2012

Christmas 2012

Happy Holidays!

Hugh and I have had a quiet year…i.e little traveling.  We came home from England in early January and decided to have a quiet year at home.  We enjoyed a two week vacation at home in November…well it is more of a working holiday.  We were busy getting new appliances hooked up, or old ones repaired, and dealing with all the other items that never seem to get done.  But we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  We loved being at home and doing some things we had only talked about before.  Retirement is looking very good!  Hugh and I have never had two weeks at home together before in our 35 years of marriage and for most of the last 20 years have worked opposite shifts.  We both have wondered what it will be like to share the same time and space with the other during retirement.

Hugh and I continue to work.  Hugh’s retirement to part-time is about a year off and Jean’s about three.  Hugh plans full retirement at the beginning in 2015, Jean is undecided. Hugh is counting the days and making mental plans on what he will do with all his free time.  This is a dream come true for Hugh.

Timothy and Julianna are still in England. Timothy continues to pursue his degree and Julianna works for Deutsche Bank.  Julie had a rough patch going from Lehman Brothers to DB, but the adjustment period seems to be over and she again is enjoying her work.  Tim has about a year and a half left for his undergraduate degree.  Both seem happy and healthy.  Julianna clearly won’t be returning to the US to live and it sounds like if the opportunity is right, Tim will stay in England, too. It won’t surprise us, if Timothy ends up on another continent in a completely different time zone.  That would follow the pattern of their lives – I remember after Tim was born, he was the early bird and Julianna the night owl.  Although that changed, what never changed was how different these two were from each other.

We are hiking Mt Kilimanjaro in January, so that will be the big trip for 2013.  We have about 10 days of hiking followed by a safari. My brother Dave and his son David will be going too. Maud will be joining us for the safari but not the hike and David (my nephew) will only be doing the hike.  Dave (my brother) came out in July and we did a preparatory hike of Mt Humphrey’s in Flagstaff.  We are all testing the altitude and whether it will be a problem.  The Kilimanjaro hike isn’t known for being tough, but the altitude is the problem.  We all did okay with the altitude at Humphrey’s but Kili is much higher.  We alternate between being excited about the trip and completely scared.  In odd moments we look at each other and say “who decided this was a good idea”!

In early December Hugh and I went to Humphrey’s again, to test hiking in the dark and cold weather.  We started 2 hours before sunup to see what it was like to hike with a headlight.  The trail was very icy so we hiked with crampons.  We hiked about 9 hours, and came away exhausted but with more confidence.  Our exercise schedule has clearly increased over the last month, and I image once the holidays are over, it will be our only focus.  Wish us luck with this… We hope to have photos on the www.jdk-cpa.com website by Valentine’s Day, if you are interested.

Both of our children will be joining us in Phoenix for the holidays… and we feel blessed they are coming home.

Wishing all of you the best of holidays whether it be Christmas, Hanukkah or both…followed by a happy and healthy New Year.