New Year’s Eve today.  Time to maybe jump a shark and try to make 2017 a little better last minute.   Seemed kind of a ragged year in general.  I think we all deserve a new start.

So, My Rebecca is planning the New Year’s meal for tomorrow which will be her traditional Southern pork roast.  Along with that comes mashed potatoes, sour kraut and black-eyed peas.  Maybe I will make some cornbread to go with it.  Yea!

We have a walk this afternoon at 3:30 and then the first one of 2018 at 9:00 in the morning.  Come by.  I always try and get a really really big rock to put on the pile the first day.  That is sort of a jumping the shark move, a preemptive one.

Also wanted to apologize for not getting Christmas cards out, probably the third year in a row now.  Not that we don’t like you but just seems impossible anymore to get done.  I keep thinking that I would rather have a phone conversation with you really.  Maybe we can make that happen.

And hopefully the blog will march on into 2018.  It has been such a good thing for me personally and having you be so loyal and reading along has been great.  I know it is small potatoes as far as blogs are concerned but it is our small potatoes and that’s what is important.  In May it will be four years in operation, pretty amazing.  Thanks for sticking with me on this.

New years loves, Felipe.

Here we are back at the ranch after our 3000 mile journey to see Freya.  Catherine and Dana picked us up at the airport and had a fire going at our house and put together tapas and dinner.  Wow, nice reenetry.

And a big thank you to Kris and Yoav who put us pilgrims up at their place in Amherst.  It was a hard journey being winter and all but here we are back in the wet warm of the Pacific Northwest.

I am going to quit  early since I need my beauty sleep.  Tomorrow is another day for us to talk,   By for now and love you, Felipe.

Tapas time here after a day of keeping the water running.  The temperatures night and day are ridiculously low as in artic blast.  It is cold even for what people are used to here.

But enough of that.  What was fun today was that the grandfathers were out on the loose without supervision.  We had tasks to accomplish but don’t we always.  But we got a chance to compare notes from the last few years.   I seem to have a lot of notes from the last action packed few years thanks to some of you guys.

I guess this would be a good a time as ever to say thank you to you all for walking with me this last year.  A thank you for things that you made me think about.  A thanks for things that you made me feel good about.  A thanks for having hope and faith in the future.  We have another year ahead to play with.  Another year in God’s playpen.

Well, time to get back to the party here.  My glass is empty for one thing.  Take care for now, keep warm, be back soon, Felipe.x

Sounds like some kind of party, arctic blast.  Really cold out there this AM.  Sort of uncivilized out there, I’ll stay here with you.

Well, we saw the baby again yesterday for a little while.  She is pretty much hunkered down next to Mom, can’t blame her.  She doesn’t know anything about the change of seasons and summertime when the livin is easy.  But that is one advantage of being born on the shortest day of the year, that it all gets better day by day

So where are we?  Oh, this is Thursday the 28th!  I am lost in this no man’s land between holidays.  But I know that we are flying on Saturday the 30th, back to a place with sensible temperatures.

So what are we supposed to be doing with our free time here before New Year’s.  Maybe contemplating our past year to gather the nuggets that surfaced along the way.  Maybe making some resolutions or a plan for the new year.  Yea, that’s all good stuff to think about as we sit together in the inglenook.  That word just popped into my head.  I think it is German for the benches built in by the fireplace, a cozy place to hang out.

OK, the best to you there.  My day is starting.  Love, Felipe.

This New England weather is the perfect Christmas weather like in Norman Rockwell illustrations or Currier an Ive’s prints.  So intense one needs sunglasses to see it.  Never need sunglasses for the usual Seattle Christmas.  Although I hear this year might be be one of those anomalies you hear about.

Anyway, the real news is Freya’s arrival.  And guess who is totally in love?  I finally got to hold her and see her close up.  See, this is what happens to crusty old seventy year olds sometimes, they get all goofy.

At Mass on Christmas Eve I got the message that “where I came from is where I am going”.  It is the notion that me going toward death is the same as going toward my birth or where I came from.  All of a sudden that made sense.  The only problem is that my birth was seventy years ago, can’t quite relate or remember.  But holding Freya connects me to a place to touch that mystery.  It’s really that easy and amazing.

