In 2007, we participated in 3 major knife shows: New York City in February, Solvang, California in April and Milan in late November.

After the Italian show we spent 4 nights in Varenna, a charming little mediaeval village (pop. 500) on Lake Como. Since it was late November, nearly every shop & restaurant were closed & the town was quite empty. Fortunately we realized on our last night there that we had better get some food for supper so shopped in Bellagio across the lake. The little apartment we rented was a bit funky but it was nonetheless a fun experience. We became quite adept at taking local ferries and even went by bus to Lugano, Switzerland one day. Our last day, we met up with South African knifemaker friends Toi and Mike Skellern & Owen Wood in Bellagio and had a fabulous lunch at Salice Blu (Blue Willow to us) restaurant. The young chef-owner has won all kinds of awards & many were the oohs and aahs as each dish was presented since they were beautiful as well as delicious.

In September, we took an English friend out West to the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Missoula, Montana and Pocatello, Idaho areas for 2 weeks. Fifty years ago, VL, her parents and brother, visited the two parks. She well remembers the number and size of the glaciers on Grand Teton Mountain which are no longer there - a sign of global warming. In the parks we had many good sightings of wildlife: grizzly and black bears, bison, pronghorn antelope, Rocky Mountain sheep, coyotes, moose, elk, more bison and even more bison.

In Missoula, we visited Howard's cousin Lars (whom he had not seen in nearly 30 years.) Lars took us on a 7-mile float down the Bitterroot River through a bird sanctuary. We had great views of osprey, shore birds and one magnificent bald eagle that simply refused to leave his perch in a riverside tree even when Lars pulled the boat back over gravel to get closer. On the way to Idaho, we followed the Lewis and Clark trail along the river through a stunningly beautiful valley ringed by sharp toothed peaks. How magnificent all that vast Western scenery is!

Five of my knives are featured (on pages 12, 59 and 60) in a recently published book Art of the Knife by Joe Kertzman. The book has breathtaking photos and is a good review of the current state of the art of custom knives.

Virginia Lee and I hope that 2008 will bring peace, good health, joy and prosperity to you.