The New Year Begins

It’s hard to believe we’re already a month into 2014. Time really seems to have flown these last few weeks, but maybe that’s because we’ve been so busy.

The last time we posted was on Christmas Eve. We had a nice Christmas with Susan’s parents and brother here in California, and we sent long-distance wishes to Mitch’s mom in Massachusetts and aunt in Florida by phone that morning. It was a quiet and low-key day, and while we had a good time celebrating with family, we couldn’t help but feel some sadness that this wouldn’t be baby’s first Christmas with us. We really hope we can put those ornaments up this December!

We celebrated New Year’s Eve with dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant and a movie. It was another quiet holiday, but that’s how we felt. We were both glad to put a difficult year behind us and to welcome what we hope is a much better one.

A few days later, we visited the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. It was the last weekend of a modern sculpture show, and we wanted to make sure we had a chance to take it in. We both had a good time, although Mitch was especially happy to have had the opportunity to take a walk on one of the sculptures, a floor made of 100 aluminum squares by Carl Andre.

It's not every day you get to walk on a Carl Andre sculpture!

The following weekend we managed to fit in one more trip to, you guessed it, Disneyland. This would be our last chance to see the holiday decorations at the Haunted Mansion and It’s a Small World, and we just couldn’t pass it up. It will probably be a while before we go back, and this visit was enough to hold us over until then.

Susan took a Tuesday off from work the following week so we could go to the LA Zoo with our cousin Beth and her husband and three little boys. We had such a great time visiting the tigers and koalas with our extended family, and we can’t wait to do it again! We’re especially looking forward to doing so as parents someday.

Susan interacting with our young cousins at the LA Zoo.

The weekend after that we took a long drive up the coast. We stopped in Santa Monica for breakfast before carrying on to Goleta, north of Santa Barbara, and a visit to a grove where monarch butterflies spend the winter. It was quite a sight to see 2500 butterflies clinging to the long leaves of the eucalyptus trees, and one we want to share with our future little person someday. We stopped in Santa Barbara for a walk along the wharf, then stopped for dinner at a favorite spot on our way back home.

Little Mitch and his Gram (and a dinosaur too, of course!)

On a less fun note, this month also marked the anniversary of the passing of Mitch’s grandmother. We both really miss her, and we’re both sad that we won’t have the chance to introduce her to our child someday.

Like I said at the beginning, this has been a busy month for us. It was great to spend some good times with our family, and it was also nice to have such nice times when it was just the two of us. We’ll have an exciting story for you next month, so keep checking in for updates. Until then, thanks for reading our blog and we hope you all stay safe and happy.