Happy New Year…a bit late.

First, I want to wish each of you, and all those in your lives, a Happy New Year. Sorry it is a bit late…

As my favorite toast, for around this season, goes: May the best of your past be the worst of your future. I sincerely hope this holds true for each of you.

The holiday break was pretty nice. Good to have my lovely wife and our girls all at home and to have my brother visit for Christmas. This gave us a great excuse to make a visit to Leavenworth, as you may have noticed from the brief post for Christmas.

Although we did not get a White Christmas at the rental house, our older daughter did get some more time on the slopes!

White Pass is roughly an hour away, and actually has some decent cell/data reception, depending on your carrier, so those of us that aren’t yet hitting the slopes can still be reasonably occupied.

Managed a bit of cooking, too. Picked up a replacement Hangiri, and related pieces, and put out a dinner of vegetarian Sushi, on the last day of break.

Great to make this, again, and also to discover that my fingers had not completely forgotten how it is done! Of course, there were also the occasional odd “comfort food” options, on other days…

Yes…simple hot dog, pan fried with a small amount of butter, then simmered in BBQ sauce (until it thickened to a clinging layer on the hot dog), followed by a layer of Parmesan cheese that was allowed to melt (then brown) before being rolled around the dog. Simple…but good.

We received the first set of boxes back from the remediation company that handles non-clothing. Very pleased to have my Renzetti vise and some of my reserve fly stock back!

Unfortunately, we were also told that a large volume of the books they had collected were not salvageable, so we are anxiously awaiting the detailed listing of titles, so we can process them as part of the overall claim and start replacing those that are most urgently missed. it may be like a late/second Christmas, when we take care of that!

Altogether, a great holiday season, with good time spent with family and a good number of chances to relax.

Tight lines…