Catching Up

Wow, it’s been a busy holiday season. We spent the two weeks leading up to Christmas camped out on the bluff overlooking the Pacific at South Carlsbad State Beach. With the exception of a few rainy days towards the end, it was sunny and mild most of the time there. We paddled in the surf and rode our bikes around north county. PJ got to where she was standing up regularly on the little waves out front.

Our friend Janine has been keeping extremely busy at her music store as Christmas approached. We took a few music lessons and visited around the shop a few times. She’s working super hard getting the business up and running. If you are passing by Carlsbad Village Music, please stop in, have a look around and support a local merchant.

Several of the crew stopped by. We went out for meals with family and friends, visited some doctors for routine stuff and got another crown from Dr. Bell over off of Jefferson. The days flew by and suddenly Christmas was upon us.

We moved back over to my Dad’s little 30 amp pad on the side of his house and had a wonderful Christmas Eve with all of the family and friends around two big tables filling the length of the family room. Seventeen in all, getting their fill of a traditional Danish pork roast, red cabbage and glazed potato dinner.

Christmas Day we all loaded up and drove the short distance to my sister’s house and did it all again. Turkey, stuffing, yams, roasted potatoes and much more. I’m still recovering from the two days of feasting. Lots of love and good time with those closest to us.

Storage has been weighing on our minds. We had two units full of our belongings and we’ve been rethinking what is of value to us. It is just daunting going there and opening the doors and seeing all of the stuff. We get overwhelmed, close it up and say we’ll come back to it. Well, we finally worked up the courage to tackle it. We gave away stuff we no longer feel a need to keep and moved everything down from two units on the third floor into a single slightly larger unit on the ground floor. It was a full day of hard effort with a ton of help from our nephew Andrew. It was dark when we finally had it done and the California burritos we sat and ate afterwards never tasted better.

Now it’s time to reorganize the RV, get some things packed for travel and figure our the next phase of our lives going forward.