The Brenner-Olive Branch
Volume 19
Athens, Georgia
June 21, 2016
2010: Late Edition!
The year 2010 was certainly a year to remember for us
in the Brenner-Olive branch of the family.
celebrated John’s 65th birthday in September at our
Beach House on Fripp Island, South Carolina.
Deb celebrated the end of her cancer therapy (no more
Tamoxifen!) in September after 5 years of being
cancer free.
John presented a keynote address at a conference in
Laramie, Wyoming the following week and in
October, Nathan and Lotta flew over from Denmark
for his friend’s wedding in California (Nathan was
best Man).
John is now allowed to tell you that he has been
consulting for Disney for the past two years on several
projects. He anticipates continuing this relationship
with Disney for several more years. He is also
directing the evaluation and research for a project that
is developing new dynamic number software for
elementary and middle grades students. As part of this
project, John and Deb spent a fabulous weekend in
New York in January of 2010, where Deb got to play
with her cousin Jeff while John was busy working!
Jeff treated us to a great Broadway show: Fella!
Our first exciting trip this year was to Taiwan, where
John was invited by Chinghua (a former doctoral
student) to teach a course for elementary teachers and
to give a couple of lectures at the National Pingtung
University of Education. We had side trips to
Kaohsiung and Kenting National Park, as well as
visiting an indigenous people’s cultural park near
Tainan and the National Museum in Taipei.
Deb, John & Chinghua with Indigenous Taiwanese
Our family has continued to travel across the country
and around the globe. Jaime visited us in Athens from
her home at Lake Tahoe for the July 4th holiday
weekend. Deb was able to have a blast with her wild
women friends in Arizona in late August and we
Nathan began working for Global Wind Power in
Thisted, Denmark in August and Lotta joined him
there for their first experiment in living together after
six years of maintaining a long-distance relationship!
Nathan loves his job but not the locale. He has been
given a lot of responsibility very early in his career
and is currently managing a project to establish wind
farms in the Middle East. He was in Instanbul to
meet with potential partners last month and flies to
Abu Dhabi the end of this week. We are very proud
of him!
In November Deb and John spent Thanksgiving week
with Jaime at her home in Kings Beach, Lake Tahoe,
CA. The area had 40 inches of snow during the week,
the biggest storm in over 8 years! We enjoyed every
inch of it! John and Jaime went downhill skiing and
snowboarding, we all went cross-country skiing and
snow
shoeing,
and
hosted a
fabulous
Thanksgiving
dinner at
Jaime’s
home.
Deb,
Jaime &
John at
the top of
the
meadow
above
Lake
Tahoe
The Brenner-Olive Branch
Jaime is living the Tahoe life, maintaining three jobs:
One for the Parasol Community, an umbrella
organization for non-profit agencies in Tahoe where
she is acting director; PetNet, which is a 100%
adoption organization for cats and dogs; and on
weekends she works at a ski resort to get her snow
boarding fix for free! Her diverse skills and interests
continue to motivate her and amaze us. Her
Americorps Getting things Done 2010 Video was the
First Place contest winner; you can view the video at
http://www.americorpscontest.org/PublicContent/Vid
eo/WatchVideo.aspx?videoId=754 We are so proud!
Volume 19, Page 2
treated to a real Swedish holiday with smorgasbord,
schnapps and Glogg. Both sets of Lotta’s
grandparents were there, which was quite a treat – as
well as requiring a lot of translation by Lotta and her
twin Jannic. We were truly welcomed in as family.
Jannic, Nathan & Lotta
Deb, Nathan, Lotta, and Jaime also managed to make
trips to Charlotte, NC, to visit Deb’s favorite sister
Patti, her husband Harold, their daughters, Abby and
Lauren and their respective husbands Mike and
Houston. We’d be lying if we didn’t admit that the
stars of the visits were grand-nieces Sarah (5),
Wallace (4), Frances (1), and grand-nephew Owen
(2).
Lauren, Frances, Jaime, Deb and Owen.
The highlight of our year, however, has to be the
family trip to Denmark and Sweden in December.
Deb, John and Jaime flew to Copenhagen December
20th (arriving the afternoon of the 21st). We spent
one night in Copenhagen before embarking on our
train journey to Thisted. The country was in the
middle of a freezing winter storm and all rail travel
was in a shambles, with cancelations and combining
trains. We were packed in like sardines, standing in
the aisles with all our luggage, for most of the sevenhour ride! We finally made it to Thisted after Nathan
met us at the last stop where we were to change trains
(again), having figured out which train we must be on
and when it would arrive! We spent two nights with
Nathan in Thisted and then went by car and ferry to
Lotta’s parents’ home in Korskrog, Sweden. We were
Lasse & Ann-Christine (Lotta’s parents)
We ended our family reunion with a 24-hour cruise on
a party boat from Stockholm to Finland. Danced till
the wee hours of the morning. Fun, Fun, Fun!
After a day sightseeing and shopping in Stockholm,
we returned to the States to celebrate the end of 2010,
twice!
We are looking forward to Lasse and Ann-Christine’s
visit to the USA in March and hope to see many more
of you either here in the USA or abroad during 2011.
Best wishes to you and yours for the New Year.
Love from
Debra, John, Jaime and Nathan