HOUSE
DIARIES
A Christmas Letter
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2014 written December 8+ In the olden days, people sent out Christmas letters to explain, in a page or two, family happenings for the year. Nowadays, with all the social media, it seems we expect all our friends to already know and remember all that went on in everyone's lives. With our Trotter Diary, we certainly have provided the opportunity to "know", but "remember" - no way. For friends and family, that's probably OK, not everyone needs (or wants) all our gory detail, but it has occurred to me that WE need to have a way to more-easily remember and reflect. That's why I am trying this diary, a summary of 2014. At the bottom of the page are links to each diary, but here's the 2014 story as I remember it today (December 13) January
The event-of-the-month needs to be moving and settling into our new house, of course. That really does seem like years ago!February
After three months in transit, our car finally made
it. The decision to import an 11-year-old car remains one of our
bigger mistakes. More importantly, we had a chance to see family in California and Colorado.March
I wrote six diaries in March, mostly documenting our work at arranging
the house and yard. For us, it's good to remember how far we've
come, but for you?? We did manage to visit Sequoia National Park, the type of local travel we hope to resume soon.April
The monthly diaries started with our local social life, with family and neighbors. We ended the month with yet another house and garden story. That theme repeated itself for much of 2014!May
The big house event was a new paint job.
This started out with simply power washing the sides of the house, but
when the old paint flaked off, we had to transfer to serious
painting. The house color looks nice and it should last longer
than we will. Our travel was limited to a hop over to the Bay
Area for Sam's third birthday and a few days of fun babysitting.June
By now, we had a normal routine, dominated at home by yard and garage construction, and flavored by visits to or from Ava and Sam. Toward the end of the month, we took Marianne's mom on a trip over to the Paso Robles wine area, near the coast. At 94-years old, she was introduced to the fun of wine tasting!July
The Fresno summer hit this month, day after day with highs well above
100F. It takes some adjustment after always-cool Bavaria.
Despite the weather, I managed more yard reconstruction while Gary Catron's guys did the heavy work on the garage extension.August
August always starts with birthdays; mine, Gabby's and Chris's. This was quickly followed by a visit from grandson Rich and his folks,
giving us a chance to see some new Fresno tourist attractions. This
visit included an overlap with another Sam and Ava visit.
Finally, Marianne and I headed up into the Sierras for a couple of days in the gold country.September
In the first part of September, we stuck around greater Fresno,
from a Shaver Lake Hungarian gathering, through a drive through raisin
fields and fruit orchards. The hot summer sun is good for the
irrigated farms, even as it bakes us. Later in the month, we took a
chance to cool off with visits to family in Monterey and Los Gatos.October
October started out with normal, around-home activities. Mid-month, we managed a visit over to the Bay Area for my 50th high school reunion, and some more time with family. Right after that, our life took a turn as Marianne's heart reminded us that health may be more important than everything else.November
Diaries since then have served up a mix of family gathering stories
and medical status updates. We reminded ourselves that there is
plenty to be thankful for, even if Marianne's saga seems
only partially complete.December
No real news or events so far (written on the 13th), but we do hope to
work in a couple of neighborhood parties in the next few days.
Mamo's 95th birthday on the 23rd and Christmas right after will provide
even more opportunity for bright and shiny pictures. Meanwhile,
Marianne's medical story got a bit more complicated with the discovery
of a gallstone. Bummer. It seems like 2015 will start with
yet another set of visits to Kaiser hospitals, locally for gallbladder
removal and down in Santa Clara for heart ablation, but that's for
future diaries and next year's Christmas letter.2014 was a busy year, for sure, and not completely as we had planned. We hope your year was busy and filled with more smooth road than bumps and 2015 will be even a bit smoother. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year John and Marianne
2014 Index
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