Dear friends and family,

More than three months have passed since our last post to CaringBridge. It has been a busy (mostly happy) time with progress on all fronts. Our “Spring” in the Bay Area has continued to be … subdued, with day after day of fog, some Spring rain, and cool conditions overall.

Kelly is feeling and doing great. She has essentially recovered her full range of motion and some of her strength. And, she can travel now too: we just came back from our first trip together post-accident: to Toronto for the American Water Works Association annual meeting. This is the first time Kelly has ever joined me for a water conference, and she even came onto the expo floor to meet all the folks I work with in the water industry.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

With Kelly’s recovery, my travel schedule has intensified, with trips to DC, Seattle (three times), Phoenix, and the aforementioned Toronto. The NAWI team (my program at work) had a major work milestone with the preparation and execution of our annual Department of Energy Peer Review for the NAWI program. As part of this review, we also pitched our vision for the NEXT 5 years of the NAWI program, which, if approved by DOE, would start in January 2025. The review went quite well and we received almost uniform praise for the program and our future vision. Many steps lie ahead in the renewal process including a written proposal, a multi-agency Fed Panel Review, and a myriad of supporting documents. The entire NAWI team has been working extremely hard this year… hopefully there will be a light at the end of the tunnel in the Fall. An interesting story about where NAWI will be focusing on in the years ahead came out this week in Wired.

Meanwhile… Alexandra completed her college search, application, and selection process. After being admitted to nearly all the schools she applied to, she has chosen… U.C. Berkeley! She was admitted to the Rausser College of Natural Resources as an Environmental Sciences major and will start her Freshman year on August 16. We celebrated Alexandra’s graduation from Oakland Technical High School on May 23 and her graduation from Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir on June 3.

Alexandra has an action-packed summer planned with a Piedmont East Bay Choir tour to Costa Rica, followed by travel to eastern Washington State, followed by singing in the Golden Gate International Choir Festival (Piedmont Choir hosts this international event every 3-5 years), and then being a counselor at choir camp.

Elizabeth completed her sophomore year at U.C. Berkeley and moved back with us this summer. She is taking two summer classes at UC Berkeley, volunteering for the Golden Gate Festival, then being a counselor at Camp Kesem – Berkeley, and having a blast with friends at every possible moment. At the end of July, she heads off to Santiago Chile where she will spend Fall semester of her junior year at the University of Chile. She will stay with a family for at least the first month (and possibly all semester if the logistics work out). The “home stay” option is one that both girls have a lot of experience with: this is how they travel when the Piedmont Choir tours abroad.

In and amongst all this activity, Elizabeth and I managed to sneak away mid-May for a long weekend of camping at Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada. Valley of Fire is only 45 minutes from Las Vegas and is a SPECTACULAR little park, with some fantastic car campsites and amazing variegated sandstone hills, caves, and cliffs. We had somewhat “dramatic” weather (rain in the desert!) and some amazing hikes through the otherworldly cliffs and ravines. Desert kit foxes and bighorn sheep came close to our camp. Totally recommend this park for car camping and adventuring: super for kids of all ages.

I have a LOT of images to share with you for this entry including:

• Kelly and Peter heading out for another theatre evening – April 22
• A wonderful family dinner at Day Trip to celebrate my birthday – April 29
• Kelly looking fabulous with her short hair – May 12
• Peter and Elizabeth after an 11-mile hike through remote parts of Valley of Fire State Park – May 19
• Kelly, Gabriella Navarro Moynihan and Alexandra at Oakland Tech’s graduation at the Fox Theatre in Oakland – May 23
• Alexandra with her PEBCC founding conductor Robert Geary – June 3
• Kelly meeting the mascot for the American Water Works Association – June 11
• Kelly and Peter in Toronto – June 12
• Erin Bartholomew, Alexandra, and Nheletie Donovan - departing SFO for their choir tour in Costa Rica – June 16

We hope to see many of you this summer and Fall (and we’ll be traveling more together now that it’s time for “adult swim”!)