2016 Christmas Letter

It's been a whole year since I've put anything on the blog.  Last year's Christmas Letter was the last entry.  That isn't to say that this years hasn't been eventful.  To the contrary, it has been pretty busy.  So.... This letter/blog will be a little longer than most.  Much longer actually.  If your like me, just look at the pictures.

The year started out poorly with me recovering from the broken shoulder due to falling the day after Christmas.  The doctor said it would take longer to recover from it that the rotator cuff surgery in September.  Fortunately the break snaked around the attachment points for the rotator cuff so additional surgery wasn't needed.

North Coast

I was well enough in March to make the annual trip to Hawaii so Mona could visit relatives.  We spent a week on Oahu visiting the cousins and aunts as well as a little sight seeing.   We had hoped to see one of the surfing competitions on the North Coast but storms to the north caused these huge waves which cancelled the event.  They were so high that along with closing all the northern beaches the road was also closed as it was under water.

 

 Napali Coast

Then is was off to Kauai for a couple of weeks.  One of the hikes we did was along the Napali Coast.  It was a little grueling with lots of climbing and descending but the view were well worth all the effort.  

Mona said that the best way to see the beauty of the Napali Coast was via helicopter so she surprised me with a helicopter tour of the island.  I have to say it was really something.  If you ever get to Kauai you really need to do this.  She even spent a little extra so we could have the seats next to the pilot.  What a great gift.  It is such a different perspective from seeing things at ground level.  

Another highlight was hiking to the house in the mountains above Waimea Canyon where my son-in-law, John, was born.  It took us two hikes down this 4 wheel drive road to find the place, but we did.  We met the lady living there now.  John's parents sold the place to her husband.  What a treat it was to visit there and connect with some of John's past.

There's a trail that starts on the same 4 wheel drive road to leads to the top of one of the most spectacular waterfalls in Hawaii.  As we hiked along Mona suddenly remembered that she had hiked the same trail years ago with her daughter Lucy.  Small world.

One of the two best events to happen to the family this year was the birth of Mila to Christine and Clint in April.  She came out really small due to Christine having the same uterus issue as Gail.  Other than being tiny, she was and is perfect.  She has started crawling already which means there is no peace at the Hass house unless Mila is sleeping.

Another big event was the marriage of my niece Kate.  Her new hubby, Kevin, is a great man.  The entire family couldn't be happier for them.  And, of course, as is the family tradition, there was a great party afterwards.

Gail's family had a big family reunion the end of June.  The entire family with the exception of Eric, who had to work, made it down to Lake Tahoe.  Along the way down, Mona and I met up with Michele, Stan and their kids at my favorite camping spot along the Oregon Coast, Tillicum Beach.

It was great fun camping with the grand kids.  Mona has wonderful memories of camping with her family in the area and going crabbing  I must admit I wasn't too jazzed about the idea since.  For me, crabbing used to mean a lot of work.  But with the grand kids, it was great fun, especially since none of them, nor Stan, had done so before.  Of course with all of her years of experience, Michele was the expert and grabbing and measuring the crabs.

 

 And then it was off to Lake Tahoe.  It was amazing just how many showed up.  Every one of the Zahn clan families, Gail's aunts and uncles on her mother's side, was well represented.  I had only met and got to know a few of them over the years and it was great to reconnect.  Christine had managed to rent two condos side by side for Gail's mother's family so it was like a family vacation for all of us too.  

 On the way back north we met up with Gail's brother and sister-in-law, Gary and Martha, in Lassen National Park.  None of us had been there before.  We got several nice hikes in.

Then it was on to the coast via Arcata CA,  Mona went to college there, where, like many of us, she made some life long friends.  I really enjoyed going by some of the places where she lived, worked and played.   Mona called one of her best friends who she met while living there.  They were like two school girls as they shrieked and giggled as we went past some of their old haunts.

