in which our hero reflects on 2011...

Seasons Greetings, Christmas salutations, and Happy New Year, Hansaniacs. 2011 was an interesting year at 1359 N Forrest, but apparently not interesting enough to blog about. (For what it's worth, there are four drafts in various stages of composition...) Sorry about that - according to a friend at work, that will change next year, as she will goad and challenge me to blog more often. After 0-for-2011, that's a low bar to clear...

On to the year in review in the Hansen household:

In August, she was Plus One, later amended to
Penelope.

We're expanding! Megan and Nate surprised us in March with news of a Baby Braxton, just in time for Christmas! Well, Dec 29 is the official due date, but if Christmas music can start after Ashley's birthday (Nov 13), then late December is a Christmas baby. Young Miss Penelope gave her momma quite the tummy ache for the better part of six months - not unlike her momma. Nater and Preggo Meggo have stretched their creative talents preparing the nursery for Grammie and Pappy's Lucky Penny. As we are wont to say around each other, it's very ess-citing! 


And we're contracting! At least the C&D is - she's lost 60 pounds since July with a program called Matol. It works for me too, when I follow it, but my travel schedule played havoc with consistently staying with the program. Lynn has high hopes of getting down to her lowest adult weight early in 2012. I have high hopes of losing my own zip code, and not having to weigh myself on a truck scale.

And to think, I missed this!

Everyone remembers the blizzard that dumped 21 inches of snow. Well, almost everyone.  For the first half of the year, I spent every other week in Little Rock, Arkansas. Guess which week the blizzard came? Yep, I was down south while the C&D was housebound for a week. By the time I came home Thursday night, she had cleared a 21-inch wide path to the street (pictured on the right), and about ten feet at the top of the drive to get the car off the road. And so it went all winter - every time it snowed, chances are I was traveling.

With the spring came the rain. Lots of rain. The rain came at regular enough intervals to wash off the liquid deer fence from the plant beds. Thus, the deer turned the entire landscape into a endless hosta buffet. And when the summer drought / dry-boil off arrived, I just wrote off the landscape for 2011. I didn't even take a shovel to the pond to reshape it or deepen it - that's only happened a couple of times since we've been here. Hunter's Bridge spanned a dry Hunter's Creek. Better luck next year, maybe.

Lynn thought her four generation pic was awful,
so out of self preservation, I'll post this one

Ashley and the kids arrived in mid-July for an extended visit before vacation in Wisconsin (more about that in a minute...). A photographer friend of Lynn's (www.chingphoto.com) offered to take some pictures of Hunter and Livie, so we used the opportunity to take a four generation picture - Lynn's mom, Lynn Ann, Ashley and Livie. Almost everyone co-operated. On my mom's birthday, we got a chance for another four generation photo. Again, almost everyone cooperated.

See what I mean? They owned the beach...

The highlight of 2011 was certainly our family vacation in Wisconsin in August. All the Kirbys, Braxtons and Hansens in one chaotic, noisy cabin. It was heaven on earth. Hunter calls Afterglow (www.afterglowresort.com) 'Grammie and Pappy's beach'. Livie was the toast of the sands at the waterfront, while Hunter Man swam out to the diving dock for the first time. Such a big boy! What makes Afterglow so wonderful is sharing it with Lynn's brother and his family, along with the extended family we've acquired. When you share a week with the same families 14 years in a row, you build some amazing relationships. And rivalries, too: Megs & Ate designed family team shirts for us all to wear, and I fear we started something; it's game on for the other groups.

2011 Afterglow team shirts debuted
at the Monday potluck

We teamed up with Lynn's brother and his wife in October and took Lynn's Mom up to Afterglow for a long weekend. She loves Wisconsin so much, and we all wanted to experience fall. We missed the leaves - and unseasonably warm temperatures in the 70s - by a week, but we missed the first snow by a week, too. Grannie got to "walk" around the lake for the first time, courtesy of Gail and Pete's golf cart. I talked Pete into letting me split some firewood - he thought I was crazy, but it was an hour well spent. I had fun, and it was a chance to give a little something back to some folks that have blessed our lives so richly. Now if he'll just let me run the chainsaw - so many trees, so many trees...

Grannie, Hanna Girl, Grandmother, and Paw Paw
celebrating Hanna's 26th birthday

Hanna Girl had the opportunity to chaperone a group of Youth For Understanding students in their travels to the US, in exchange for free airfare. So she mother-henned a bunch of awkward, star-struck kids through Chicago and all the way to Peoria. It was fun to watch them meet their US families for the first time and remember the two times we've done that. Hi, I'm a perfect stranger, but I'm going to be part of your family for the next year... Then fast forward 10 years and see this lovely, accomplished young world traveller. We had a wonderful visit, and got to celebrate her birthday - with cake! She spent a long weekend in Columbus with Meg, and finally got to met Nate. Then we sent her off to Lawton, where she completed her introductions to new family by seeing Miss Livie and the rest of the Kirbys. Hunter got quite the kick out of meeting someone from the same country as Max Schnell, the German race car from Cars 2.

