The new year arrived here in Hawaii with a bang. Many bangs. Big bangs. Bangs everywhere. The locals take this fireworks thing very seriously! The cacophony began in the late afternoon and reached the crescendo around midnight finally tapering off about 2:30am. Amidst all the noise was a pretty constant stream of ambulance sirens. I’m pretty sure the local emergency room saw more action on New Years Eve than the previous couple of weeks combined. One hospital in Honolulu logged 28 emergency room visits related to fireworks in the first hour after midnight.

Nina, however, slept soundly through the entire thing. Once she goes to sleep, not much will wake her up. I, on the other hand, hear everything and wake up to even the slightest of noises. A bit before midnight I got up and watched the various (illegal) firework displays going off around the neighborhood. I stayed up for about a half hour and then decided to try once again to get some sleep.

So, 2017 has arrived (with a bang bang … bang). This’ll be another year of significant change. Our mission ends in a couple of weeks. We’ll spend some time at our daughter’s home in North Salt Lake, figure out how to get our vehicles out of storage and running again, decide what to do with all the Very Important Stuff in the two storage units, visit the family, and figure out what’s next. It should all be great!