And of course we had to visit Fern Canyon which is just north of Arcata.  It turns out we both love the Redwoods.  This was the first time we visited them together.  I'm sure there will be more.

If your a regular reader of my blog, then you know that I had a spiritual experience while hiking the Boy Scout Trail outside of Cresent City a few years ago.  I was very anxious to hike it again with Mona.  The Boy Scout Tree is amazing but for me the trail itself is magical.  Sometimes I wish I was a better writer so I could describe it better and how it effects me.  I'll just say that for me it has changed my view of life.

This is interesting.  On the way home we stopped and camped near the John Day Dam on the Columbia River.  There Native Americans build these platform from which to dip net for salmon.

Later in the summer we went camping and rafted down the Clark Fork in Montana with two of Mona's couple friends.  What a hoot!  I had never been white water rafting before.  I'm not comfortable being in the water and was pretty skeptical as to whether I would like it.  I did and we all had a blast. 

Mona has two children, Lucy who lives in New York, and Max, who lives in LA.  Being the great Mom that she is, she needs to get her "Kids Fix" every so often.  We visited Max and his partner Diana in August.  They live in Hermosa Beach, just a couple of blocks from the ocean.  

Hermosa Beach has a beach concert once a week during the summer.  Here we are waiting for things to get started.

Mona and I enjoy kayaking.  Mona had gone Kayak camping several times before we met and convinced me that it was something we needed to do.  It was an adventure we will not forget as a storm came up that evening.  Fortunately there was a campsite down the beach from where we were camped  that was very protected from the wind.  Moving the tent and the rest of our gear in a strong wind was quite the challenge but it was worth the effort.  We didn't feel that the whole tent, with us in it, like one of those bouncy houses you've seen get taken skyward by the wind, was going to end up in the lake as we slept.

We rode the Hiawatha Trail on the boarder between Idaho and Montana with my grand daughter, Saray.  I'm pretty sure this will turn into an annual event with the other grand children joining us as they get older.  My grand son, Raif, will probably be with us next year.

And now..... Drum Roll Please..... For the other best family event to happen this year....  Teresa and her husband John have a new son, Caanann.  We thought Mila was little.  Caanann was even smaller.  He had to stay in the hospital for over a week after the birth because he was so small.  That was really hard for Teresa and John.  But Caanann is growing like a weed now and all is well with the little fellow.  Caanann is the number 5 grand child for me.  I am truly blessed.  It is also nice to see Mona around the new grand children.  She loves being with them.  She is hard to compete with for baby holding time.

And finally, while I don't want to talk about it, this letter/blog would not be complete without it.  My health this past year has not been the best.  Throughout the year I have had an issue with nausea.  In trying to find out the cause a spot was found on one of my kidneys.  I had a procedure in October where spot was frozen, like when you get a skin thing frozen off, except this was inside.  It involved putting a couple of needles into the spot through my back.  We needed to get that done quickly as I was needing open heart surgery too.  I was born with a defective aortic heart valve.  About a year ago my cardiologist said that this fall I probably would need to have it replaced.  He was right on.  In September I could hear the mummer the valve was causing all the time and I was getting tired easily.  Also, two of my heart bypasses done 9 years ago were not functioning properly.  It is way to complicated to try to explain here but they needed to be repaired.  And, while I wasn't in an urgent need for additional bypasses, adding one would be helpful.  To make a long story short I'm now recovering from open heart surgery.  Mona and the kids have been taking great care of me.  It's been a little over 4 weeks now and I'm feeling good.  I'm taking daily short hikes, a couple of miles, much of it up hill.  I feel like I'm back to how I was before the surgery and still improving.  In a few weeks I should be doing much better than before.  Oh,,  and they think the nausea was due to one of the heart drugs I was taking that I started to not tolerate, even though I had taken it for years.

So, that's it.  The year in review turned into one blog and a very long Christmas Letter.  Anyone who made it to the end of this should get a reward. 

 Have a Merry Christmas everyone and the best 2017 ever!