Cohen family yearly recap: Cohen family yearly recap, 2018

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy 2019! We hope you all had a happy and adventurous 2018. We made it through, it was a difficult one especially during the winter months. We still miss my dad very much still, however with each passing day it does get a little easier. My mom is doing as well as she could under the circumstances, and moved into a great condo that she bought in Stony Brook this summer, that is perfect for her, and that she is very happy with. Dad would be pleased.

Here is a quick recap of our year.

Rebecca still is enjoying UConn and spent last spring break in Colorado building a house through "Habitat for Humanity." She then spent the summer volunteering at the Teddy Roosevelt Sanctuary and Audubon Center and as an intern at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation after traveling with her business learning community to Ireland at the end of May. She is back at UConn as a finance major and is involved in many activities including her business fraternity, social sorority and is also being a mentor to freshman business students.

Amanda continues to work at SUNY Stony Brook Hospital as a desk clerk in the ER department and she is happy there and still enjoys working the graveyard shift. She continues to be involved with the Unitarian Universal faith and in June attended a retreat in Texas. Amanda and her friend Alana are flying out this Friday to attend the retreat again and then plans to stay there a few extra days for vacation. She also went to Boston in July to spend time with her good friend Rachel.

I still work, and continue to enjoy it. The highlight of my year was our trip to the Amalfi Coast with Brian. We celebrated 25 years of marriage and it was an amazing trip! We spent two weeks going through the towns of the coast. We started in Salerno and ended in Sorrento. I hiked the "Path of the Gods", stayed in beautiful places, ate delicious food and still love Brian (editor’s note: “whew” and ditto!). If you would like to see a recap and pictures from our trip, click on the following link: 25 years wedded bliss, celebrated a bit early, Italian style!

We also took a little" Gray" trip to the Outer Banks this summer. We were joined there with our friends the Drews’ from Setauket. It was a mini "Slime Bucket" reunion from my childhood. They introduced me to sailing and we went on many sailing trips with our families during the summer, and it was great to see them. Unfortunately, Dr. Drew passed away a few weeks ago and all I can say it was wonderful that we got to spend time with him and reminisce about old times.

In addition, with our great friends Debbie and Marty, we did a surprise weekend adventure, where we went to the Hudson Valley. We went to a sculpture garden, hung out at a cider house, toured the Rockefeller estate Kikuit, and in general just had fun, all to celebrate Debbie's 50th birthday. We had a fantastic time with them, as always.

Marty and Debbie, Debbie and Brian

Brian also still works and his company continues to do well. Of course, the past few months with the stock market hasn’t exactly been fun, but as he keeps saying, we need to keep focused on the long term. He’s been right so far on this stuff in all the time I’ve known him, so no reason to doubt him now!

Our "Gray" trip this winter was a cruise during the Christmas week to the Canary Islands (part of Spain, but off the coast of Africa), Madeira (which is an island of Portugal), and Morocco. All 15 of us had fun, lots of laughter and many shared memories. We went on a camel ride, saw banana plantations, walked on lava flats and relaxed.