This was a milestone year, birthday-wise, for our family. Lots of people entering new decades. My mother-in-law turned 90, both Courtney and my niece, Melissa, turned 30, and I turned 60. YIKES!
And Violet Sophia was born March 18 to Melissa and Jamie so she's part of the milestone club (all the decades than end in 3). Baby Violet is growing like a weed and is one step away from running around the house (literally). I'm getting her started on her first Lego project. Before long she'll be building her own robots.
To celebrate my birthday I spent a month in Paris just wandering the streets, painting, and eating their delicious pastries and cheese. I rented a little apartment in the 4th Arrondissement (the Marais District) just a few blocks from the Seine and Notre Dame Cathedral (what a great place to go for mass). Since it was early spring, it was a little on the chilly side, but the weather just kept getting better and better.
Bruce joined me at the end of April and we took a train down to Toulouse, a day trip to Carcassonne, and then another train over to Strasbourg. Train travel in Europe is extremely fast and efficient, but a little daunting when you don't speak the language well.
We had a much more relaxing train experience when we took Amtrak's
Coast Starlight from Los Angeles to Seattle in July. We met Brian and Courtney, and then spent a week hiking and relaxing in central Washington. We stayed at the Stehekin Lodge in Cascade National Park - an area inaccessible by roads. It was the first time any of us had flown in a seaplane. Check another experience off the bucket list.
In August we took a river boat cruise down the Volga River from St Petersburg to Moscow. It sounds like all we did was travel this year, but isn't that what people usually do when they retire? Which by the way is what Bruce did in September after working 29 years at Boeing. Now he goes walking every morning, tinkers on the house, and tags along when I plan vacations (actually he does most of the driving).
I spend my free time with my two favorite hobbies - art and robots. The robots are looking more menacing, though they are technically a kid's toy. This one has sensors to recognize color and touch, and if you are holding a remote control in your hand, it will lob a red ball at you. 2013 was definitely a good year and I'm hoping for more of the same in 2014. What's on tap? Some hiking in the Alps, another trip to the northwest, an art workshop or two, and definitely more robots ... and just maybe I'll finally lose that extra 10 pounds I've picked up in the last decade.
