Hoping you are having a wonderful Thanksgiving

We want to say Happy Thanksgiving to you all!  And it’s time to bring you up-to-date on our wanderings.  But, mostly we really want to share our big heart-felt gratitude not only for the life we are blessed with, but for each of you.  This is one of the few times we have spent Thanksgiving with just “us two” and it’s fun.  But being away, in the hills of Northern New Mexico, all by ourselves is making us think of how many rich connections we have and how great it is to have all of you in our lives.  Thank you for being who you are!

At the end of October we finished our wonderful summer volunteering at the Ford House in Mendocino – what a blast we had!  Susan telling people where to go! And David telling story after story about the history of the house, the town and the redwood industry.

We went from Mendo to Petaluma for a weekend at the IONS campus and while settling in for a session on Saturday morning Susan, taking a very long step up on a seating platform, heard a really loud pop and was in amazing pain in her left knee.  Long story short, she is scheduled for anthroscopic knee surgery on Dec 23^rd .  The pain has subsided – it comes and goes - she’s on a cane instead of a walker, but the MRI showed that the meniscus is torn apart and needs a good vacuuming out.

We drove the motor home to Portland where the Goldens were meeting us and retrieving the rig (saving us the drive to Pt. Townsend), but we left before they arrived so that we could get to Santa Fe and a doctor’s appointment asap.

On our way to New Mexico for our 4 month house-sitting gig, we stopped in Salt Lake City to hug Sutton and John and to visit our clothes in the small storage unit that holds all of our belongings.  We drove on to Santa Fe and spent several days there before heading up to Medanles where we will be until mid March. 

We had a nice dinner and spent the next day with Roberta and David McCleary, owners of this house on top of a mesa in an area called Vista de Pedernal – and it really is!  Georgia O’Keefe must have painted the Pedernal hundreds and hundreds of times and when we look out the living room window – there it is!  The McClearys are now “jeeping” in So. California for the winter. To get to the nearest store, in Espanola, we have to drive 2 miles down a dirt road then another 8 miles – WalMart  is about our only choice for food shopping unless we continue on about 30 miles to Santa Fe....but, it is beautiful here.

Although this is not a Chirstmas letter, we are reporting that Payson Cooked today! – an amazing event!  And John and Sutton went to Sutton’s 90 year old grandparents home to dine with family (Grandma played the piano!).  All is just perfect!

So, there you have it – we’re here until mid March, and then have no idea what we will do with ourselves….we’re open to ideas, so give us a shout. Thanks to Vonage our old phone number - 520-326-1894 - works just fine here (though the cell phones don't)   Many hugs and much love!