Our annual family newsletter is at the bottom of this page.

Photo Pages

If you start with the top link, you'll get to all our online photo albums; here are just a few highlights. (Each album opens in a separate window.)

Camping in Redwood National Park, June 2008

Video from Effie Partridge's memorial, May 2008: the service, and at home afterward

Video from the family Easter Egg hunt, March 2008

PartGone sledding trip, January 2008

Pete's trip to see the Ohio Gaughans, December 2007

Cathy's trip to New York City, November 2006

The Gaughans’ 2008 Holiday Winter Whenever Letter

We wish you a happy and healthy holiday season! We never really gave up on the idea of an annual letter, and we’re glad to get back into the habit now.

Cathy got a job since our last letter. Since November 2007, she’s been working as staff for the city of Concord’s Community Services Commission, which manages block-grant funds the city distributes to nonprofits. Cathy has been learning, for example, many of the HUD regulations attached to getting federal funds. She’s been working part-time, which works very well with the kids’ schedules.

Pete is still working for publishing company John Wiley and Sons in San Francisco. He manages editors, editorial assistants, and schedules for the Sybex line of computer books. He still enjoys the work and the team—though he sometimes wishes he got to do more of the actual editing himself!

Sally Ann is a teenager. We sometimes can’t believe she’s 13... and then, sometimes, she definitely acts her age. She is an eighth grader, spending most of her school day with a group of other special-education students but in mainstream art and P.E. classes.

Sally Ann enjoys her after-school program for kids with disabilities, at the George Miller Center here in Concord. She has made some friends there and really loves all the staff. She goes bowling every Wednesday after school with a group of her soccer teammates and school classmates. She had been letting her hair grow for the past three years but recently decided to get it cut.

P.J. is almost 10 years old. He is having, as he put it, “the best year ever at school!” He has a male teacher from Spain this year. It is his first time to have a male teacher, and he really likes Mr. Pumar. It is still a dual-immersion Spanish class, but there is not as much instruction in Spanish as there has been in the previous years.

After several years of ballet and folk dance, P.J. instead started playing the clarinet this year in the school band. He’s doing quite well; we think the piano lessons that he had have really helped with this new endeavor. We went to his first concert in December.

We make a camping trip or two each year. For spring break, we stayed in a tent cabin in Yosemite Valley; much of the park was still snowed in, but the kids got to see all the famous waterfalls and cliffs and vistas. In June we camped at Redwood National Park, along California’s north coast, and took walks among sequoia trees and along the beach. The kids enjoyed the wildlife, park-ranger talks, and history in these very different regions.

Pete still heads up the local soccer league for kids with special needs. He helps put together a Soccerfest tournament every fall that brings special-needs teams from all over Northen Califormia. He also coached the youngest team in the program—4 to 7 year olds—this season; P.J. was his assistant coach and was really great with the kids. Sally Ann still plays on a team in this program. She really loves running after the ball, and she is ecstatic when she scores a goal or assists someone else to score one. This was the fourth season that Pete also coached P.J.’s mainstream soccer team.

Cathy enjoyed a business trip to Chicago in August. She and her boss, Teri, were able to spend one evening and morning with Cathy’s Dad (Bill) and Mom (Judy). It was so exciting for Cathy to get to see where they lived in East Peoria. She got to rummage through a cedar chest that her Mom (Barbara) had packed before her death. It was also great to find out that her Dad can paint. He had painted a snow scene and a lighthouse that were both framed in the bedroom. Judy decorates her house very much like Cathy’s own mom would have. It was so great to know that they really are doing ok. Cathy also got to see some great sites in Chicago and really enjoyed the architecture. She and Teri saw “The Jersey Boys” while there, for Teri’s birthday. It was a great trip.

Cathy still enjoys her barbershop singing. She’s still in Diablo Vista Chorus and has been singing in a quartet called Mello-D-4 for over a year. Her boss, Teri, is the lead; Cathy still sings bass; Carol and Nancy are baritone and tenor, respectively. They have been performing a lot during the holiday season and have enjoyed entertaining audiences for all sorts of occasions, from Valentine’s Day to singing the national anthem at the soccer tournament. Cathy is slowly but steadily learning all the Mello-D-4 repertoire. She thinks that singing with these ladies is a blast!

Our family wishes you and your family all the best for the coming year.

Peace to all,
Pete, Cathy, Sally Ann, and P.J.
(and our dog Stella!)