I had the best of intentions to get my recap of last year in photos out the first week of January and I did get it started. But the catastrophic fires in Los Angeles took center stage for over a week. It was pretty horrible and hard to watch my city burn and all the people affected. And with the new administration wreaking havoc beginning January 20th, well……it’s time for a distraction with beautiful photos. Without further ado, here’s that recap.
What a year it was! Complete with a trip to Spain in May, selling our house in Minnesota and moving back to Los Angeles at the end of October, and starting a new life in SoCal just in time for the holidays.
The year started off with orchids at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory in St. Paul, Minnesota. I never got around to blogging about it so I will add a few photos here. As usual, it was a lovely display.
We took a trip to Los Angeles in February which I also didn’t blog about, however, I did include some of the trip in my post about moving back to Los Angeles. We had a fabulous time, ate good food, went to the Norton Simon Museum and the Huntington Library and Gardens, and saw some great sunsets.
In March we celebrated 33 years of wedded bliss at The Lexington in St. Paul, MN. We also had a house guest in March, an old pal of hubby’s. They played some music together and he was fascinated with the turkeys that live in our (now old) neighborhood so I’m including those photos. I don’t miss those turkeys if I’m honest.
We visited Madrid, Málaga and Granada, Spain in May and had a fabulous time. Below is a list of my posts about the trip. Below the links are some photos from the trip just to give a taste of the trip. If you’re so inclined and would like to see more, check out these links to my posts about our trip.
Jardín Botánico Histórico La Concepción-Málaga, España
Interactive Music Museum – Málaga, España
Museo del Prado y el Jardín Botánico, Madrid
Madrid:
Granada:
Málaga:
And one more gallery of Madrid as we spent our last few days there before heading back home. It was one of the best trips ever. These are of the Prado, the Real Jardín Botánico and the Sorolla Museum.
When we got home from Spain we decided to sell our house to Habitat for Humanity. I learned about this program when the house down the street went through it. Habitat partners with the city to buy single family homes and rehab them to resell to a lower income family. The city subsidizes funds so that the family can afford to live in a nice neighborhood. It was a win/win for us and for Habitat and a win for whoever gets to live in our house next. Habitat got an older home in pretty good shape and we didn’t have to hire a realtor so we saved that money in commission. And that is what paid for our move west.
I took only one trip to the cabin and I didn’t manage to blog about that trip. Miss M came with us and she had never seen the Showy Lady’s Slippers, Minnesota’s state flower, so we went to Itasca State Park to view those lovely blooms again.
The rest of the summer was spent getting ready to move. Sorting and tossing and packing. I’m not going to lie, it was really stressful. I’m so thankful for many things, not least of which was my daughter’s help in helping us pack. I could not have done it without her. I created a post after we arrived and here are some photos from that post.
I did manage to create a few blog posts in between sorting and tossing, etc. There was a post about summer blooms as well as the Como Park water lilies. And my last Minnesota State fair post for a while as I’m not sure when I’ll be going back. That was a great tradition while we lived just minutes away from the fairgrounds. It was a bittersweet time this year.
Our daughter was here for a week for Christmas and Hanukah and it was so nice to have her here. We’ve decided to spend every Christmas together. She rather liked escaping the cold in Minneapolis and we had fairly nice weather while she was here. We had a nice lunch at The Warehouse in Marina del Rey and another fun lunch at the Farmers Market with friends. We also managed to get to the Griffith Observatory to see the fabulous views. We attempted to go for the sunset but there were too many people and we probably missed our chance to park before going up the hill to the observatory. Hard to say if there would have been a parking spot at the bottom of the hill. So we went back when it opened another day and it was already filling up. So popular!!
I continued my joy of reading in 2024 and similar to last year below is a list of the books I read with a rating, 5 being the best. I didn’t read as much in 2024 since there was so much going on in my life.
Oath and Honor, 5
Between Sisters, 5
The Angel Tree, 4
Firefly Lane, 4
The Maid, 5
House Rules, 5
The Nightingale, 4
The Hollow, 3
Wish You Were Here, 3
At Bertram’s Hotel, 3
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe, 3
Someone Else’s Shoes, 5
Lessons in Chemistry, 4
What Lies Between Us, 4
Solito, 5
Unraveling Oliver, 4
The Passengers, 5
And Then There Were None, 4
Beautiful Day, 4
The Giver of Stars, 5
There were so many great things about 2024 but one day in particular stands out for me. It was the day I bumped into the señoras that I lived with in 1980-81 while on a walk down memory lane in Madrid in May. I was about to take a photo in front of the building and who was coming out but the two sisters, my señoras. I recognized Teresa immediately. And they remembered me! It was so fun to see them again! I will treasure that day forever.
Here’s a photo of the group of students who rented rooms from Teresa and Aurora. They are pictured on either end in this photo. I’ll let you guess which one is me.
Overall it was a pretty good year and one with a huge change. We are adjusting nicely and are enjoying the warmth of the SoCal winter. We’re so happy we left the cold behind. We plan to do some fun things around Los Angeles this year and no doubt I’ll be blogging about them so be looking for those posts. Until then, happy new year!!
travels with toby 