Note: There is one (1) photo in this post, taken by Linda using a Google Pixel 6.
MONDAY 01 – FRIDAY 05 January 2024 — A new year begins with new adventures
Madeline and Cabela around 9:30 in the morning. Mads looks happy but a bit bleary-eyed, so maybe we did let her stay up until midnight wish 2023 adieu and welcome in 2024.
The youngest and middle grand-daughters spent last night with us. I think we let the older one (Mads) stay up until midnight, but maybe not. Or perhaps she was tired and didn’t see the point. I doubt that, however, as staying up until midnight seems like a very adult thing to do; and at the newly turned age of 11 years, she wants to be very adult. Anyway, that was certainly my family’s tradition as I was growing up, and we carried that into our adult/married lives. There was a period of time when my parents even hosted a sizeable party of neighbors and other friends. We always went outside at the stroke of midnight and made a lot of celebratory noise. Being in the St. Louis, Missouri area at the time, the weather might be pleasant or cold and snowy. Marilyn had to return to St. Louis before the turn of the year, but for many of her holiday visits over the years she was with still at our house on New Year’s Eve. And we were usually working hard to finish a large jigsaw puzzle. Part of the tradition was also food, especially smoked salmon (me), cold shrimp cocktail (all of us) wine and finely bubbly at midnight. Carbonated non-alcoholic options were always available, of course.
I don’t recall if Brendan and Shawna drove up to get the girls, but I think we picked them up and brought them to our house and dad/mom drove up to retrieve them. The rest of the week, through Friday the 5th, mostly involved getting things ready for us to fly to Florida on Saturday the 6th. From the calendar it appears that: we renewed our domain name, and possibly our hosting plan; one of us had a doctor’s appointment, and; we went out to a movie with John and Diane and then had dinner.
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