Firstly, apologies for not actually sending you a paper version of this: I could claim that we are doing our bit for the sustainability agenda, but the truth is that we were just not organised in time this year... The old chestnut really is true: how on earth did I ever have the time to fit in going to work?
The Cobham branch of the family is alive and well and very much looking forward to a family Christmas with Martin's mother, all UK uncles, aunts and cousins in attendance + Fern, the hound. We shall have fun and will be raising a glass or two to you too!
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| Caroline and Paul in Sarasota |
The year gone by was marked by the news of Caroline and Paul's engagement to be married. Both her parents are thrilled at the news and very much looking forward to next May (Martin will be re-watching
Father of the Bride to practise...). Kathryn, too, is in full Mother of the Bride flow and has been involved in all the preparations including choosing The Dress (but don't show the pictures to Paul, as I almost did!). We had the opportunity to spend a week together in Florida in November when we were blessed with some great weather and had fun exploring the local sights. They then went on to the Cayman Islands for some well-earned R&R and scuba-diving - it sounded idyllic!
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| Visiting a US Football game with Aggie |
Andrew has now completed a year as a management consultant at EY and is very much the young professional, racking up Hilton hotel loyalty points during the week and enjoying Clapham nightlife at the weekends. On top of the day job, he has pioneered a Mental Health support
network at EY, with his educative programme for graduate recruits having been
rolled out across company-wide. We are biased, of course, but we are very proud
of him! We also had some time together in Sarasota with Andrew and new girlfriend Aggie. It was great to get the chance to get to know her better and helped make our Florida vacation a special one. In September, Andrew, accompanied by 4 friends from King's Canterbury, spent three weeks touring parts of China: a great opportunity with a native speaker to guide them - their photos looked amazing! And of course, he and Martin made their annual pilgrimage to play golf in Myrtle Beach in the
Fathers and Sons tournament (no trophies this year...).
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| The Snow girls - lots of them! |
Kathryn re-entered the world of work this year, taking up a temporary position at
Burhill, managing the golf administration there. She very much enjoyed the opportunity but a full time role would not have fitted in well with the extended Florida visit planned for New Year! She has also been editing the University Park Women's Club monthly newsletter for the past year, in part remotely from this side of the Atlantic. It's not been all work and no play though, as she has been away on a couple of golf trips: together with some ladies from the Club, she spent a weekend in Monmouth and also a week in Portugal in October. More recently, in November, she carried on to LA to spend Thanksgiving with her mother and all of her sisters - the first time for more than 30 years that they have been together to celebrate!
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| Captain and Lady Captain |
Martin has now almost completed his year of Captaincy at his
golf club. This has kept him more than busy (he reckons he will have played over 200 games this year...all a part of the job, you understand...) but he has still found time to write a
daily blog as a record of the year. It has been great fun and, despite lots of personnel changes at Burhill, seems to have gone well too. He also managed to get away golfing with his JLC gang - this year their destination was the north of Scotland, based near Royal Dornoch: windy, chilly but no rain.... and some Scotch...
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| Two Teslas in Cobham |
We welcomed another new arrival into the family this year: a visit to a
Tesla showroom near our house in Sarasota with friends Bryan and Tricia resulted in an order being placed and in May it arrived. Martin hasn't stopped talking about how much he has enjoyed the new toy (that is, if we forget the day when he backed it into Ian and Debs' over-low garden wall....) and is now a total EV-convert. He even lets Kathryn drive it too....occasionally.....
We have continued to enjoy our house in Florida: Kathryn spent most of the winter there in 2015 and will do so again next year, with Martin joining for as much time as he can, once his Captain's duties are over and allowing for his Non Exec responsibilities. Please, if you are ever in the Sarasota area, do let us know as we love having people visit us there. We live in a community with lots of familiar names - we can walk from Richmond to Virginia Water in 5 minutes!
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| Being tourists in San Diego |
Christmas last year was spent in California with Kathryn's family. We had a wonderful time with all the first (and second!) cousins and it was super to get to meet the next generation. In fact, we enjoyed it so much that we plan to go back again in the summer to introduce Paul to his new American family, as well as to spend some time exploring Yosemite National Park.
We hope that this letter finds you well - and look forward to meeting up in what promises to be a busy and exciting 2016!
All our love,
Martin, Kathryn, Caroline and Andrew
