Happy New Year!

One of my resolutions is to write more on this blog. Now that my contract work is finished (I still have one magazine piece to write), my hours are much more normal and I can post more about our goings-on.

We had a lovely lead-up to New Year's at PopPop and Mammaw's house in the Outer Banks. Rachel played with Mammaw's granddaughter, who is in 2nd grade, and the girls had a lot of fun at the local aquarium. It was sunny and around 50 degrees, and the kids busied themselves looking for sharks' teeth and other fossils. Drew and I managed to get away by ourselves for 45 minutes and had a nice walk on the beach before it got too dark. Our holiday gift was a goose dinner with a salad, potatoes stuffed inside the goose, and homemade babka for dessert.

One of the reasons I love going to the Outer Banks so much -- besides PopPop and Mammaw's company -- is that I always feel so relaxed when we're down there. Something about the remoteness of the area, the combination of sand, ocean and inlet, steals inside my body and calms me, or at least makes the worry go away for a while. We're hoping to go down there much more often now that we're less than a day's drive away (and a very pretty drive it is; I loved looking at scenery, so different from Oregon but also beautiful in its own way).

Early this morning I woke up to go to the bathroom and banged my pinkie toe into a box that has been sitting in our bedroom for months (it contains the makings of a scrapbook I want to put together for Rachel's and my trip this past summer) and, oh, was it painful. I needed pain medication to get back to sleep, and when I woke up this morning the toe was swollen and I could barely walk. Nevertheless, I insisted we all go to Great Falls National Park for a New Year's Day hike. With much misgivings, Rachel and Drew agreed. We had a great time -- Rachel met a 6-year-old girl named Evelyn, from Alexandria, and they drew pictures at the visitors' center and pitched rocks into one of the streams while Drew and I talked to their parents. The rest of the time I hobbled after Drew and Rachel as they walked the paths, looked at the falls and clambered over rocks. Drew found a walking stick for me. The day was really pleasant -- cold but sunny, and I was bundled up enough so I didn't mind the weather. (Should be the last bearable day we'll have for a while, alas -- it is supposed to get very cold this weekend).

"I love Great Falls Park better than a playground park, because it has rocks you can play on, and you can watch the kayakers, and you can run and play, and go to the visitors' center," Rachel said. We bought a year-round pass for $20, and since each visit is $5, we figure we'll get a lot of use out of it. I'm hoping to make a hike through Great Falls a New Year's Day tradition. It's part of my search to create permanence in our life, in an area of the country that isn't known for permanence compared to the area we left.