December 1995 (written by Thom)

Happy Holidays to all!

The holidays are back once again and it is time for us to send you our wishes for a joyous season.

It has been another exciting year in the Gibson-Smith/Martin household! Ian and I, it seems, are always on the go. So, we apologize to those of you we have not spoken to, and hope that we will be able to catch up with you in the New Year.

Our year took a running start with a ski trip to Pennsylvania with the Smiths. This being my first time skiing on the east coast, I began dreaming of the glorious slopes in the Rockies, so immediately upon our return from this trip, we planned the next trip to Colorado in February. Breckenridge was heaven! From the first day we arrived, it snowed. We decided to drive down to Denver and catch up with friends, and on our return up into the mountains there was snow again, so seeing that the roads had been closed, we were forced to stop in Central City and gamble all night; we were very upset about this….right!

In April, Laura Olsen, a friend that works for the MS Society, asked us if we would like to join her on their annual bicycling event. We said yes but after cycling 105 miles in two days, we decided she really wasn't a friend to keep around…Then, she asked us to join a co-ed softball league. As Ian is not known for his sporting prowess, we laughed, somehow got talked into joining anyway and ended up in second place for the league.

In June, we held our annual fundraiser for children with AIDS, Kids Count, which was a lot of fun and raised over $40,000 for the Whitman-Walker Clinic, which is the AIDS services organization in the Washington area.

At the end of June, Ian, his parents (Val and Cliff), and I all went to the Twins Peaks Dude Ranch in Salmon, Idaho. Val, Ian, and I believe vacations are when you fly directly to an international airport in a major metropolitan community, with good hotels, great food, and trendy nightclubs. But no, this was several transfers and a small team of donkeys, actually a van, to finally get to Salmon. We ended up having such a great time riding horses, camping, and rafting, that we went back in September for Julia's, Ian's sister, 30th birthday. This is when the whole family decided that Idaho was the Promised Land and that we would all move and start a dude ranch of our own and we could raise cattle and horses. Reality soon set in when we realized that the nearest gourmet food store is in Denver, and that we couldn't have other comforts of the city. There aren't many places that deliver sushi, Chinese, or fresh pasta dinners in 30 minutes or less. So now we are looking in West Virginia, which is close enough to DC that we can be there in two hours, and still remain active.

On that note, we both continue to stay busy with our volunteer work. Ian was re-elected to the Board of Whitman-Walker and I was elected to the Board of Carl Vogel Foundation, a HIV/AIDS health and nutrition organization. I was also given an honorarium for sitting on a diversity-training panel and will be doing more of that in the future! Last week Ian was on ABC World News Tonight for a feature about people with HIV living long-term, healthy, and successful lives. They had filmed him all day at our house and then roller-blading through one of the local parks. Of course, he was very nervous with the thought that forty million people would be watching him.

Healthwise, things aren't too bad. We both started 3tc along with all of the other drugs we take. It seems to be having a great impact on Ian as his counts are way up. My counts are still down, but there is a new class of drug soon to be approved and we have hope for that. I was also diagnosed with K.S. which is a type of cancer and am currently doing chemotherapy, so we are keeping our fingers crossed for the future.

On a lighter note, work for both of us remains great and we both had good years. Everyone in the family went to the beach several weekends over the summer and again for the Thanksgiving weekend. We are looking forward to Christmas and New Years.

We hope everyone is well and that you have a wonderful holiday season.

All our love