We celebrated Audrey’s birthday on Sunday. Lauren, Taylor, and I blew up lots of balloons and put together a banner that we draped from the banister down to the dining room post. We hung streamers, Dan sent a bouquet of lilies, and we celebrated! Outside, there was light rain off and on all day.
Monday brought more sprinkles and light rain. We woke up Tuesday to snow covered mountains. It was spectacular! As the day passed, the snow melted up the mountains, but it’s still beautiful today!
Audrey, Lauren and Taylor are still with us. The girls have “home school” and online classes for a few hours Monday-Friday. There is still plenty of time for Lauren to work on leather projects with Papa in his workshop and to help him cut up steel containers with a blow torch. Taylor builds fairy houses in the desert and looks for cactus fruit. They are enjoying time in our yard, in the desert.
We’ve gone on hikes a couple of times each week. We hiked up Ventana Canyon and up the Finger Rock Trail. Over last weekend, we went to Cocoraque Butte for another visit, exploring for petroglyphs and pottery shards, and using wooden mallets to find “singing rocks.”
We visited San Xavier del Bac Mission, the oldest intact European structure in Arizona, founded by Father Kino, an Italian priest, in 1692, with the current church built in the late 1700’s.
I’ve helped Lauren with a cooking project each week, to complement her Travel Book Club. We made French crepes and a New York pizza. This week we’re making a Greek Salad.
We watched the inauguration this morning, celebrating America’s democracy. It was the first inauguration Lauren and Taylor had watched, so they had lots of questions. Papa and I are grateful for the change in leadership. We look forward to kinder, calmer days ahead.
Papa and I are celebrating our 40th anniversary today. We are fortunate to be healthy and full of curiosity. We have fun together. We are grateful for our children and grandchildren, and friends. The past four years have challenged our views of America and the past year, in self quarantine while a pandemic has raged has been sad and disheartening, as hundreds of thousands died and millions more were sickened and injured for years to come by the virus. We were encouraged by the election of Biden/Harris, with the largest voter turnout on record and the highest margin of victory in decades. With America a changed place, people wearing masks, staying at home, families apart, there are millions of Americans still trying to overthrow the election results - trying to overthrow democracy. Papa and I never dreamt that this could happen in America and we are saddened by it all.
We hope for a better future for America - it affects us daily, in education for all children including our grandchildren, in our health - whether or when we can get vaccinated, in the basic services we rely on - the roads we drive on, water we drink, air we breathe, food we eat, Medicare and other health insurance, internet security, National Parks we hike in, safety of all of us - without prejudice, and equality for so many people we are close to - our neighbors and friends, Boys and Girls Club kids and their families and millions more.
We are hopeful for 2021, but wary, as we embark on our 41st year together.
We rang in 2021 with a hike up the Campbell Trail in the Santa Catalina Mountains. We began the hike from our house, uphill one mile to the trailhead, then up and down. It was a beautiful day and we had the trail to ourselves. It was spectacular!
