When it’s over, I want to say:
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
~ Mary Oliver

I must admit I rarely look forward to walking our dog...but it almost always turns out to be a rewarding break in the day. This morning I witnessed HUGE flocks of geese, their V-formations intermingling, squawking over me across the blue-pink pastel-colored sky.  Most of our trees are bare, showing off their intricate skeletons...but there is still one shedding its golden leaves on our emerald green lawn. Life feels especially fragile in the winter, which makes it somehow all the more precious and beautiful to me. On January 1, 2008, Nick and Anders joined their Uncle Joel in the Lake Minnetonka Ice Plunge.   It was 0  F. outside.  Icicles froze on their eyelashes in the fraction of a minute it took them to run from the icy water back to the warming house.... Crazy!

Anders ended his high school years well.  The top two Seniors tied for Valedictorian, so he got to be Salutatorian...and of course, gave the best (and most entertaining! ) speech at graduation.  In March, when he flew back to Minnesota to check out a prospective college, he missed his return flight while he was sitting RIGHT next to the gate waiting...and so decided it might be best to stick closer to home... He’s now a happy freshman at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon.  He and his buddy Nate brought some college friends home for a visit recently....three girls!  His favorite subjects of study have evolved from history to politics to economics.  His January term class is entitled "Star Trek Economics." Hmmm.

Nick decided another summer of grass seed farming wasn’t for him, so in June went off to London to seek his fortune.  He worked a series of temp jobs: office work, catering, making language tapes (they wanted an American accent), before landing a salesperson job at a tony North Face store in Covent Garden.   He lived frugally in a hostel where his room mates ranged from  a Moroccan brain surgeon to a voodoo-tattooed Thai contractor to a morose French bartender.  As a treat for himself, he kept  a basil plant in his window so he could make bruschetta.  He’s now finishing his hardest term yet at Oregon State, but it’s still easier than the challenge he put himself through this summer!

Steve has (pretty much) finished the barn!!  With Anders help, he also built a chicken coop, which raises local eyebrows because it’s so dang nice!  It’s sparked in him a new interest... tiny house building...perhaps a garden retreat is next?  Steve’s highlights of our vacation this fall were pilgrimages to Thomas Wolfe’s Asheville home and to Monticello.   A photo of Steve sitting in Jefferson’s garden pavilion is our computer “wallpaper” right now.  Steve enjoys checking out his favorite internet news and blog sites each day, but still  refuses to use e-mail or  cell  phones.   Gardening and reading remain his primary passions, with his job as a pharmacist (for which we are ever more grateful!) paying the bills.

The weather was mostly cold and rainy on my annual ladies backpacking trip in the Cascades this August, but the misty views were invigorating and the dinners, which we took turns preparing, were worthy of gourmet status... one night we had sushi!  As Steve expands his gardening skills, I am diligently working on learning more about food preservation.  I had fun making cheese a few times this summer, and am hoping to try more bread recipes over the winter months ahead.  In my other “spare time” I was elected to the Brownsville city council... My boys got to vote for me AND Obama.. how cool is that?!   I continue my oncology-nurse work but in a fancy huge new hospital building... the views are fantastic, but the change of venue has been a challenge for all of us who work there.

Wishing you happiness in whatever adventures the New Year brings you,

Nan