Merry Christmas from the Wieckowski and Panciera families!
This year we are especially thankful for the newest addition to our family – our adorable nephew Matthew!
We wish you all a happy holiday and a wonderful 2011! – Love, Mike and Yana
On Saturday June 5th Mike officially became a pilot! He flew out to Pontiac, MI and passed his FAA check ride with flying colors!
Two days later I had the honor of becoming Mike’s first passenger 
This is what Ann Arbor looks like from the sky!
While Mike has really been flying his whole life (Mom W has told me stories of how she used to change his diaper in the back of their airplane when he was a baby), he didn’t start flying himself until this fall. The need to be airborne is clearly a genetic defect – Mike’s father, brother and grandfather are/were all pilots (more on that later. . . .).
Mike and his partner-in-crime Dave starting taking lessons through a University of Michigan club that is based out of Ann Arbor airport (UMFlyers). It is really a fantastic club – they have great instructors and rent out a variety of Cessna aircraft. Last summer Mike and Dave spent much of their free time building, flying and re-building RC airplanes (see photo below). . . . now they are both flying the real things! Congrats guys
We just got back from an awesome week-long trip to Charleston to visit with family. Not only did we get to meet our new nephew, Matthew, but also got to see Danny’s first house and visit with Yana’s parents, who also made the journey down to Charleston for a week.
Here are a few of my favorite shots from the trip – below them are links to two photo galleries with all the pictures.
A few pictures from our vacation here: Charleston May 2010 Pictures
We also took some portraits of Peter, Jennifer & Matthew: Charleston May 2010 Portraits
Both can be found here too: Wieckowski Picture Trail. It’s just easier to post lost of pictures using Shutterfly – plus, it allows you to order pictures too!
Mike’s brother Peter and his wife Jennifer are the proud parents of Matthew Benjamin Wieckowski, who was born May 4th at 2:32 am!
Uncle Michael and Auntie Yana can’t wait to head down to Charleston to meet you, Matthew!
We are delinquent bloggers, that’s for sure! Hopefully 2010 will find us more time to keep this site updated!
First – even though our last post was in October, I forgot to mention that in September we celebrated our first anniversary! It was a great year – even though we were apart for a quarter of it! For our anniversary we had a delicious dinner at Eve in Ann Arbor and then toasted with the same champagne Mike bought the night we got engaged.
The traditional first wedding anniversary gift is “paper,” which at first, honestly, seems a bit difficult. In the end it definitely results in creative gifts! Anyone who knows Mike is aware of his love for hockey – growing up in Buffalo, naturally he follows the Sabres (though i’ve caught him cheering on the Red Wings on more than one occasion since he became a Michigander). Well, it just so happened that the Sabres were playing the Red Wings in Detroit about a week after our anniversary (hockey tickets = paper = extra wife points from hockey loving husband). Getting to watch the Sabres beat the Red Wings in the second row of Joe Louis Arena was priceless
Mike’s gift was equally creative – he got me both a book and a computer program for making family trees. For a while I’ve been talking about finding out more about our families – now I have great tools for finding and organizing information so that generations after us will know about their family.
The holidays have come and gone – we spent Thanksgiving in Charleston, SC and Christmas in Connecticut with both sides of the family. Both were great, and we can’t wait to see everyone again.
These days we are keeping ourselves busy with indoor activities (it’s COOOLLLLD in Michigan!). We are climbing a few times a week – I’m knitting and crocheting – Mike is working hard mastering the Piano (he’s currently working on Vince Guaraldi’s “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” so it still feels a bit like the holidays in our house). We also have rediscovered our love for cooking, partially inspired by the movie Julie & Julia (great movie if you haven’t seen it yet). We’ve been working our way through Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” If you have seen the movie, they were not exaggerating about the liberal use of butter in all the recipes.
Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season – and that 2010 brings only good days!
-Yana
Exciting news – Mike and I bought a new car in June! It’s a red (salsa red, to be exact) Jetta Sportswagon. We love it!
We got the car just in time for a summer packed with long road trips:
Trip #1: Niagara Falls – Buffalo – Grand Island, NY to visit Mike’s parents and tour Buffalo and Niagara Falls with some of our friends from Ann Arbor. After getting completely soaked on Maid of the Mist and touring the falls, we finished off Saturday with a dinner at Anchor Bar (where Buffalo Wings were invented) and drinks at a bar on Chippewa Ave. Sunday, Mike’s dad was nice enough to give everyone a tour of the area from the sky. Here are some pictures from our great weekend!
Trip#2: Mike’s brother, Peter, flew up from South Carolina to accompany us on an 8-hour drive to Oshkosh, WI for the annual Oshkosh EAA Airshow. Mike’s parents drove all the way from Buffalo in a Peterbuilt converted into a camper (not kidding – there is a picture in the slideshow to prove it) with a wonderful couple they know from Grand Island. We camped out Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights and went to the airshow Friday and Saturday. The EAA group from the Buffalo area were wonderfully inviting and well organized – we were able to join them for a delicious, home cooked breakfast and dinner each day we were there.
Trip #3: The longest drive of the three – 10 hours from Ann Arbor to New Jersey, most of which were spent traversing Pennsylvania. We drove out for the weekend to attend the wedding of our friends from Ann Arbor, Dave and Alicia. It was a wonderful wedding of a beautiful couple with warm and inviting friends and family! Just a note if anyone is ever planning on driving across PA – avoid taking the southern route of I-76. We took it on our way to NJ and paid almost $30 in tolls. No, i’m not exaggerating. I-80 is a much better choice! Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures – my camera battery died at the wedding.
The family traveled to Rochester May 22-23 to see Dan graduate from RIT with a degree in Mechanical Engineering – we were all so proud! Dan left Rochester a few days after graduation to start a job in Charleston, SC.
Climbing at Planet Rock in Ann Arbor
What we do when we are not working – climbing on the weekend at Planet Rock with our friend Dave.
Just had to share.
Cosmo fell asleep on the couch face-down in a plastic bag. One of the few moments i’ve really been appreciative of my cellphone camera.
Glad to report that we are back together again – Mike returned from his three month stint in San Jose February 28th. Last weekend we drove out to Grand Island to visit with the Wieckowski side of the family – including Pete and Jennifer who drove up from Charleston! The trip started off with an adventure: a leaky shower faucet resulted in two days without water and a giant hole being dug in the front lawn (long story, see picture below). Mike also ran face on into the wing of an airplane while trying to fix his car in his parents’ hanger (incase you were wondering what is on his forehead in the pictures). Jenn and I avoided drama and injury by spending our time knitting. I taught her how to knit socks and crochet
Friday afternoon we took a drive out to Niagara Falls. Even with the warming temperatures, there is still quite a bit of snow and ice around the falls. Check out the pictures!
I went to visit Mike for three days over MLK weekend. It was unseasonably cold when I left Ann Arbor (-9 without windchill!!) and unseasonably warm in San Jose (in the 70’s). When I was sitting in the plane at the Detroit airport, the pilot came on to report the weather in Minneapolis (where my connection was). He mentioned that it was 16 degrees out, adding that it was 25 degrees warmer there then in Detroit. Now that’s not something you hear very often!
Here are some pictures of our adventures in CA: we visited Stanford’s campus, walked around downtown Palo Alto, toured a beautiful beach in Carmel (where we encountered some very friendly squirrels, which may have been the reason we went to that specific beach ), and drove up to San Francisco to visit Alcatraz.
![Yana on "Lovehandles" - third route of the day](http://michaelandyana.com/wp-content/gallery/climbing-spring-09/marchclimbing-169.jpg "Yana on "Lovehandles" - third route of the day")
