Happy New Year (I'm a bit late)

My Best Nephew

Happy 2023!  Who's counting on this year not to let us down??  The end to 2022 was quite lovely.  I had two weeks off from work and had a healthy combination of family time, quiet time, and vacation time.

My sister's family came in town for Christmas and we all got to delight in the small bundle of joy that is my nephew.  He stole the show at every occasion, as a 14 month baby should.  He's just about to start walking and learning new words every week.  He was too young to understand what Christmas is all about and could care less about presents but loved all the twinkly lights.  My sister baked me a tres leches birthday cake (watch out all you Bake Off fans) and about a million macarons.  My cousins were also in town for Christmas, and I hosted a Christmas barbecue dinner at my house.  A barbecue (vs the traditional turkey etc) was a simpler way to feed 10+ people, and I smoked a 14 lb brisket by myself.  After agonizing over cook times and temperatures and letting the brisket smoke for 28 hours, it turned out perfect.

North Texas experienced a deep freeze the days before Christmas, and we had anticipated this by ordering electric water buckets for all of the horses.  Mine arrived in the nick of time and we spent the day prior to the freeze hooking up all of the buckets and making sure that the extension cords were at a level where the horses couldn't playfully yank at them.  I was at a Christmas party with Trainer when it dropped down to 10 degrees and we went out to the barn in the pitch black at 10 pm to make sure 1) the barn hadn't burned down, 2) that the buckets were working, and 3) the buckets still had water in them.  For the next few days, as long as temperatures were below freezing and the outside water tanks were frozen, the horses were kept inside.  Trainer and a roster of people kept the water buckets refilled every 4 hours.  And of course it's now 75 degrees during the day and the horses are already starting to shed their winter coats.  Mae is starting to get winter/spring dapples??  Too soon, horses, too soon!

At the end of December, Bryan and I escaped to rainy California for a few days and "tasted" way too much wine.  We were overly ambitious, scheduling three tastings per day when two would have been adequate.  Wine country in Napa is always lovely but would have been much lovelier if we were able to walk around.  Instead, we were drenched by rain and lounged inside (when we weren't drinking wine),  watched the latest season of Bake Off, and caught up on sleep and reading.  It was a fantastic way to decompress from the holidays and end 2022.

Now that we're squarely in the new year, it's as though the holiday season didn't even happen, even if it did seem to take up two full months last year.  There are quite a few things to look forward to already, including my dad's 70th birthday, ski season, and Bryan's parents' annual sojourn to Texas.  I hope you all are staying well and the new year is treating you right!