To All My Dear Friends,

I'VE MOVED! After 15 years in the same house, I bought a place in Rossmoor with 2 bedrooms and 1400 sq. feet. It is darling and has a view of Mt. Diablo ... not that I have much time to gaze out my windows! Crystal and Tony with Bonnie and Andrews' help bought my home and it all worked out so well, since they have been living with me for over a year, & the kids were all settled in their schools and they LOVE the neighborhood!

Rossmoor is an adult community for over 55 and it has everything you can imagine, from 2 golf courses to 3 clubhouses and pools, state of the art gym, tennis, lawn bowling and umpteen jillion bridge clubs! I'm in Hog Heaven! My kids gave me a bicycle trip through the Tuscany countryside in Italy next year, for my 65th birthday, and I've bought a bike and am getting into shape for it. They are going with me, and it will be a ball! A van follows you and you can stop to shop or eat, and it will be the "easy" tour. I can hardly wait! All my children were at my party that the kids gave me, except Sterling, who came late, and Tamara, who is in Texas. When I moved to Rossmoor I decided it Was time for her to have Donnie's grand piano, so she has it now. I know he's smiling happily down on her!

Crystal got a job teaching French at a prestigious private school in Danville as well as teaching one night in the Adult Education program. Tony is working for Bonnie and Andrew remodeling their home in Portola Valley, which will take about 9 months. Jade has a boyfriend and is in high school now and Jason got to play baseball this summer for the first time, and went to game S of the World Series! He was so excited and thanked me at least a dozen times!

Bonnie and Andrews' home will be fabulous when they are finished. They are adding a downstairs with 2 bedrooms and a family room and re-doing all their floors and part of the kitchen, etc., etc. They moved out and are renting another house nearby. Bonnie is still riding her bike long distances and has added running and swimming. This Summer, when Tony

took Jade and Jason to Switzerland for a month to visit his Mother, Crystal, Bonnie and Mary all went back East to Rochester, New York to visit Chuck's family, and while they were back there, Bonnie competed in a race in New England. My grandsons, Robert and Michael are both in high school now, and Rob just turned 16 and is driving! They both play the guitar, and at Thanksgiving we had a regular jam session with Sterling leading the pack. He is so talented, both musically and artistically. He has decided to move back up to the Mendocino area where he graduated from high school.

Mary left Mt. Madonna in Santa Cruz and is living in Tahoe now and working for the same company I work for ... Prudential California Realty. She is the Office Administrator there and loves it! She is in Incline Village and is renting a 5 bedroom home with 2 roommates. When she left Mt. Madonna, they had to hire 5 people to do the work she did all by herself!! She is so happy in this new adventure!

Cary and Heather are still enjoying living in the house they bought from me in Lafayette. They have remodeled, put a fence around the property to keep their dog safe and it looks great! I'm hoping they can both make it to Tahoe when the whole family goes up there for Christmas. Thay usually do, and so does Tamara..at least for part of the time. She is a great snowboarder!

This year I was all over the State for CAR and also went to Washington,. D.C. and New Orleans for the National Assoc. of Realtors. I am the Director for our Company. I also went on a 10 day cruise to Alaska with my sister Betsy. It left from San Francisco and came back to San Francisco ... no flying!! What a fun time we had! I'm still singing in the church choir and am active with my favorite Theater Group ... Woodminster, although I was too busy to be in a musical this year. Crystal is on the Advisory Board of Directors with me, and loves it. Maybe next year we'll both be in a musical together!

I hope 2003 will be a happy and healthy one for all of you!

After graduation from Burroughs, I went to Valley College for a year and that is where I met my first husband, Chuck Forest. I was in charge of the talent show, and he auditioned, singing, "Love is a Many Splendored Thing," and I was smitten! We teamed up and sang, "Love and Marriage," dressed up as little kids and the next day he proposed.

We eloped and my mother and father had a fit because my sister had eloped also, and daddy never got to walk either one of us down the aisle!

We had a little place in Glendale while he was going to Glendale College, and a year later we had our first child, our daughter, Crystal. I still didn't know how to drive, and he was having to take me everywhere, so he finally told me it was time to learn. He taught me how to drive, and to this day, I still drive like a man.

When Chuck transferred to UCLA we moved into Marvin Gardens in Culver City. It was the slums cleaned up . . . public housing, but it was better than the housing on campus. We had 2 bedrooms and I even had a dishwasher . . . a portable one . . . which was a luxury back then. We lived there a year and had our second daughter, Bonnie, and then bought our first home in El Segundo while Chuck was in his last year of college. It had a little guest cottage in the back, and that's where Chuck did all his studying. He drove a school bus in the morning, went to school, drove a school bus in the afternoon, came home and ate dinner, went to bed, and then went to work from 10 PM to 6AM at Bank of America where they processed the checks at night. The only time he had for studying was on the weekends, and yet, he graduated with a B+ average from UCLA.

