Movin' on

Today marks a transition in the holiday mode. The last of the visitors will be on their way. Our primary guest, who actually slept over at the Lovestead, heads back to Seattle this morning. As always, Annie has made the most of her weeklong visit home.

She's taken good care of Mom and Dad, running errands, baking, showing good and bad movies (the obligatory Napoleon Dynamite has made two runs in the living room this visit, while Prairie Home Companion's companion CD given to Dad has tread marks from replay after replay). Annie has also built snow forts with triplets, snapped lots of photos, gone sledding with triplets, plowed driveways, and gone snow shoeing with three sisters---without the snow shoes.

Yesterday, she and three of the four Camp sisters drove to a Fish and Game public preserve near the Pack River delta to check out the scene on their snow shoes. Upon arriving, Annie went to grab hers and realized she'd left them home. That didn't stop her though. Where there's a will, there's a way, and somehow Annie managed to have a good time. I'm afraid to ask how wet her feet were when she arrived home.

In a few hours, Bill will take her to the airport, and a couple of hours after that, she'll be back in her apartment. It won't be hard to say good bye to Annie today because we're going to see her again Saturday when we fly with my mother that way to see the Battle in Seattle. Gonzaga plays Nevada in Key Arena Saturday afternoon. We've got tickets along the side, and Annie says it's pretty good seating, so it will be nice to see the Zags live. GO ZAGS!

With all family company gone, the visiting doesn't stop. My longtime friend Chris Moon Hengstler is coming to inspect the Lovestead today. We worked together over three summers for the U.S. Forest Service Engineers, transporting traffic counters to remote mountain roads. Sometimes we drove nearly 250 miles per day to do 15 minutes worth of work. It was a good gig and it spawned a lifetime friendship.

Since those days, we've gotten together and set off down different highways for day-long drives to places like Banff, Victor, Montana, and the Yaak River valley----just to catch up on the talking. The round trip to Banff took us 18 hours, and we never did get everything discussed. Today's visit probably won't last 18 hours, and we won't be driving.

Instead, the plan is to go snowshoeing around the Lovestead while yakking about families, work, upcoming goals and life in general. I think I'm gonna hear from Chris today about her upcoming extended stay in Sweden where her research in newborns and their communication has landed her a junket for several months. I'll be telling her about my new book and plans for book tours this spring.

It's always good to reconnect with those special friends where it seems as if we've just pushed the "pause" button to live out the next few chapters of our separate lives. When we meet again, we just hit "play," and the visiting resumes with no need for replay. Chris is one of those.

So, Christmas season, 2006 is fading but not without a batch of wonderful memories of time spent with the people we love. We move on toward a new year promising new memories for reflection when 2007 does its own retreat into history. The cycle of life continues.

Speaking of transitions: Happy Birthday to my niece Laura, mother of triplets.