Jan-Mar 2025

We wound down from holidays with a breakfast where Bill and Sang OK met little Dave and were sucked into the "VICTORY" thing. Some relaxation with fancy cheeses and Baldur's Gate 3. My birthday rolled around and we had our new Grapefruit and Tequila drink stolen from Nordstrom's restaurant and cupcakes. Then Alison flew off to attend Lauren's wedding (meeting up with Maddy and Brenna), and Will brought Cora up for a birthday visit while Carley did a girl's night out. The visit was great but I came down with Nora Virus which rapidly became a Will and Cora virus (and, ultimately, Carley). At the same time, Carley's girls night out was cut short when her girlfriend Jackie slipped on some icy starts and ended up in the hospital.

Next birthday was Cora's...

Pets...

Valentine's Day. Rather than the restaurant thing, we tried to make our own cozy special fondue dinner in front of the fire ... and it was actually awesome.

San Fran for a visit with the Fam. We stayed with (and spent most of our time with as Maddy was busy getting ready for her Qualifying Exam and Noah is wrapping up his Judge internship. Spent a lot of quality time with Grace, who is a scamp, by which I mean she is constantly scampering. She crawls faster than most people walk. She's also adorable in her Dr. Seuss hair top not. Noah and Emily stopped by to visit, and Jane came and went (as she lives in a mother-in-law house on the property) We did meet up with Maddy, Brenna, and Brenna's sister at the Ramen place, and saw Heidi, her fiancé, Jenny, and Noah in downtown San Fran.

Will and Brie both got me bird feeder that takes pictures of the birds as they eat.  Low and behold, we had a Eastern Bluebird visit, which was kind of cool.

We visited the Boston Athenaeum, a private library we became members of; cool place that feels a little hogwart-sy, partially because of the 10 1/2 Beacon Street address. It's a six story building that is full of books (there's a six story storage area called "the drum" split into double levels, every section full of mouldering manuscripts that probably include cantrips for summoning a variety of eldritch beasts) that includes originals from Lord Byron, John Masefield, T. S. Eliot, John Fowles, George Washington, and others. And then had dinner at a place on Beacon Hill that was nice and pretty empty at 5, our typical dinner time.

And now we are prepping for our bucket-list-trip to Machu Picchu, in Peru, where they just declared martial law. Going to be BIBLICAL.