Christmas 1995

Greetings and Merry Christmas from The Golden Fergusons; Byron & Toni. I like the sound of that; The Golden Fergusons. I’ve decided once your married you can refer to yourselves as “The Fergusons.” Of course, there are still some other Fergusons out there so… Greetings from Golden.

Its the second year of Byron & Toni’s marriage this Christmas. It is also the second year in our “new to us” house. Two seems to be a lucky number for us.

January, February, March, April, and May found us doing the usual. Eat, Sleep, Go to Work. Bleach! Byron’s still working at Coors. (How about them Rockies, huh?) He recently got a promotion. Now he’s an “Expert Developer”. The title is kind of annoying Byron thinks it sounds pretty darn presumptuous to say your an expert. Toni is still at Hewlett-Packard, but she’s planning on doing some serious looking in January. She’d like to find something closer (She commutes more than 50 miles one-way now). Eventually Toni and Byron would like to have some kids, too, and being closer would be better for that.

In June, Toni and Byron took some vacation. First stop- Las Vegas. Last year Byron and Toni noted that they never seemed to hit the really big jackpot. This time, however, the winds of fortune seemed to be with the lucky twosome. Byron hit eight numbers out of eight numbers on an electronic keno game while waiting for Toni to play real big money keno in the restaurant. It was only a nickel machine, but the payoff was 16000 nickels. (Yeah, it took Byron a while to figure it out too). $800! The win paid for all of our vacation; our trip to Vegas and our following trip to Montana. After getting home to Golden we drove up to Montana to see Byron’s Grandfather (Hi Wally.) O.K., Eastern Montana was probably as exciting to Toni as last year’s excursion to Kansas was for Byron. It was wonderful to see Byron’s grandfather and Sharon, though . Byron hopes he looks as good as Wally when he’s 90. While there, Byron and Toni saw a local production of the Music Man; toured the local museum and enjoyed Sharon’s excellent hospitality and cooking . (Thanks Sharon)

In the ensuing months Byron and Toni saw a few more plays and a few magicians (the magicians at Byron’s insistence.) (Yep, Byron’s still annoying Toni with
magic tricks .)

In September, Byron had to go to a conference in Philadelphia. (Filthadelphia?) Hope nobody getting this lives there. Anyway, since it seemed fairly close to NY, Toni and Byron took a few extra days off to visit Toni’s best friend and some family friends. We stayed with Toni’s best friend; Robin Null and her family. Her kids loved Byron’s
laptop. Toni loved the horses. She wants one. We had all the local cuisine. We ate candied apples, speedies, apple cider and other stuff. Byron’s highlight of the trip was meeting one of Toni’s family friends Tommy Jackson. He’s into magic too. They talked for hours about various tricks and magicians. It was a hoot.

In October, as a result of our previous trip in September, Toni finally got her childhood coffin back. What?! Its a really long story, but since Byron thinks it will garner sympathy and support of those reading this, here goes. Toni and her family always had a big display in their yard for Halloween when she was a kid. For all the years that Byron has known Toni, she and her sisters have had an on going discussion about this coffin. This coffin , used to hold a member of the family dressed as a vampire was being stored at Toni’s Mom’s house. Toni insisted that this coffin had been made especially for her. While in New York, the family friends verified that the coffin had been for her. (On videotape to play back on arrival) Well, with the preponderance of evidence, Toni and Byron are now the proud owners of a basement addition; a coffin .. O.K., she’s weird.

In December we’ve had unseasonably warm weather. When the cold comes in, though, the winds in the foothills pick up. Just the other day, gusts of over 80 mph blew out a window on Byron’s Metro. (It was parked and Byron was not in it.) An amazing display of nature’s forces. Fortunately the winds didn’t do to much damage to
Byron’s Xmas light display. NASA recently contacted him in order to use the lights as huge homing signals for possible 21ien life. Its sure to be the breakthrough their
looking for if the FAA doesn’t shut down the display first.

The year has certainly screamed past for Toni and Byron. It was a year full of happiness and of course, some tribulation. Nothing we can’t handle though. Sure hope that your holidays are happy and that 1996 brings happiness to each of you and your families.

Byron & Toni