Christmas Letter - 2023

 

Merry Christmas, 2023

Usually I write my Christmas letter on word processing, print out 40 of them, and include them in Christmas cards.  Well, not this year.  I'm doing the letter 'new style'.

We've finally made up our minds to move to the East Coast.  We've been waffling and waffling thinking our kiddos would come to their senses and move west of the Mississippi.  Our four month summer trip to western Virginia and pretty much all of North Carolina was to investigate other possible East Coast locations other than Richmond.  Well, we loved Asheville.  Apparently, who doesn't.  It's a great climate, and it's incredibly beautiful with green everything.  It's a two hour flight to NYC with five flights a day.  On the negative side, the housing market is not only expensive, but also the tightest market I've ever seen.  Plus, there's no train service.  

One of my jobs is finding possible houses to buy.  I've expanded my search to Fredericksburg, Virginia, a town of 28,000 that is 50 miles south of Washington D.C. and 50 miles north of Richmond.  I know all the advantages of Richmond since I lived there for a few months.  Fredericksburg is an hour from the Richmond airport; 1 1/4th hours from Dulles, and is on the Amtrak lines that run in the northeast corridor.  It's a five hour train ride to Penn Station.  It's also the home of James Monroe's presidential library.  (I have to throw in these little tidbits.  It's a knee jerk reaction.)

I've been following the Asheville, Richmond and Fredericksburg housing markets all summer and fall so I can get a feel for the various neighborhoods and understand the pricing.  One of the Fredericksburg attractions is it is an area of 55+ communities including a mature one that Del Webb (founder of Sun City) built just west of Fredericksburg.  The other center of condo communities is south of Richmond.  We'd really like a condo (called 'townhouses' in the East) because the association would be doing the outdoor maintenance.  Drake has done ALL the yardwork he ever wants to do after the Hurst house and the gigantic oak trees.

We just signed a listing agreement for the Sun City house, and it will go on the market 1/2/2024.  In October we cleaned out this house.  In November we packed up the CLUTTER.  That's what Drake called all my stuff, and I have not let him forget it for an instant.  December 1st we stored 1/3rd of the house - 50 tubs and some odds and ends of furniture.  Our purpose is to stage the house.  Now, we are doing a major clean of everything.  The carpet cleaners come 12/19, so cleaning, painting, etc. has to be done by then.  When we sell, we will store the rest of the Sun City stuff and head East.  When we buy another house (our 9th), we'll send for all our stuff including the stored CLUTTER. 

Within two weeks of our announcement we were moving, the kiddos made the announcement they were buying a house in Cobble Hill.  (Suburb of Brooklyn which is one neighborhood south of the Manhattan battery.)  We are thrilled for them.  Our son-in-law has become a transplanted New Yorker.  He loves everything about the city.  Our daughter enjoys the city, but not the tight NY apartments with their tiny square footages.  She grew up in Hurst, suburbia between Fort Worth and Dallas.  The new house is a suburban house transplanted to the Big Apple.  They say it's a 10 year house since it sits only 2 blocks from the good elementary school our grandson already attends.  The new house is 2300 square feet with a laundry room and outdoor space.  Ironically, it's in a remodeled church building.  I haven't seen the house in person yet, but I think it was taken down to the outer walls and completely rebuilt inside.  That means new plumbing, wiring, central air, and central heat as well as all new appliances.  So much better than dealing with a brownstone built in 1889.

I've written about our trip to North Carolina this past summer, so if you missed those blogs, you can just circle back.  We took time out of being busy house bees to take a Thanksgiving cruise.  Here's something funny.  We've taken three different cruises on Holland America, and we've only seen one ship - the Koningsdam.  I teased the crew their company really only has one boat.  Last Thanksgiving we left from San Diego and went south into Mexico.  This year we left from San Diego and went north up the coast of California.  Holland America arbitrarily cancelled two ports of call (Santa Barbara and Monterey) substituting a Catalina Island and Ensenada, Mexico (trashy border town).  

We loved Catalina.  We rented a golf cart and tooled around for a couple of hours, bought some t-shirts and an excellent magnet.  Catalina Island is an interesting place.  There are several plants and animals which are only found on the island.  Big controversy is the Conservation Commission wants to kill off the mule deer which were imported at the turn of the century.  They are destroying native plants and overrunning the island.  Naturally, there's a 'save Bambi' group opposed to the kill off.  Here are the pictures of the island:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/hn3wDZMmoGvrVwzo6

San Francisco is a city we know very well.  Not only have we visited several time, but we lived in Berkley (across the bay) for a summer.  However, we have never sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge.  That was thrilling, and to me, the visual highlight of the cruise.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/QGVF1nxHCg2Yw85u6

 I was disappointed because the day we were there was the day of the week most of the museums (Asian, DeYoung, Legion of Honor, etc.) are closed.  We really didn't care because we spent the day with one of our dearest young friends - we alternate between calling him our pseudo son and our Godson.  He lives in downtown San Francisco.  He rented a car and continually dropped us off at our next attraction while he parked.  Like Drake, he's concerned about my mobility.  We did go to the top of Russian Hill and to various neighborhoods tourists rarely visit.  Drake is still rocking his Texas Rangers cap.  See the pictures.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/WhBjmTSqD5NXss4M7

We did manage to go to a couple of museums - one of which was terrific.  We saw the Cable Car Museum which was FREE!  It is the actual place all the cables wind and unwind for the cable cars.  There were examples of various cable cars.  At one point there were several cable car companies especially prior to the 1906 earthquake.  There was historical flotsam and jetsam.  If you want to see the cable car pictures click the link:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/JpQ1pYkt7WYPE3Su9  

The grandkids are doing great.  Fiona will be 18 months old at Christmas and Cedric will be five.  He started kindergarten this year.  Here are a couple of recent pix:

And my favorite grandkids picture.....making that boo boo all better.

This has been the good news portion of the year.  We only had one major hiccup.  I had a pretty bad fall on Mother's Day in Brooklyn.  The short version is I tripped over a piece of sidewalk a tree root had pushed up.  I tried to catch myself, but instead that turned into a running start to the fall.  I wound up in the emergency room for several hours.  CAT scan of my head, several x-rays of my wrists and knees, and hands, morphine for my dislocated finger and seven stitches in my head.  Glasses messed up, shoes ruined.  I'm still recovering.  My hand is still re-habbing - thus why I don't want to address Christmas cards.  In October my right knee 'woke up' and I was hobbling around until I got a steroid shot.  I will spare you the pictures of my wrapped hands, black eyes and stitches.

Instead, here we are at age 73:

And, yes, that is my gray hair.  We are planning a wonderful Christmas holiday.  I hope your holiday celebrations are equally wonderful.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.