Well, instead of a Christmas letter, I’ll do a year-end blog post. Decided to help the Postal Service out by sending cards, though. We did a lot of traveling in 2018, starting out with a coastal cruise of Norway in March? Why winter? Are we nuts? No, that’s the best time for the Aurora Borealis and it WAS spectacular. May took us on the back roads of southwestern Ireland where we learned a lot, laughed a lot, and made many new friends. August brought my 50th class reunion in Edmore, Michigan. The reunion was actually held in Six Lakes but that’s close to Edmore. We took the opportunity to make a “see-do” road trip in our newer SUV. We drove through the Ozarks, went up in the arch & on the Mississippi River in St. Louis, saw Lincoln’s home in Springfield, Illinois, climbed sand dunes along Lake Michigan in Indiana, walked around Mackinaw City and Mackinw Island, visited Tahquamenon Falls & Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, attended a Moors & McCumber concert in Superior, Wisconsin, stumbled onto Model A weekend in Amana, Iowa, had lunch with friends from the Ireland trip in Nebraska, visited more friends from that trip in Wray Colorado, went to Breckenridge to pick up 4 cases of wine we had stored there, the stopped at Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado on our way home. We also squeezed in a few days to visit sisters Cheryl in Michigan and Laurie in Nebraska. Many days, many states, lots of miles and we came home still talking to each other 😃.

We hosted our usual 4 house concerts in 2018, including Joe Jencks, Ken Gaines & Wayne Wilkerson, Ronny Cox, and Albert & Gage. Don’t know how much longer we’ll keep doing this, but for now it’s still fun.

We did lose one of our cats, cuddle-bunny Dipper, during the year. He’d always had a virus but picked up a second one that did him in. He had a longer than average life for a Tonkinese, though. We still have Saba, our Ocicat, but she’s slowing down because of age. Although she mostly sleeps, when she is awake she is very demanding of attention.

And..that’s it for us this year.

H