Top on the list, a new grandchild!!! Jake and Rylee had Aliette Eloise Bauer in late August. A long awaited very joyful addition. Pictures below! On to everything else!
Again, we did not really travel much this year. Certainly not out of the country. Our frustration with non-travel led us to sell everything we didn’t need (2 cars, boat, my office building etc) and spend all that saved money in strange ways. First, we upgraded our tiny 15 foot T@B trailer to one that was 3 feet longer. Uh, that gave the dogs a place to sleep that wasn’t on our feet, most of the time. We took a couple of camping trips, nicely isolated and in the fresh air. After picking the new T@B up in Boise, we drove home and visited a couple of “Harvest Host” camp sites along the way. Two were vineyards, one was a golf course. Nice outdoor spots to set up! Next, we tried to recreate our honeymoon by camping in state parks along the Oregon coast to the California redwoods, then back up through central Oregon, barely missing forest fires along the way. We didn’t get to Carmel, CA, but enjoyed our 12 days in the bigger version of the T@B, which we have named AD@GIO. It is truly a slow dance movement with partners to get out of the bed and into the bathroom at 3 in the morning! Our final camping trip was again to the Oregon Coast, Ft. Stevens State Park, where we decamped to the beach house when it rained too hard! At that spot we set up a “massive” corral with snow fence to keep the dogs in if we let them out at night. Our only problem was: what kept the dogs in so well also kept the squirrels in when they came to steal food from the table. Talk about a crazy wrangle with frantic dogs chasing equally frantic squirrels all over the corral…..sigh. We then sent her off to the beauty salon to cheer up her exterior. Colorful and busy for gray times.
No other travels, but we did start to eat out in restaurants – outside at first and then, briefly inside. Then we welcomed omicron and got wiser about that…..Sigh again. We did get our vaccines in January and February, then boosted in October. It helps to be on the cancer list at UW to speed along that process. Don’t tell them I am now 4 years free of that little bugger, it might interfere with more future jabs if they know. Anticipating more boosters as we age!
We did manage a few family get togethers this year, almost all outside, bundled and sitting across a blazing fire from each other. The annual Easter duck races in the stream were a bit subdued. For Christmas, we all got tested and wore N95 or similar masks. Still met outside and bundled well. Still joyful. On to other news!
Jake and Rylee finished their new house and moved in just in time to welcome Aliette. We have enjoyed free use of their new pool, though only met up there outside due to covid. Lots of fun times for everyone, though. Mason (14 soon to be 15) was more than happy to start freshman year high school in person. He is in the choir and doing well in his classes. Kale (age 12) is in middle school and seems to be thriving back in the classroom. Paige at 7 (almost 8) is full of fun and fancy, just starting some hip hop dance classes. They are enjoying getting their new rooms in shape with bookcases, bulletin boards and LED lights everywhere. Best Christmas present was remote powered model jet-skis which they race all over the cold cold pool, driving Kula and Phoebe (dogs) nuts
Ian and Candace have enjoyed their work from home time. The kids have thrived with Candace’s school at home. Ian’s court cases were mostly by zoom or an equivalent process. He is now back in the office a few days a week, but it is a ghost town with limited staff on site. Last Christmas vacation they spent a carefully isolated week in Palm Springs and have repeated that this year. The massive snow and cold that hit Christmas day did cause a 5-6 hour delay in line waiting for the plane to be deiced, but they got there. Now the question is: Will they get home OR will they want to get home??. Aidan (14 almost 15) and Nya (10 almost 11) have continued with their soccer, outdoors, mostly masked and few parents on the sideline…works well! Donovan (13 and ½) is a budding thespian and has had assorted roles, again masked and with some outside venues. My favorite was when he played “the blood” in Game of Tiaras. Cute, clever and fit his personality well.
Liesl and Nate have kept working throughout this past 18-20 months. Liesl had lots of remote therapy sessions with her clients, and some in person. It is hard to counsel kids without a view at their body language. She figures she had this covid thing early on in 2020, but was quick to get vaccinated and boosted. Nate worked remotely for Amazon and found it was not pleasurable. He is currently on leave but will be back to work soon! His trips to China and India were, of course, cancelled early on. Cooper (12) is keeping busy with Minecraft, fencing lessons and piano and viola lessons. Aside from that, he reads about 1000 books weekly, has started in on Wheel of Time. I gotta love this kid! Gracie is still an imaginative joy. She is also taking piano lessons but has added trumpet. Hmmmm. She also is reading Wheel of Time along with Liesl and the whole family is enjoying the tv series. Heh
I guess the final family members are the dogs. We lost Zenyatta this fall, Alfie was then a bit clingy. But, wonder of wonders, Joan, our friend and breeder, had a 10 year old dog “Lizzie” she was interested in re-homing. Lizzie joined the family a few weeks ago. She and Alfie get along well, though she is unsure if she wants to play hard with him. Mostly it is parallel play with the squeaky foxes. She is also totally entranced with our laundry. I think it is the smell of Tide which her breeder also used. She has had 4 litters of pups and clean blankets were always in the puppy box. Heh. She can open my sock drawer to take a snort whenever she wants. I am getting used to re-tucking the pairs of socks
We ended the year isolated in Gearhart or our apartment over our shop. We put on a new roof, painted the entire interior of our home (a 4-6 week project), get all new carpet soon and will refinish hardwood floors in March. Moved back in the day before Christmas. For 2022, we are anticipating a family wedding in Tuscany next October (Yay Adriana and Whit!) with a week in Siena with friends and an extension to Puglia, hopefully with Jake, Rylee and Aliette. Fingers crossed but we realize it may not happen.
So, we and all kids and grandkids (except Aliette) are jabbed, some boosted We look forward to normalizing visits. Fingers crossed again and future hugs in mind. Best wishes to all of you for a GREAT New Year!
Kathie and Mark
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