Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Delta Zetas,
Jarby gave me an extra day to get this letter in and I feel a little like I’m still in college with having to get my paper done; not exactly with a hang over but still having motion sickness from a cruise from that I can’t stop swaying.
My oldest daughter Krista, graduated this year from Luther College and is currently living in Ecuador teaching English with World Teach. Darryl, our younger daughter Paige, and I met Krista for a Christmas holiday in Quito, Ecuador plus four days on a boat in the Galapagos Islands. It was an incredible vacation learning Ecuador’s customs and sight seeing with our daughter as our interpreter. The Galapagos was truly amazing with snorkeling with sea turtles, sea lions, colorful fish and yes, a few sharks. The animals on land were so interesting and not afraid of people as have never been hunted and is where Darwin’s Theory came about. Our 16 person cruise ship had a great crew and all interesting passengers. We all celebrated New Years together learning to Salsa dance, star gazing, and counting down in Spanish. We were proud to make it our whole vacation without getting robbed or sick and it was so fun to spend time with our girls. Paige goes to college in Rochester at RCTC. It was a rude awaking for us three to get off the plane last night getting back to winter.
Darryl has been retired now for two and a half years. One of his projects this year was to plan a two week golf trip to Scotland this past September for us and three other couples. He took care of all the arrangements and T times and we played many of the historic golf courses and stayed in four cities. We enjoyed the people and the pubs! We also toured a few castles and gardens and I skipped golf one day and toured the Edinburgh Botanical Garden. Priceless. It was a dream vacation that we have waited many years to take and it exceeded all our expectations.
Ok Darryl is retired but I do work a lot! My business is crazy busy and had to finally turn away clients. I try to help all my past clients be successful with their landscapes and gardens but I didn’t really know what I was getting into when I committed that to them. If I only spend an hour with each in the spring, that is 50 hours on top of all my new designs going in plus maintenance at the Country Club and a few wedding and graduation customers that want annuals and special attention. Whew! I got it all done but was lucky to have my daughter for the summer to clone myself. And I’m lucky that Darryl does all the grocery shopping and cooking. I still teach middle school gardening classes and write a column for the garden club newsletter for my Master Gardening hours. Also this year I had two of my designs on the city wide Garden Tour and will be a speaker for the Rochester and Flower Garden Club in January. Of course there is nothing I like better than talking about gardening so it is really not like working. 
Just one more travel paragraph but Darryl makes me go. He wants to spend winters south so we chose Florida this year. We rented a condo for six weeks and even though is was the coldest winter in Florida for the past 50 years we had a good time and met great people, many from Canada. It made for great golf conversation with the Olympics and you could hear yelling during Hockey games, even at our condo with Jamie Langunbrunner being from Cloquet. I try to go to all the gardens I can while traveling for inspiration. We stopped at Callaway Gardens in Georgia, The Biltmore Estate in North Carolina, and Naples’s Botanical Garden in Florida. We also stopped at Tiger Wood’s golf course that he is designing but somehow it just wasn’t as enticing as it could have been. (Darryl chose that side trip)
It seems we have now gone from graduations to weddings. It is fun to join family and friends for these fun weekends. I helped a friend decorate her son’s wedding and learned it is a lot of work so I will stick to designing gardens that host weddings. So far I have had four wedding yards and a few wedding brunch yards. I still thank my bridge group for starting my business as they have all hired me and given out my name. The good thing is…I still have a little time for bridge. Have a blessed New Year.
Beth Hennum Solie
No comments:
Post a Comment