We went skiing (Breckenridge) on Christmas Eve, but managed to leave the camera in the car. You'll have to settle for pictures from December 23, when we had Eldorado Canyon State Park almost entirely to ourselves for a winter hike. (There was no one around to take a group shot, so we took turns posing. Hana was uncharacteristically camera-shy.)

He fathered five children, but my paternal grandfather never knew what to say to his twelve grandchildren. How he managed the small talk required by his career, first as a journalist and later as the alumni relations director at a Jesuit university, continues to baffle me.

Nearly 40 years after his death, my verbal memory of Grandpa Pfau comes down to two sentences, repeated throughout my childhood: "You know what our last name means in German? It means peacock!"

Which of course ensured that I would always think of him while visiting a zoo . . .

Dear Mom,

The youngest of your four grandchildren graduated from high school on Sunday. As a toddler, Anna Kate looked exactly like pictures of you at that stage, except that she didn't have your red hair. (Patrick got that piece of the genetic pie, although he attended his high school graduation as a peroxided blond.)

Like her sister, Gretchen, and her cousins, Alison and Patrick, Anna Kate has brains to spare and graduated with honors. Of the three girls, Anna Kate has the sweetest temperament; Gretchen and Alison don't suffer fools gladly, and the objects of their scorn are lucky if all they have to endure is heavy-duty eye rolling, accompanied by stage-worthy sighs. Anna Kate and Patrick both have a remarkable way with animals, especially dogs; a scruffy little terrier named Peanut owes his life to Anna Kate. (To give full credit where it's due, Anna's mother had the patience of a saint with Peanut, whose housetraining took longer to accomplish than some disarmament pacts.)

One Christmas years ago when we visited St. Paul, two-year-old Anna Kate stood in her crib and yelled--to the delight of her sister and cousins--"I can sing, I can dance, I'm alive!" It proved to be prescient: As she grew up, Anna Kate spent a lot of time singing (Sacred Harp) and dancing (Morris and contra). Like all your grandkids, she also plays a musical instrument, or in her case, two instruments, violin and piano.

In her cap and gown on Sunday, Anna Kate looked charmingly poised on the edge of adulthood. We wish you could have been there to see her and to tell her how proud you were to be her grandmother.

Love,
Kate

Anna and her dad