A new year has begun. Let’s hope it will be a better year than 2016, although given the political situation that seems unlikely. We have pretty low expectations.

Christmas was celebrated in our typical low-key style, at home with a good meal and gifts. Here are a few Christmas photos:

Pam opening Christmas gifts

Jerry with his new  “Nanook of the North” cap

The week following Christmas we packed up the [indoor and outdoor] decorations and stored them for another year. Weather conditions cooperated, with a warm snap that made taking down the outside lights less of a chore than normal. In fact it was so warm, I hand-washed the cars on December 31st!

Having done a bit of shopping before New Year’s Eve, we settled down with a few new bottles of wine to enjoy the evening and watched the fireworks display put on by the town. Here is a 41 second clip of the finale:

Tomorrow we’ll watch the Tournament of Roses parade (what’s with that, not on New Year’s Day), but today we’ll catch some of the football games and generally take it easy. Pam has been on winter break from the community college for the last week while I have a four day weekend off; neither one of us is anxious to go back to work on Tuesday but life goes on (or at least life’s bills).

Generally the weather has been mild, but Winter may come roaring back this coming week. A chance of snow is in the forecast for the next several days and high temperatures will not be getting above freezing a few of those days. It’s an odd situation; mild here (for the date) but above-average snowpack in the high country. All OK with us!

I’ve added our New Year’s electronic card to my E-card library; here is a link to the 2017 card. We hope everyone has as happy a New Year as possible.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

The new year: Let’s see — I feel as if this is the Spring semester of my senior year in high school, when I remember repeating to myself, “Let’s get on with it.”  That’s how I feel about this coming year, and life, and the retirement house purchase, and generally planning for retirement in 2017.  “Let’s get on with it.”

Happy Trails.