This year certainly came in with a BANG! Fireworks of all kinds were going off most of the afternoon and into the evening yesterday (New Years Eve). I went to bed around 10pm and slept fitfully for a couple of hours, awakened often by the big bangs that happened every once in a while. Nina came to bed around 11 pm and went immediately and soundly asleep. Just before midnight fireworks went off all over the town and particularly near our house. When that much gunpowder is going off and that much noise is happening, it is strangely reminiscent of some of the rocket and motar attacks I experienced (and survived) at DaNang AFB in Vietnam. I don’t have any PSTD issues from those days, but know some folks who do. I enjoy fireworks (a lot) and am also happy to have survived Vietnam with my mental faculties (mostly) intact.

The Laie City Park lies just to the northwest of our home. A number of very large families had taken up space, including tents, chairs, tables, and cooking equipment in the park. All of them had a grundle of fireworks, most of which were expended around midnight. Nina slept soundly through the entire thing. It took me quite a while to get back to sleep. The reason for wanting a reasonable night’s sleep? We needed to be up around 6:30am this morning to assist with breakfast for all the missionaries in our zone at 7:30am. Breakfast consisted of French Toast with a variety of toppings, sausage links, a fruit bowl, and a variety of drinks. Elder Priday (the Center Director) and I did most of the French Toast cooking, Nina and Sister Priday took over near the end so we could enjoy some breakfast. We had twenty-three sister missionaries, six elders, and four senior couples for breakfast. It went well; everyone had plenty to eat. By 9am we were done and back to the house (and a nap for me).

The Visitors’ Center didn’t open until noon on New Years Day, so before leaving this morning we put up the flags. Most of the time the sister missionaries assist with putting up the flags, but this morning I was able to enlist the Zone Leaders to put up the flags. They seemed to have fun even though it is a lot of work! Once the flags are attached it’s about 130 turns of the crank to get the flags all the way up the pole.

The amount of daylight in the day is starting to increase again now that we’ve passed the Winter Solstice. Over the year the number of daylight hours varies about 3 1/2 hours between December 21st and June 21st. A few times a week I go out for a walk around 6am in the morning and right now it’s quite dark at that time. The other morning as I was walking down our street I could make out that there was something that came out of a house on the left side of the street and was headed right for me. It kind of looked like a big dog or something. I moved to the left, off the road, but it continued to come straight at me. When I could finally figure it out, it was a lady in a motorized wheelchair … and she was moving along at a pretty good clip. I exclaimed something just as she saw me. She missed me, but nearly had an accident with her wheelchair!

A couple of days ago the wheelchair lady came into the Visitors’ Center. She came zooming up the sidewalk and flying through the door (which was being held open by Sister Castaneda, one of the sister missionaries and the other person in the picture). We were finally introduced and laughed a bit about how fast she drives that machine. She was on her way to work that morning and needed to go in early. She usually doesn’t leave the house until 7:30am or so. Meanwhile, I’ve located a reflective vest in the garage and now wear that when I’m out walking to give Sister Watson and anyone else the ability to give me a wide berth!

The new year is underway. We both remembered “rabbit rabbit” when we got up this morning, so perhaps good luck will follow us for the entire year. It’s a funny superstition, but has become pretty much a family tradition for many years. While I’ve no idea what the year will specifically bring, we’ll be here in Laie for the entire year. We’ll get a new Visitors’ Center Director in January and a new Hawaii Honolulu Mission President in July. So there will be some change during the year. It should be a great ride!

Ta ta for now!