We are back from our New Year's trip to Pasadena.
The trip was mixed. MM(20) was too busy and basically only had five minutes for us. We had brought him some stuff from home, and so we met him at his hotel, just as he was taking off. He did invited us to lunch with him and the group of students he was driving back to the college, but some of them had COVID and others were sick with whatever else. We declined lunch with the sick people.
We didn't do the parade, but we went to the float showcase afterwards. The downside is that for the most part there weren't any animations (the float operators were long gone). But we did see one of the floats operating. The plus side is you can get up so close and see the floats from all sides.
I have lots of pictures to share, but will just start with a few.
MH and I had a nice dinner in a pub on New Year's eve. We had found a free charger for the car and so just took our time. As we thought ahead to the New Year, all I could figure was that it's going to suck. That's my take on 2024. Mostly thinking to health issues of various loved ones. 😔
I can see the theme is that it will be a challenging year on the health front. This is the most obvious. But I also think it's going to be a crazy bucket list year. Some mix of low lows and high highs, probably. The Pasadena New Year's thing was a magical 'once in a lifetime' way to start out the year. Next month MH should be getting his movie made. Those are the biggies. But if we have any time and money left after that, we had been planning to make it to the Grand Canyon this year. I think it's ridiculous we still have not made that work after 2013 canceled trip. & it may very likely get pushed to the side *again*.
On the challenging side... GMIL's health is starting to slide. Both our parents with cognitive decline seem to be worsening significanly in recent months. & I am probably the most beside myself about the girlfriend. She's so young. It sounds pretty unlikely that she can return to school this month. The pandemic really slowed down our parents' cognitive declines. So I have been bracing myself for some obviously rougher years, but I think this is it. 2024 is obviously going to be rough. My BIL is also still battling some mystery illness.
January 6th, 2024 at 07:36 pm 1704569785
I, too, am sorry for the health struggles. I hope in the end that 2024 is more up than down.