T’was a night in November, the election quite near,
With campaigns particularly nasty this year,
Amid all the madness, we wanted to tell,
That the Bianco’s of Montville are doing quite well.
Our grandson, Arthur, was born in the Australian summer,
He lives far away, which can be quite a bummer,
But Becky sends loads of pictures and video clips,
Making us feel like we know him, though we can’t take many trips.
But last month, Becky and Arthur came to stay with us,
They’ll be in the States through December, so visit, you must!
At nine months, Arthur crawls, babbles and is super cute,
Being Grandparents is proving to be quite a hoot!
Arthur loves smiling at people and can be such a flirt,
Becky’s a bit worried he’ll be an extrovert!
While we can talk about Arthur all day, it’s true,
We’d like to tell what the rest are up to.
Life for Becky is busy, and a bit hectic, perhaps,
With being a Mom while working on Google Maps,
And John now has funding for his research on nuclear fusion,
We are hoping that his hard work will soon come to fruition.
Julia graduated last May amid hail, sleet and snow,
In July, she covered the RNC for the Daily Show.
She now writes web content for Cleveland TV news,
Starting at five AM, she has no time to snooze!
In her spare time Julia does a lot of freelance writing,
One of her articles* got nearly a million views – so exciting!
While we miss that we don’t get to see Julia each day,
We are very proud and enjoy watching her find her own way.
This past year Mike and I have been busy, but we did what it takes,
To host a tandem rally with almost 400 people in the Finger Lakes!
We cycled in Oregon, Vermont, PA, West Virginia and Kentucky,
And cycled Tuscany with friends. We know we’re so lucky!
After spending over three decades working, we’re trying something new,
We quit our jobs and started a cycling company, it’s true!
The business is called Adventures in Tandem – we do tours by bike,
Life is too short – you should do what you like!
It’s hard to believe that this is our 18th poem for the holidays,
There were Clintons in the White House when we started this phase!
But our aim hasn’t changed over all of this time,
We want to update our friends while keeping the rhyme.
So please stay in touch and despite politics, we know we’ll survive,
As long as we can still laugh – thank goodness for Saturday Night Live!
Please stay in touch and check out our new website: www.adventuretandem.com
*The article was about what the cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer might look like if it was cast today. Turns out people get pretty excited about BtVS.