It WAS a Very Good Year

To paraphrase the song title composed by Ervin Drake and popularized by Frank Sinatra, we had a TERRIFIC year in 2018. (Spoiler alert, this is another photo-laden post with many previously posted images.) 

(It Was a Very Good Year was first recorded by a member of the Kingston Trio and featured on a 1961 album. This recording reportedly influenced Sinatra to want to record one. It's been recorded by other artists including Ray Charles, The Turtles, Chad and Jeremy, Lou Rawls, Della Reese, Shirley Bassey, Herb Alpert, Wes Montgomery. Drake's inspiration in writing the song was said to be his then future wife, Edith Vincent Bermaine, a showgirl, whom he had dated, and then married 20 years after the song was written.)

NOW, back to our very good 2018 — it was filled with family, friends and experiences.

It was the year we became home-less (in a good way) and finally sold our VA Eastern Shore home after a few years and several realtors. We had already relocated to our current mill apt in Nashua, NH, so no longer having long-distance home ownership concerns was a huge relief. Yes, it was a beautiful home which we lovingly updated and modernized, but 12 years of living in a town of 500 residents left us wanting more to do and see.

The wedding of our youngest niece, Jamie, took place in early June in our home state of NJ. It would be followed a short 4 months later by the wedding of her sister, Julie. My brother was very relieved that there's no more daughters to be wed.

In between these family weddings. The summer of 2018 (mid July to the end of August) was taken up with cross-country travel. We drove from Nashua, NH to Springfield, Oregon. The goal was to visit friends who suggested we come for a glass of wine. (It seemed like a good great idea at the time.)

The trip was filled with a lot of sights: largest boot, a cowboy museum and a mustard museum NV and OH), a Thai Temple (WI), world's largest 6-pack of beer (MN), 2 prisons (IN and WY), 2 auto museums IN and NV). We drove through 20 states, visited 5 state capitals and took 2 boat trips on the mighty Mississippi River. We also found sought out as many ice cream places as we could in each state — our defense excuse was that our travel was all during the hot summer months. (We can highly recommend Culver's in the Midwestern states and always stopped at one.) And we "discovered" cheese curds in WI.

We spent time with family members on both sides of our family. And, unlike some occasions when families gather, all these times were for celebrations and/or holidays. The Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays included seeing nearly all of our immediate family members who live in CT, NJ, PA, RI and sharing good times together.

Thankfully, we were able to spend time with friends in several states, including CO, NJ, MN, OR, and PA.

As much as last year was a very good wonderful year in so many other ways too. We're looking forward to see what 2019 will bring and hope that it will be as good or better (if that's possible). 

This is the year we will both reach milestone birthdays (winter & summer). In mid-April, we celebrate the 22nd anniversary of our first date and in early fall, it's our 20th wedding anniversary. (Readers of this blog know from past posts that we celebrate both dates.) A couple of trips are in the talking-about stages.

Cheers to Everyone for your very good New Year in 2019.