After graduation, Chuck got a job with North American, and we bought a beautiful 5-bedroom home in Garden Grove. This is where our third daughter, Mary, was born. (When I was pregnant with Crystal, Chuck told me he hoped it would be a girl, and if we had to have all of one sex, he hoped they would be all girls. I certainly did MY part in all this.) He went on and got his stockbroker's license and worked in that field, ultimately limited partnerships, until he retired.

We lived in Garden Grove until 1970, when we decided to move to "God's Country" . . . the San Francisco Bay area . . . and more specifically, Walnut Creek area, just about half an hour from San Francisco. We bout a beautiful 2600 sq. ft. home nestled in the trees on almost 2 acres in Orinda. A couple of years after we moved to the Bay area, I got my real estate license. I had been the stay at home mom all those years, but Chuck now needed my help and because I never graduated from college, I couldn't get a decent job . . . as I didn't even know how to type. I still don't. I do it with two fingers!!!! I jumped in with both feet, and made as much money as he did, my first year in real estate, and loved it. In 1979, at the age of 42, I got pregnant with my last child, which happened to be a boy, and we named him, Sterling. I wanted a boy for ME!!!! In the meantime, I had the opportunity to go into management, and that is what I've done ever since! In 2000, I was the president of our Board of Realtors, and I am a State Director at the California Association of Realtors, as well as at the National level. I am now the manager of Prudential California Realty in Walnut Creek . . . for the past 11 years, as well as Vice President and the Broker of Record for the Contra Costa offices for MLS. I have 65 agents, and the office is like my family.

Chuck and I had a "loving" divorce in the 80s as we were going in different directions, although he remained my best friend until his death from a stroke in 1997.

In 1982, I found my first love from high school, Don McReynolds. I was in Los Angeles for a seminar, and had a little free time, so I drove by his old house on Rose Street in Burbank. My car was still running when a lady came out of his old house and came around to my window and asked, "May I help you?" . . . and then she jumped back and said. "You're Frieda, aren't you?" I said, "Yes, how did you know?" And she answered, "Because I am Don's ex-wife and you are all I've heard about for 20 years!" She then proceeded to tell me he had been looking for me all those years, and had even kept his same house in case I ever wanted to find him . . . until he moved out after they separated. (She still lives there even today.) She insisted that I had to call him, and I did, which started a correspondence and writing of poems for a year. After a year, we decided God had given us a second chance at happiness and he came up here to marry me. We wrote a total of 150 poems during our time together. We were in several musicals at Woodminster where I had sung for then 17 years in the Summer. He sang anytime anyone wanted him to sing and he still had a glorious voice (as did my first husband, Chuck. He had many leads at Woodminster). During all those years apart, Don had been a school teacher, teaching the deaf and blind children in a one-room school house for the Los Angeles School District for 20 years, as well as a professional musician, playing the piano, guitar and singing. He had made several records during those years, even one with Burl Ives. What fun.

When he came up here to marry me, he left all that behind and got into real estate with me, and we had a ball. He brought his son, Gary, then 12 with him, and I couldn't have picked a more wonderful son. He is a graduate of the University of Oregon with a law degree and lives with his wife, Heather, close by. (By the way, I did go back to school and graduated from St. Mary's College with a degree in Business Management.)

Don and I had over six wonderful years together and never had a fight. I swear, that he was my reward for being "good" all those years. Ha! Unfortunately, he died instantaneously of a heart attack, with no prior warning, at the young age of 57 years.

I was in shock for a long time, but had my family around me as well as my wonderful agents who are like family to me. I look back and feel I was very blessed to have had him even that short while, and he left me his wonderful son, as well as a daughter, Tamara, who is a doctor in Texas, but comes to be with us all at Christmastime. So far, I have had an incredible life, traveling all over the world, to Europe at least 10 times, to Asia 3 times. Mexico many times, especially on cruises, which I love. I am going to Alaska this June with my 74-year-old sister who lives close by, as does all her family.

I am so fortunate to have all my children here in the Bay area. My oldest daughter, Crystal, lived in Switzerland for 16 years as she had married a Swiss boy and had 2 children over there. Her dad passed away while she was living in Switzerland (although she was able to come and he recognized her before he died) and she decided it was time to come back "home" so I cleaned out 3 bedrooms for them and they have lived with me for a year and I am so spoiled. They are buying my house now, and I am moving a few miles away to Rossmoor, and close escrow in a week.

There is so much more to tell, but, I must end here, by saying I am very grateful for my life, for my darling and loving children, and for my wonderful church where I sing on Sunday. I didn't go to church for years, but when my sister's husband died 2 years after Donnie, she asked me to sing at his memorial. The next week the church asked me to sing at one of their services, and the next thing I knew, I was a member of the choir AND the church!!!! And, I've been there ever since!!!! What goes around really DOES come around!!!! And, I'm ready for MORE adventure, as I expect to live to be 100 . . . and be shot by a jealous wife at that. Ha!

Love, Frieda McReynolds