Daniel Thompson:  

Served in the navy for 31 yrs, active and reserve. During my Navy time I was able to visit Iceland, Norway, Spain, England, the Azores, Puerto Rico, The Bahamas and Sicily. I even crossed the Arctic Circle on the USS Mount Whitney. I graduated from WMU in 74. Worked for FAA for 30 years as an air traffic controller. After retirement I worked an additional 15 years for Midwest Air Traffic a contract ATC service provider.. Our son Colin, 88 a CMU biology major has put his education to work brewing for New Holland Brewing. He was recently named their innovation brewer and now works out of their Grand Rapids, Knickerbocker Brew pub, Our daughter, Elyse 92, 2014 Hope College grad. She earned her MPH in Public Health from Boston University In 2016. She is living in Christchurch, New Zealand and works at Canterbury University. Her fiancé is a Kiwi and he finished his degree in Oenolgy at Lincoln University. He is the vineyard manager for Terrace Edge winery. They are to be wed on May 27, 2023. Looks like our 5th trip to New Zealand is approaching. We live in the country on 10 acres north of Kalamazoo. We have visited London and Paris with our daughter when she studied abroad. Since our daughter has become engaged to a Kiwi we have had the pleasure of visiting New Zealand four times. We didn't miss much. Beautiful country, nice people. Highly recommend it. On 8/15/18 our son Colin and his wife Ashley presented us with a very handsome young Grandson named Owen. He is the first and well worth the wait. Fully retired and have not slowed down, run and run more. We left for Australia on 3/2 /20 and spent time in Sydney and Brisbane then drove the coast to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef. The snorkeling was beautiful. Amazing country and people. Then it gets interesting. We arrived in New Zealand on the evening of 3/18 to a two week self isolation. All went well until the government imposed a 4 week nation...Expand for more