Ho Ho Ho, It’s That Time Again!

Winter is coming (first snow on our local mountains as I write) so that means it’s time for another edition of the Weissler Holiday Gazette, the annual missive that has taken many forms since its debut in 1993.

Click the links in the text below for more info, or any photo below for a larger version.

It’s been another fun year for us with much travel and visits with family and friends. We had a head start on the travel with a trip to New Mexico over Christmas in 2018, mostly birding (that’s the Santa Fe plaza pictured above). In February we were on a long-anticipated trip to South Africa, a birding tour from Cape Town to Kruger National Park, with some time both in Cape Town and Johannesburg on our own. Summer we attended a symposium honoring Robert’s great-grandfather in Germany, with time en route in northern Iceland (birds, whales!) and Scotland (Liza’s Outlander tour).

In September we made a short trip to Arkansas with Liza’s mom Alpha, seeing relatives and also (finally) visiting Hot Springs National Park. Lastly we made another national park driving trip, this one (mostly) in southern Utah with friends Mark and Joanne from Brooklyn; this trip we finally made it to three national parks we hadn’t been to before, Capitol Reef, Arches, and Canyonlands.

We’ve also been out to California a number of times – best airfares are still out of LA! and that makes for great opportunities to visit family, including niece Maureen’s 30th (costume party) birthday bash! (Robert is now known as “Uncle Indy”.)

Closer to home, Robert continues to volunteer with the Friends of the San Pedro River, and Liza finished painting the house interior (well, with help on the high walls) after the last new windows were installed.

Next year we have, of course, several trips planned already. Chile is first, mostly in the lakes and volcanoes area, and farther south down to southern Patagonia. Portugal (cycling) and Spain (birding) in the spring, and summer we’re headed to Colombia. With three Spanish-speaking countries on the agenda maybe we’ll manage to improve our conversational skills? :-0

Wishing you all a most happy holiday season, whatever you celebrate, and looking forward to seeing you in person or online in the coming year. A couple other websites you may want to browse as well:

The Adventures of Buddy Bison!
Liza’s food blog, Liza’s World Kitchen
Niece Maureen’s articles for Entertainment Weekly
Brother Lee’s Notes on a Pac 12 Scorecard blog
Follow us on Instagram! lizaweissler and bbisonw
Ok if you must use Facebook we’re there (including Buddy Bison Weissler), but we’re on there less and less with each passing day … 🙂