Today is Saturday, December 9th. I finally made it out cross country skiing today. I've lived here 2 1/2 years without using my skis. Moral of the story: when it snows, don't expect it to stay forever. Get out and ski! It was amazing to walk across the road and have miles of trail awaiting. When I made it to the far side of the Ruffed Grouse Preserve, I even saw a dozen grouse walking through the woods! Getting back was the hard part. :) The day was warming up nicely, which meant all the frozen puddles and open water in the swamps were thawing. I'm not sure where I made a wrong turn, but I couldn't find the trail back to the Marsh Rd. entrance. I tried several possibilities, but ended up in large open prairies impossible to ski and marshes with no possible sign of the trail I thought I was following. I ended up striking out through the swamp until the rapidly cracking ice gave out solid puddles heading into brush. I pushed through, over under and around, until I left the swamp behind and found one of the main trails, and my ski tracks. :) When I checked the map at home I still couldn't tell where I went wrong, but I did find out I had gone through the middle of a peat bog! What a great adventure. Even now the snow is too far gone to ski again anytime soon. So don't delay, get out there and do something today!

Life with Beth and her teenage son, Jason, has had plenty of ups and downs. We've had wonderful times with my godson Nick and his folks Lisa and Cory including a great day of picnic and bubbles at Gun Lake over Labor Day. I need to see them more. My friend Aubrey moved to Maryland and Kelli married James Creamer and moved, much shorter, to Chesaning. God hides our blessings in the most unlikely, and hilarious, places. :) I'm playing in the Saturday evening band at church and doing a few library shows by myself as Platypus Dominion. Beth or Jason help out occasionally. I've taught Jason to play bass guitar and he's in a high school group called Aerial Black playing Nirvana and Seether covers. I'm doing library consulting and training too, all in computers and technology so far. Big job forthcoming with helping Marshall switch to new library software. Delton will be switching in 2007 too. We're going to join up with the three schools across the street to share their system. The library continues to be a great place to work. The community loves and supports it, even if we don’t always have enough money.

It seems like years ago that Beth and I went to the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks -- as well as seeing the glitz and sparkle of Las Vegas. It was a great trip, even though I drove all of the 800+ miles in the rental car and arranged for all the accommodations. Since it was the off off season, we managed to stay a hundred feet from the rim of the Grand Canyon! We arrived in the dark and realized our parking lot had a view of the canyon itself only after getting up the next morning. We took two small hikes down into the canyon at Bright Angel and South Kaibab trails. Saw elk, ravens, and bighorn sheep during our explorations. It was nice to not have a ton of people around.

Beth booked a trip to Ireland through Aer Lingus for her spring break from Western Michigan University. Not sure what we'll do for her last one this February, but an Ohio trip is a likely possibility. I still can't believe the deal she got on tickets ($260 round trip from Chicago), but it would have been nice if she consulted with me before doing all of this. We arrived in Dublin in time for the riots! Everyone was so apologetic. Apparently this sort of thing hardly ever happens anymore. I loved experiencing St. Patrick's Cathedral although we had to sneak in as they wouldn't take credit cards or U.S. currency at the door.

We hit Gruel for dinner in the Temple Bar District and it was amazing: Thai fish cakes and Carpe Diem drink with How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb by U2. Unfortunately it almost broke Beth due to the crowds of people and everything else we'd already gone through...including the wake up on the airplane at 8 AM (they turned all the lights on, told us it was 8 AM, Beth looked at her watch and said, no, it's 1 AM). It relaxed from there although I ended up planning and navigating a lot of Beth’s trip. We saw the national botanical gardens, Glasenevin Cemetary, Clontarf with a public librarian I had chatted with before the trip, and most of downtown. I was happier to escape Dublin for Bray and catch St. Kevin's bus at McDonald's for a daytrip to Glendalough in the Wicklow Mountains. Then we went north of Dublin and hit the Hill of Tara, Newgrange, the Hill of Slane, and Kells. Staying with Irish families at their B&B’s was ideal.

