbestockphotography

For more, visit Paul's website at www.paulbestock.com....Click on "Utah" for a description of
our Utah trip, to "Theater" to see pictures of David's "A Holiday Bizarre" and photos of many of
Shana's productions. Go to "Victoria" to see Paul's favorite model.

For Victoria's photographs, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/victoriabestock

First, the old folk. We may be slower, but we don't get there as fast. We did
manage to accomplish our three dancing/camping/hiking journeys. In March we
drove our camper through Oregon and Northern California, walking amidst the
waterfalls, dancing in Santa Cruz. We wandered back through Whiskeytown in
the California Trinity Mountains for the first time. In July it was back to a week
of dancing at Mendocino for perhaps the 10th or 15th year, meandering up and
down the Oregon and California coast, taking portraits of almost every starfish
we met.

In October, it was back to Santa Cruz for another weekend of dancing, and then
- something totally new!! Our first journey to Utah, through some grand state
parks in California and Nevada, and a week at Bryce Canyon and Zion State
Parks. This was in addition to our three weekends of English dancing in Seattle
and Portland. To fill in the rest of the time, we are playing music, with each
other and with friends. Victoria is bringing her classical piano playing to the
world of dance music, and Paul keeps trying to play the guitar as his insurance
policy toward the day his dancing legs give out.

Victoria is in several book groups, and a writing group. She continues
to direct Nonesuch, her performing group, calls/teaches at local
dances, and creates lovely Ikebana flower arrangements. Her orchids
adorn the kitchen. She is becoming an accomplished photographer.
She is totally committed to controlling her lyme disease, continuing
her dancing and hiking and cross-country skiing and defeating the
daily Sodoku. Her next goal is playing back-up piano.

Paul is playing tennis in the early morning 4 or 5 times a week with a
couple of senior citizens who are nuttier than he. He sees clients one
very full day a week, which continues to be great fun. His photography
is slowly becoming more and more a business, run for gratis or barter.
He recently "sold" a photo shoot to the Northwest's prime Klezmer
band in exchange for their playing at our post-Chanukah party.
Another major payment of the year was 4 pounds of lox!

Shana continues to do great things as Artistic and Youth Director of the
Seattle Public Theater. The youth productions are not only great theater
but great experiences for the kids. Her parents continue to receive that
paragon of parental gifts: "Oh, you're Shana's parents. She is the greatest
thing that has happened for my kid....." Her other parental gifts include
hiring her father as the theater's staff photographer, and her mother as
consultant to many of the Youth productions. The mainstage productions
have been very well received, and she is becoming more and more a
force to be reckoned with on the greater Seattle cultural scene. She is
working at what she loves, is staying healthy, and enjoying and
appreciating her house. She threatens to get a car as she enters a soggy
Seattle winter, but her bike ride to work around Green Lake is still the
best way to wake up in the morning.

David continues to be a source of profound parental pride and concern.
He is searching for a stable source of income that will not interfere with
his making a career of living life. In keeping with the times, he has spent
much of the year living at his parents' home, and house-sitting. And his
career? He again played with a National Championship Ultimate (Frisbee)
team, winning in Florida in some very exciting games. (We saw him play
and win the regional title.) David has just produced and starred in, for the
2nd year, "A Holiday Bizarre", a theatrical satire of Christmas and Jews
that played to standing room only houses and received rave reviews. He
spent two months travelling, learning Spanish in Seville, and getting
ripped off in Marrakech. From there he went to Nairobi to meet his then
girlfriend, and from there went to the Sudan to visit two of his best friends
who were working in a health project for the Carter Foundation. While
there, he made a video of health procedures to be used by the Sudanese.
This was so impressive that he has been invited to go back to the Sudan
for four months as a videographer, starting Jan. 6. Who, us worry????