The ground is wet out there and the creek is running so wear those rubber boots.  But come.

Monday 0900-1000

Tuesday 1530-1630

Wednesday 0900-1000

Sunday 1530-1630

It’s not the Cotton Bowl but it’s Phil’s Camino.  Felipe.x

Welcome to the very new year, can’t get much newer.  Here we are on the threshold of a new space, a blank canvas ahead of us.  What are we going to do with that?

On the coffee table sitting next to me is the Spanish Table, a cook and wine pairing book, a birthday gift.  Our dear friend Michelle from down the road just gave it to me for my seventieth.  I like the title and maybe that is close to the mission statement for the new year..

That’s a lot of what we do here, re-enacting the Spanish Table.  We walk and converse and then we sit around that table to rest and celebrate our time together.  It’s a communion of souls meeting for a time to re-enact, to remember, to reinforce our memories of a special time, of a special community.

We don’t need a lot and we don’t ask a lot.  It’s all a simple thing really.   It just requires an uncluttered space to unfold.  Maybe that is what we should look for in our upcoming year, an uncluttered space.  It will be a place where we can unfold together and share in what we have know and have learned.

Thanks for being here, so far so good, love, Felipe.

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.