Welcome to the 2023 (and 31st overall) edition of the Weissler Holiday Gazette, our annual year in review. Otherwise known as, the pandemic lingers on! Did any of us think it would last this long? We didn’t. But we’re having fun in spite of everything.
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Except for the occasional mask wearing in confined spaces full of people, and the fact that we still do online order/parking lot pickup of groceries, we’re feeling pretty normal these days. Certainly we’re full steam ahead on travel! From the high Atlas mountains and into the Sahara in Morocco, back into Spain, to the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, through Oxford, the Yorkshire Dales and to the Jurassic coast in England, and exploring the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean (for our 40th anniversary!), it felt just like pre-pandemic times. (Except we lost our “nocovid” status when nearly everyone on the trip in Morocco contracted it…and we were too far from Marrakech to do anything about it. Luckily everyone was vaccinated and nobody had a severe case.)
The lowlight for the year was a fire in our neighborhood…while we were in the UK. We actually watched the fire live from a couple of security cameras we have outside, which was unsettling to say the least. Especially when some wispy smoke blowing by turned into billows of very dark smoke; that turned out to be the lid of the septic tank melting and falling inside. Ugh. But the tank and some of our rainwater storage were the worst of the damage, the trees that didn’t burn will be green again sooner or later, and we didn’t have to mow grass this summer at all.
Our annual Ursich family vacation took place this October in north Phoenix … the shortest distance we’ve had to drive. :-). Nice big house with a pool, and plenty of good food and games, fun times! We can also highly recommend the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix.
We’re (of course) already planning next year’s travel, and the year after…and the year after that. Spring will bring the arrival of niece Rachel’s first child! Next summer we’re heading to Germany, the Czech Republic, and Poland, with our renewed interest in Robert’s family history. (The tools available certainly are better than they were 30 years ago.) Late summer we’ll be in Santa Barbara for the wedding of niece Margaret and fiancé Micah, with visiting of central coast wineries afterwards. Other birding trips await, as well…too many ideas!
We hope everyone had a marvelous holiday season, whatever you celebrate, and we wish you all a safe and healthy 2024.
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