In April I attended a Digital Copyright Conference at Ball State University in Muncie, the home of Garfield. I wandered across the state afterwards to spend the night with Chris and Janelle before hitting the cow theme park on my return up I-65. Always cool to see the new baby calves and try to adopt one. :) I explored Warren Dunes and saw my Grandma Elsner before returning home. Couple weeks later I took a hand papermaking class in Kalamazoo and can now make claim to doing the whole book process, albeit not in order. On April 30th my sister and I threw a big 40th Anniversary celebration for my parents in Flushing at the United Methodist Church. We all had a wonderful time and most of their friends and family made it.

At the beginning of May my mom and I spent a week visiting Red Bird Mission. Our trip down included a stop at the Garden of Hope in Covington, Kentucky where I touched a block from the Jerusalem wailing wall. The trip back up included a stop in Lexington, Kentucky to see Beth, Noah, and their toddler son Isaac. I need to visit again! At Red Bird it was odd to see the kids I had started working with in 4th grade, and chaperoned on trips to Mammoth Cave and Henderson Settlement in 5th, attending their prom. They were all in 11th grade and looking very grown up. Also made me realize that my buddy Noah from Grayling is in elementary school and probably looking pretty grown up himself. Time continues whether we notice or not. Mom, Laura, and I made a trip to Cumberland Gap to see the reclamation work. The highway has been completely removed from the gap and it is now a field of grass and boulders. Maybe next time we'll plan far enough ahead to tour the cave there.

The July 4th weekend we visited Grayling and stayed with Carol on the AuSable River well out of town. It was nice to catch up with my buddies Benjamin and Cathy too. After a paddle on the river we headed to Mackinac Island to join up with my parents for a couple nights at Small Point Bed and Breakfast. The first night there, Beth and I hiked up to the Arch and then wandered through the trails, including a very rough one along the edge of the cliff. The next day Amanda and B.J. joined us and we hit the butterfly house and took a carriage ride around town. Beth and I rented bikes and circled the entire island, finding "the tree" (from Somewhere in Time) near the end of our journey. We also snuck on to the grounds at the Grand Hotel and worshipped at St. Anne's church. Before returning we spent a night in Munising, saw some amazing waterfalls, visited Sable Dunes, and cruised the Pictured Rocks. On the way back through Grayling we chatted with Judy and Jerry Morford and ate at Bear's Den Pizzeria. Good times.

July 15th was the Hot Air Balloon Jubilee in Jackson with Chad, Jessie, & Calvin where we saw about 60 balloons launch. Beth and I stopped to enjoy the fireworks on our way out of town and fed the starving mosquitoes too! The McGinnis' have since moved to Nevada where Jessie is teaching music. We also took in the Silver Leaf Renaissance Fair and, later, the Michigan Fair in Holly which Beth had never visited before. It was a year full of firsts for Beth who'd also never been out of the country, or crossed the Mississippi (which we did both by plane and then car when we helped David and Robyn move into their first house in November). She's really pushed herself. I had a lot of firsts too: seeing the amazing colors out west, visiting the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, and sharing my house with a woman and her teenage son.

In October I found my own baby calves at the Kellogg Dairy of MSU. Should have visited sooner as it's around the corner from Grandma Nichols' cottage on Gull Lake and I've visited the Kellogg Bird Sanctuary and Manor House many times before. I also learned how to play Yu-Gi-Oh! thanks to some patient middle schoolers. We have a monthly gathering at the library now. The Michigan Library Association's annual conference was in Detroit this year and included a visit to the birthplace of Motown where I got to sing in Studio A. I enjoyed looking at all the recording equipment in the control room! It was interesting to be around GM again as we met in the Renaissance Center on the Detroit River. I made it up to the Coach House on top for a great view and some St. Julian's sherry.

Whatever 2007 holds, I hope it will be seen as a blessing by all. I'll be taking over as Delton Area Rotary Club president and attending the big Rotary International Conference in Salt Lake City.