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In January, Gregory was back in the Czech Republic during his winter holiday, Mina received awards at Townshend School, and Greg was in Bratislava with a large group of youth taking part in Bahá’í activities there. In early February, the famous Austrian violinist Bijan Khadem-Missage was in our home for an informal gathering, Townshend had a celebration of the Bahá’í days of Ayyám-i-Há, and Mina had a leading role in the Townshend production of Lord of the Flies.
In March, Emi, Greg and Mina flew to Bulgaria and we celebrated Mina’s birthday with Baba after her return from some tests in hospital. Mina then flew to the U.K. to visit a school friend of hers, with Emi and Greg following a few days later. In early April we visited Glasgow during Joyce’s spring break. In mid-April, Greg and Joyce flew to the U.S. where Joyce visited Bennington College in Vermont which had accepted her to study there. She then returned to the U.K. while Mina and Emi joined Greg in New York and they drove from there all the way to Chicago, visiting two colleges to which Mina was admitted: Bard College north of New York City on the Hudson River, and Kenyon College in the middle of Ohio. In late April, Greg was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the Czech Republic.
Mina was in the graduating class of the Townshend International School this year. In mid-June they had the traditional “Rose Ceremony” in which the graduating class present roses to the faculty and staff in appreciation for their years at the school, and pass on their school blazers to younger students. Then eleven days later the graduation ceremony took place. Greg’s older children Carrie and Ian and their families, and his brother Arthur, joined us for the festivities. The video is Mina’s moving Valedictorian speech during the graduation.
After the graduation, we all proceeded to Bulgaria. After a few days with Baba, Arthur had to leave and the rest of us spent a few days of tourism in Plovdiv and then relaxation in a hot springs spa in the mountains, before leaving for London for Joyce’s graduation from the English National Ballet School and to help her pack for moving to a new flat in Croydon on the south side of London.
In mid-July we were back in Bulgaria to celebrate Baba’s 80th birthday in a restaurant near Blagoevgrad with her many relatives.
Then in the last days of July we were on Bahá’í pilgrimage in Haifa and `Akká, Israel, to take advantage of probably the last time we would be able to do so all together as a family.
In August, Emi and Greg travelled with Mina to New York to help her settle into her new surroundings at Bard College, where she had a special two-week session for new students to help them adjust to college life and its academic expectations. Then, back in Bulgaria, they were joined by Joyce and her boyfriend Taylor, and had some relaxing days in their summer apartment in Vlas on the Black Sea Coast. At the end of August, Gregory and Merle joined them in Krupnik.
In September we were back home in the Czech Republic, with the school year beginning again at Townshend (but without our Mina!).
In October, Emi and Greg travelled to New England to enjoy the fall foliage with Gregory and Mina in a cabin by a lake in Western Massachusetts.
In November, former member of the Universal House of Justice Hooper Dunbar was in Hluboká recovering from a series of operations, and we hosted a couple of meetings with him in our home. Then, in early December, Greg and Emi traveled again to the U.S. to celebrate Gregory’s 21st birthday with him and Mina in a cabin in the woods near Bard, where we were snowed in. At the end of the year we were all together in Krupnik with Baba.