Hunter immediately made the connection
between his London souvenir and Cars 2

 At work, I had the opportunity to facilitate a 2-day change workshop almost every month. It's one of my favorite things to do. One of them was in Leicester, England - my first trip outside North America. I flew into London on a Saturday night, and made arrangements to travel the two hours to Leicester late Sunday afternoon so I'd have a day to sightsee. I woke up at 7:15, and said to myself, Self, we could do with one more little snooze, so I rolled over and went back to sleep. And re-awakened at 12:30. Uh-oh. Since it was at least an hour in to the city each way, my tourist excursion in London consisted of reading a book in the hotel lobby for three hours while I waited for my taxi. On the drive north, the most distinctive feature of the topography was the hedgerows alongside the road. Other than that, it seemed a lot like Kansas, with stone buildings. I did get to eat in an authentic pub and see some buildings that were built in the 1700's.  Other than that, it was pretty much like all my other business trips - you see a Cat facility, a conference room, and a lot of your hotel. Except, of course, everyone talked funny. I can only imagine what they thought of the crazy American. To the best of my knowledge, no embassies were involved - but I was only there a week.

Tell me this face isn't worth
twelve hours in the car!

We're getting well acquainted interstate travel. It's almost 12 hours from Peoria to Ashley at Ft Sill in Lawton, OK, and 8 hours to Megan in Mansfield, OH. We're fortunate that Lucky Dog is a great traveller, because it seems like every other month we're packing up the Escape and heading off into the night. But the end of the rainbow is filled with granchillrens or granchillren-to-be, so any sacrifice is worth it. Being a grandparent is everything it's  cracked up to be and more. I love going to the outlet mall in Aurora and carrying out half the Carter's store, so Ash and Shane don't have to spend a lot of their money on dressing their kids. Hunter's teacher at school mentioned how he always looked so nice, and asked him where he got his clothes. "The Grammie and Pappy Store", he said. I haven't changed my thought process from his first Christmas, when I came home with yet another package, and the C&D said don't you think we've bought enough for him, and I replied, what, we still have money. Until I hear differently from above, I'll operate under the assumption that God has blessed me so richly so that I can pass it along to my grandkids!

2011 was notable for how we advanced further into the technology of the age. Laundry was turned from chore to delight with the addition of a new Maytag Super Duper Washer-Dryer pair. And oh, what a pair! They're so advanced, you can almost crawl into the washer naked and 40 minutes later pop out of the dryer, cleaned and fully dressed. I'm afraid to touch them, but wow, do they do what they do. The clothes come out of the washer practically dry, and out of the dryer nearly pressed. I'm afraid to touch them. But I don't have to, because the C&D is actually enjoying doing laundry. Which makes it worth every penny, even the cost of the new cabinets to dress out the laundry room (what? you can't just plunk them down into any old space, now can you?).

Ashley got a Keurig coffe maker for her birthday, and we took the plunge ourselves right before Christmas. I usually only drink coffee at home on the weekends, but the ease and convenience of a K-cup might convert me into drinking more than just at work. It brews a better mug of tea for Lynn, too. Not to mention how trendy it feels!

And then there is the iPhone upgrade! Oh, my my, how I love my iPhone. I'm afraid to set it on top of the new washer-dryer - the technology surge would probably disrupt the time-space continuum. My phone talks to my computer, my TV, my kids, bar codes and passing comets, probably. I put on Facebook that it's so cool my chest gets frostbite from carrying it around in my shirt pocket. I'm starting to feel like a one-percenter - all superior and snotty: Oh, you don't have an iPhone? How quaint. Perhaps you'll join the 21st century eventually. In the meantime, I'll download an app that will tell me the proper angle to look down my nose at you. Good day! Seriously, it's powerful enough that I'm going to try and go paperless - no Franklin Planner - next year.

And speaking of next year, if I don't quit typing, 2012 will come before the end of this piece. 2011 was a good year - and if Penny comes before Dec 31st, it holds more promise yet - filled with joy and the love of our wonderful family and friends. God is good, all the time, and He has been especially good to us in 2011. As you reflect on the year past, and the one to come, don't forget to include thanks to our Creator and Redeemer. Join me in pledging to talk to him more, reading his book, visiting his house more often, and growing closer to him next year. God bless us every one in 2012!