Gratitude, Nostalgia and Well Wishes

Hope all of you enjoyed Christmas (or whatever holiday/ vacation you may have gotten) as much as I did! I went caroling for the first time. I saw Santa’s reindeer…

…Including Rudolph. (Doesn’t this ride give new meaning to the song Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”? This was what Santa showed up in this year at the equine therapy center Christmas party.

I enjoyed pretending to be Martha Stewart placing poinsettia on wine bottle and creating a giant bow for this popcorn tin. Gift wrapping is not my forte but I love to decorate the gifts because it hides any possible wrinkles in the wrapping paper when I wrap and place bows and other decor on.

I had the great fortune of being invited to go on a camping trip for a few days with some friends. Here’s the view from my tent.

My friends whom invited me came very prepared with their RV stocked with all kinds of goodies including this lobster.

Here’s a panoramic of the lovely beach we stayed by:

I thoroughly enjoyed my Christmas and hope you did too!

I then had the honor of celebrating my boyfriend’s 30th birthday with him. Here’s what he chose to eat for his birthday  dinner:

He had the four asada tacos. The asada fries and elote were mine. We went rollerblading afterwards.

I invited a few local people to spend the New Year hiking with me as I did not feel like driving. I was bummed and starting to thinking no one was going to show because they were all hung over from New Year’s Eve festivities when my boyfriend pulled up. We went to see the first sunset and moon rise of the new year together. We hiked about two or three miles up a mountain….

I had to stop to photograph these:

Here is my darling waiting for me patiently and holding my sweater for me while I shoot my photos:

We came upon a few people up there including the mother and daughter with their family dog in the distant background and  this novelist who said he hiked up to this point  from another trail, another city almost every day  to contemplate life and work on his writing. He said that it was a miracle that we were looking down over 3 million people and there were just the three of us up there enjoying the New Year at that exact moment.

Here are the last rays of the sun of the New Year:

May your New Year be filled with much peace, prosperity, health and happiness!