As the title suggests, 2009 was a busy year for The Latos. So busy that we didn’t have time to send out Christmas cards or work on a holiday letter. (This letter was actually written at 32,000 feet on a flight from Chicago to San Francisco a few days ago.) Luckily, 2009 ended with everyone in good health and prosperous.

Yosemite Winter Storm

Maria & Angelina Inspecting Mexico House

While 2009 felt like it had us staying rather close to home, in retrospect it did contain a number of trips. Starting off in January when Jennifer traveled to Moroleon, Mexico with her Mother and Aunt to visit relatives and check in on their family rental house. Greg was unable to join them on their two week trip due to work obligations. In March Greg and Jen made a last minute trip to Yosemite National Park in hopes of catching the last winter snow storm of the season and experience Yosemite in it’s winter best, we succeed and had two days of winter wonderland. Over Labor Day, Jennifer, Maria, and Greg did a week driving trip up to Port Angles, Washington to explore the Olympic National Park and make a quick day trip to Victoria, British Columbia. We ended the year by traveling back to The Midwest, sans parents, to spend a few days in Chicago and then traveling through Wisconsin over the holidays to visit Greg’s family. That winter trip was a real test of Jennifer’s cold weather endurance as the temperatures rarely got above 25F, though having a white Christmas (sorta) made up for it.

The challenging economic times made for both busy and interesting times in Jennifer’s floral design work. She was promoted to the Operations Manager at Michael Diagian Designs and had responsibility over the design floor and increasing involvement with business development. She also managed to provide flowers for a few smaller weddings on her own business. In July she traveled to Kansas City for the AIFD Symposium and earned her Certified Floral Designer certification (she just missed becoming an full AIFD Member). She also wrapped up the year by finishing the fourth part of the Ikebana floral design classes she has been taking and is considering continuing to obtain an Ikebana teaching credential. All that while continuing with multiple dance classes each week through the spring and fall.

Easter Sierra Fall Colors

The year was just as busy and interesting for Greg in his job at VMware. The year started off by working with a new sales person while still covering the same three global clients, which resulted in him traveling a handful of times to Raleigh, North Carolina and Houston, Texas. The rest of the time he was fortunate to be able to stay local to the Bay Area and still over achieve his yearly sales goals. His photography (this site) continues when time permits and included a few trips to the Eastern Sieara Nevadas for the fall colors in addition to the previous mentioned trips. His current attention is focused on getting some website changes completed which will enable more sales of his work.  Greg’s home projects of repainting the doors and trim work in the house also continues, much slower than expected and slowed down even more by a side project of painting our master bedroom and bathroom.  Unfortunately, with everything else it seems like his family tree work keeps getting pushed to bottom of the list (new years resolution?).

We hope that everyone had a wonderful 2009. 2010 looks to be another busy year for us and we look forward to sharing more moments with everyone through out the year.

Jennifer and Greg Lato
(with Angelina, Maria, Sydney and Napoleon)