Starting 2007

New Year's Eve was quiet and lovely for us. We went for a walk on the trail late in the day on New Year's eve and came home for a pomegranate martini.

New Year's morning I woke up to the sound of wind in the trees and the smell of jambalaya (it's tradition) cooking in the kitchen. Making it more perfect was the snow on the ground outside - not much - an inch or two - but definitely white and wintery - a great first gift from 2007.

We were invited to a magnificent feast and open house later on New Year's Day. The owners of one of the large old Victorian B&B's invited a large number (75? 100?) friends and neighbors in for the afternoon and evening for their annual event. It was a perfect opportunity to meet more people and complete our New Year's "welcome to Lanesboro."

Since then we've started beating down the path we plan to make to St. Paul by heading there to spend a couple of days painting with Heather. We loved the colors she chose for the living room and dining room and think we got a lot done in a couple of days. It was fun to see Morgan and Michael, too, on this "working" trip.

Next trip was to LaCrosse to meet my Mom at Red Lobster for her 82nd birthday. Vern's comment about how she didn't "act her age" was taken as a huge compliment. We had a very fun time together.

Back home we finally had Pat and Dale over for dinner. Pat's the one who called 911 when Vern broke his arm last summer. She and Dale have also generously given us produce from their garden and have been very welcoming in general. Turns out they lived in Brazil for several years where Dale was an independent foreign correspondent (just one example of the interesting background stories we've heard about the Lanesboro folks we're getting to know.) After dinner we played Scrabble and for the first time allowed the use of our new Scrabble dictionary. We discovered there are huge numbers of words that we would have never guessed were words including yaud (an old mare) and gaud (a showy ornament.) It's a whole new world . . .

Then off to Madison to help the Hanson's get through the tail end of the flu at their house. What a joy to be able to pick up and just take off. We both agreed it was a major perk of retirement to be able to have those days free to spend with Kelly, Matt, James and Noelle.

And, not to forget, January for me has included my first book club meeting, my first yoga class, church circle and the oyster stew supper at the Sons of Norway. Vern has been a regular at the high school boys basketball games and the men's Wednesday breakfasts. He also has been busy with the little house, developments, he will share on another post.

The latest joy was a wonderful day with Mary and Martin who are in LaCrosse spending time with Mary's mom. Mary and I went to grade school together and are now proud members of the Hot Dishes, the LaCrosse forever girlfriends. M&M came for lunch and we spent the afternoon catching up a bit and going for a little walking tour of Lanesboro. Still not enough time together! Hopefully they'll be back again before they head back to their home in Edmonds, WA.

All in all we calculated that we traveled at least 2500 miles from early December to mid-January with trips (in some cases multiple) to Moorhead, Alexandria, the Cities, Rochester, Decorah, LaCrosse and Madison. We've been able to spend time with family and old friends and have met many, many new people in Lanesboro to start the new year.

Lucky, lucky us!