Funny Stuff and Hello to 2014!

While we were visiting in Kansas over Thanksgiving, Callie carefully painted my toes and fingernails. She chose red and green for the Christmas season. Here is a picture of my toes. I left it on for awhile because it reminded me of her after we returned home. She did her very best and was very serious in selecting the colors. When I did remove it, it took forever and lots of scrubbing with the remover. It seems they make little kid polish ironclad while the fancy manicures you pay thirty dollars for can smear easily and chip merely by looking at it. 

My sister sent us a beautiful amaryllis. There is a photo below showing it in a sunny spot by a south facing window. I saw the second unopened bloom and was watching to see if the sun and water would help it to open. I asked my sister in an e-mail if she thought orchid food would work on it. She told me gently not to hold my breath waiting for the second bloom as the entire thing was fake! Ha ha, they sure made the roots look realistic is all I’ve got to say. But the good thing is we can enjoy it again next Christmas.

A big highlight of 2013 was our river cruise on the Danube in May. Wanting to share that with our family who made the trip possible led to Steve publishing his first photography book! It is like a coffee table book and I think it turned out very nicely. Hopefully he will get around to a book of his American landscapes next. It is a shame for all his beautiful images to not be seen.

Our New Year’s Eve was not very exciting. We had talked about maybe going downtown to watch the local lighted ball drop in the depot square. But we just could not fire up to go out because it was windy even if not frigid that night. So we stayed in and watched parts of three animated movies for kids. We did not want to watch anything violent or depressing. So we saw all of Monsters University, half of Up, and half of Wall E. When midnight arrived we shared a kiss that pained us because we had built up static electricity sitting on the couch and made a spark. Ha Ha. Then we went to bed.