End-of-Year Holidays 2013

It's New Year's Eve. I'm off to the coast for a quick overnight trip: Jim's ashes are being interred tomorrow at Evergreen Cemetery and there's a potluck afterward at Mom and Don's. It will be a thoughtful way to start 2014.

We did have a mostly lovely Thanksgiving, though for me it was overshadowed by Grandma's death. It was also a big break with tradition--Mom and Don decided to travel to Fiji and New Zealand. Arienne, now retired and mistress of her own time, finally was able to visit for Thanksgiving. So we took the cooking show on the road and headed up to Manchester for a small but festive celebration.

On Thanksgiving Day we took advantage of the incredible weather and walked to Schooner Gulch.

On Friday, we headed north to Fort Bragg. It was another beautiful day. We hit Glass Beach and had lunch overlooking Noyo Harbor.

Mary, Tom, Caitlin, and Sean came over for lunch on Saturday, which was really great. Arienne and Mary really hit it off--they think they might be distantly related!

We returned to Santa Rosa on Sunday. Arienne headed south Monday morning, and Mom and Don returned from their island sojourn that night. It was good to see them again.

It wasn't really a holiday, but I think it was a first: a "quadruple" date with the Point Arena gals and their guys. It was so nice for us all to be together! We wend down to the de Young Museum to see the David Hockney exhibit. I had pretty low expectations, but it was really an excellent show. Seeing the scale of his work, the same landscapes painted over and over in different seasons and light--it made me think of how each moment is different, how time changes everything constantly. I don't know that I would have gotten that by just seeing one of his paintings, but seeing them together really brought that home. His portraits put me in mind of a lot of classical portraits throughout the centuries. I also liked the "movies" of the paintings he did on an iPad--made me think that maybe I should get an iPad and take up fine art. Seeing the room filled with his charcoal drawings made me withdraw that notion--it was much easier to see his deftness and skill in black and white works that showed reflections of trees in a puddle, in light shining off birch leaves. After the exhibit we had lunch in the museum café.

Christmas was also a quiet holiday celebration. The office is closed for nearly two weeks, so it was not stressful getting ready and my holiday shopping was minimal. I've also been keeping up at the gym, and that helps too. M and I went back up the coast on Christmas Eve, and we continued our tradition of good food and walks on the beach, helped by continuing spectacular weather, though we're starting to dread the drought.

We were home for a day, then we shot over to Chico for a quick overnight visit. It was good to see Glo and the kids. Mom and Don joined us for that visit, too, making it extra special. We walked through Upper Park on Sunday morning, Jay came down and joined us for lunch, so we had even more family time. It was so nice. I've been with a lot of family lately and I really appreciate it.

 Happy holidays and here's to lots of goodness in 2014.