Sadly, I took the camera for a joyride to California and didn’t take one picture. Which is too bad, because we truly enjoyed catching up with a bunch of people, cramming in visits wherever we could on our schedule: a drink with Kelly Carroll and her new boyfriend on Wednesday, another with Doug and Charlene Eroh post-dinner on Thursday, a trip to my office on Friday for lunch, another drink with Paul Moreski on Friday afternoon, and dinner with Rebecca Moskal and Cori Woods Solan on Friday night. I even fit in breakfast with my boss Stephen on Saturday (he’d been out of the office the day before) before we flew out. We were exhausted by the time we boarded the plane, but happy that we’d gotten to see so many friends.

As in previous years, we have a lot of posts, so I’ve created a guide to all of them. You can scroll down for a full list of our 2011 posts. If you’re Web savvy, you can always open the posts by month using the calendar at the right, or start at our first post in January from last New Year’s Eve and read through using the links at the top of each page.

Hope you’re having a wonderful holiday season!

Tim & Joanna

January Happy New Year! February The Super Bowl in Dallas Day two Day three Day four, a.k.a. the Big Game Trip to Florida Driving to Florida, day one Driving to Florida, day two Day one Day two Day three Day four Tennis greats at Madison Square Garden March St. Patrick’s Day party, round three Rest in peace, Grace April Crossing the Delaware Redzic family welcomes Adrian A day in D.C. May 2nd annual MizzouNYC picnic at Central Park The wedding of Susan Combs and Sean O’Rourke Trip to London Day one Day two Day three Day four Day five June Bliss family visit: Day two Day three Pittsburgh — Pirates vs. Red Sox Puppy love Tim plays baseball at Nationals Park July The wedding of Preston Larson and Kira Schiavello Welcome home, Edie Mets vs. Cardinals at Citi Field Chicago Day one Day two Day three August Savage Beauty: Alexander McQueen Cooking class The wedding of Mike Resnick and Rachel Bender On the road again Getting rocked by Hurricane Irene and knee surgery #5 September U.S. Open Day one Day two October Halloween November Moving day Thanksgiving in St. Louis December Our first bully meetup in Atlanta Our new home in Atlanta

	Our living room has a beautiful fireplace and lots of room for books and the piano. The picture above the fireplace was a thoughtful gift from the Lexus Eastern Area when Tim left for Atlanta.
	Our first real dining room! (And for those of you that remember Oak Park, no, that didn’t count. The table barely fit, much less 6 people.)
	The hallway between the living/dining rooms and the upstairs bedrooms and across from the kitchen. The stairs leading downstairs take you to the master suite.
	It’s hard to show how spacious our guest room is. Needless to say, it’s ready for any takers come 2012.
	Another perk of leaving the NY area: Getting my own office from which to work. This will make things much easier when Tim comes home and I’m still wrapping up editing and writing. I knew I felt at home once Kenneth Branaugh and Shakespeare were hung on the walls.
	Our TV room. We lucked out and purchased the couch from the previous owners. It fit the space perfectly and was only a couple of years old. The doors to the left of the TV lead out onto our deck.
	The view from our deck of Midtown at sunset. One of the biggest selling points of the house was the view; our house is at the top of a hill and the view doesn’t have any obstructions.
	Speaking of selling points… The kitchen is huge! I finally have a pantry and there are so many drawers I actually have one that’s empty. Never thought that was possible.
	The master suite was redone in the last 10 years or so and felt enormous when we walked through the space. The empty area facing our bed will be a sitting area once we get a couch from Ikea. A very relaxing space.

If you still need our new address, shoot me an email at eternal_bliss_19@yahoo.com and I’ll be glad to send it to you.

Tim and I showed up about 15 minutes in and found 30 bulldogs of varying sizes and ages lumbering around a play area at a local dog spa. Everyone was super friendly (no surprise there) and they even had snacks and beer. Edie found several puppies to play with and we’re looking forward to taking her back in the new year.

We drove to St. Louis on Wednesday the 23rd, arriving around 5 p.m. after a 9-hour drive. Thanksgiving was celebrated with Mom and Dad and the usual feast, followed by a visit with the neighbors down the street. We all drove up to Springfield, IL on Friday afternoon to visit with Tim’s family and have a big dinner. Mom and Dad drove back to St. Louis that night while Tim and I stayed through Sunday morning before an excruciating drive home that took about 12-13 hours.

Note to self: ALWAYS drive around Chattanooga during the holiday season. The added 20 miles to go through Alabama is worth the 2 hours we’ll save on the road.

On Saturday, we packed up the car and drove to Atlanta via Washington, D.C., where we spent the night with friends Sean and Celeste Heather and their son William.

We were amazed when snow started to fall mid-afternoon on the day of our party. By that night, 3 inches had fallen in Hoboken and 11 in suburban New Jersey, stranding some of our prospective guests without power. So while we lost a few people to the weather, we were happy to see how many people trekked to our building to say goodbye one last time, and even strapped on the snow boots later that night to go next door to our local watering hole, Three A’s.

(And for those of you with a good eye, yes, I'm wearing a curtain rod. Mom made me a fabulous costume so that I could go as Carol Burnett as Scarlett O’Hara. “Scarlett, I love that dress.” “Why, thank you. I saw it in the window and I just had to have it.”)

Mike was happy to see Nadal remain on top throughout his match, crushing David Nalbandian. And Tim got to see Andy Roddick win for a change; he beat Julian Benneteau (who?) 6-1, 6-4, 7-6.

The twins flew in on Friday afternoon and we all went out to dinner in the Boken for sushi. Since I was still recuperating from knee surgery, I passed on trolling the grounds at the Open and stayed at home.

As usual, the boys saw plenty of great tennis. They watched Marcel Granollers retire to Juan Carlos Ferrero in the middle of the second set, and, in the biggest match of the day, watched Federer beat Marin Cilic. Tim also took Mike to the Nike store on the grounds to teach him the finer points of purchasing Nadal gear.

I’d been having problems for a while, noticing a clicking sound and more swelling than usual, so I went back to my surgeon over the summer. He’d sent me for an MRI and, when I went for the results, told me some startling news — that I needed to have knee surgery #5 to repair a torn meniscus. While the diagnosis was wrong (my meniscus turned out to be fine), the problems were real; he trimmed away the excess scar tissue and cartilage cells (from my implant, back in 2008) that were causing the clicking and swelling. And I went home to convalesce… and get freaked out by the weather reports.

As we sat at home on Friday afternoon, the reports grew bleaker and bleaker. The Hoboken mayor’s initial voluntary evacuation turned into mandatory evacuation on Saturday morning for all 1st floor units (which included us). So Tim packed up everything close to ground level and we gathered our valuables, including little Edie, and drove inland to Denville to stay with friends about 45 miles inland.

It poured all day and all night, but we woke up on Sunday to clear skies by late morning. We stayed in touch with a neighbor by texting to find out the power was out, and there was some flooding in Hoboken, but thankfully not by our building. The friends we stayed with lost a tree, but we were grateful it fell parallel to the house; if it had fallen in a slightly different direction, they would have lost their entire second story. By the evening, the power was back on and we drove home to find that our building was fine and our unit unharmed. We were both exhausted, and my leg was throbbing from chasing the dog around the house all weekend, but we were happy to know that it could have been a lot worse.