Well, that might not be very Christmasie but it is happening at Christmas.  It’s a gift for me.  Thanks for listening.  Love, Felipe.

That is nothing new for New England, snowing on Christmas but hear Vashon has it too.  That’s news!  But snow or no snow it’s a very Merry Christmas everywhere.

I hiked out to 8 AM Mass.  Somebody tell me how the snow could be blowing in my face both ways.  The service was nice with carols and the Padre had a plate of Christmas cookies for us as we exited.

I am waiting to hear the Chipmunks do some singing.  Oh, kind of out of vogue I suppose.   But  I do hope that Martin Luther really did write Away in the Manger.  Well, a really big Merry Christmas to you all where ever you find yourself and what ever you are doing.  Big loves, Felipe.

Well, it’s everyone’s Christmas Eve everywhere but right here all things circle around the newly arrived Freya.  I have yet to hold her as all the women crowded ahead of me.  This is where we are at.

I made it to Mass this AM at St. Bridget’s.  I was there two years ago and it is nice to visit again.  Treacherous walking the .7 miles each way.  I fell two times on the way going and not at all on the way back so making progress.

The Padre spoke about the virtues of waiting.  We think that we are so in charge of everything as we rush around crossing things off our lists as they are accomplished.  But maybe the really really important things happen in their own time and with their own doing.  And maybe we just get in the way most of the time.

So maybe that is my big new year’s resolution to do more waiting or at least to do some thinking about waiting, or meditating on it.  Sounds like it is not going to make my list longer anyway.

Time to get ready to get on the road here, off to some where or other.  See you tomorrow on the Big Day.  Peace to you, love, Felipe.

We made it.  The whole family is all together here in Amherst, MA.  We survived the red eye flight.  The highlight of the whole shebang is obviously the new baby granddaughter Freya.

Not real cold here but everything is covered with icy rain.  Needless to say it is very slick out and driving is treacherous.  Time to hang out by the fire.

I feel like one one lucky guy these days.  I’ve been blessed.  Please share in my wealth.  Almost Christmas Eve loves, Felipe.

Yea, we got the birthday out of the way with great style and now let’s don our gay apparel and get with Christmas.  The outdoor party was awesome though with lots of lanterns, a bonfire and some torches and  lots of friends showing up to celebrate.   And was given the best birthday gift ever with the new granddaughter coming in a half hour before midnight EST.  We have the same birthdays, yah.

Her name is Freya or maybe Freyja.  A last minute change from Cheyenne was made.  So, Julia my nurse just Googled it and we got the scoop:

The name Freya is a Scandinavian baby name. In Scandinavian the meaning of the name Freya is: Lady. Derived from the name of Freyja, the Norse goddess of love and fertility and mythological wife of Odin.

That’s  hard to follow that with anything I got.  Pretty cool, a new member of the family.  Well, maybe I will leave it at that today.  You don’t have time for lots of reading, to much to do, right?  OK, I will let you go early, love, Felipe.

Yup, my seventieth birthday today.  Yikes!  Party preparations for tonight’s gathering are slowly starting to happen.  But what is really cool about this date today is that it looks like our new granddaughter will be arriving today also.  Yea, a double birthday!

We are flying out tomorrow night to be with all those guys in Massachusetts.  Hope I survive the red eye flight.  Then we will be back on the 30th so no walks in between there.

Argentine Cris emailed in yesterday that she wanted a pic of the cover crop on the corn field that she helped to plant back in the fall.  So, we have that for you Cris.  Also the new lavender plants that we planted look good.  This is our agricultural report.

Yesterday I looked back in the archives to see what I was doing on the blog back one, two and three years ago on December 21st and ran across the recording of Laura’s people in Barcelona.  Such a nice rendition of Don’t Worry, Be Happy, love hearing it again.

Maybe for the last time in the blog the I-5 highway is now open and traffic is flowing between Tacoma and Olympia after the big train wreck.  That is good news for Christmas.

Lunchtime, and off I go to get ready for the party.  Nice to be with you again, freely flowing traffic loves, Felipe.