We wish you the peace and joy of this very special time of year. Ron and I had such a busy fall travel schedule that we never found a moment to buy a card or mail a gift. This blog serves as both card and gift to each of you that we hold dear to our hearts.
Blessings were abundant as we welcomed all our family home for the holidays. Eight of the best of us and four precious dachshund doggies filled our home on the High Mesa with love, laughter, joyous chaos, delicious meals and lots of good cheer! When one dog barked, the three others joined in and sometimes it really did sound like the Hallelujah Chorus.
Ron continues many activities that proves the fact that he did, and continues to, flunk retirement. He still serves as the Chairman of the Richard Nixon Foundation. The hiring of Bill Baribault as the new President has been a real positive influence on all aspects of the Foundation's day to day activities. Bill and his wife Susan are doing a great job and we are very grateful for them both. And . . . . very soon we will welcome a new Director to the Federal Archives part of the organization. That was a long time coming.
We have enjoyed getting to know the good people from the other Presidential Libraries. The Association of Presidential Libraries meets twice a year - one day spent with the Foundation team and the other spent with the Archivist team. Our spring meeting will be at the LBJ Library. Obama's Library (no doubt located in Chicago) will bring the association members to fourteen.
With Cheryl Saremi as his right arm at the Nixon Foundation, I continue to be the administrative assistant, bookkeeper, secretary, travel agent, chief cook and bottle washer wherever "World Headquarters" is located. Winter it is on the High Mesa in Arizona and summer it is in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In both beautiful places, I manage to also spend time writing, walking, blogging, quilting, knitting, reading and wondering why the days go by so fast and how I got to be so old. Life is good and we are blessed.
At our special "little church with a view", the first Sunday after Christmas, visiting Pastor Roger Pierce talked about how many Christmases he has celebrated; 73 for him, and this was the 75th for me. He said we always say, "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to men." We say it every year, and yet in our lifetimes, we have never seen the Peace or the Goodwill that we wish for all the people we share our world with. Religious fanatics continue to hate those who believe differently, city dwellers still hate the cops who dedicate their lives to keeping us safe, way too many people hate anyone who doesn't look or think like them, and it just goes on and on. It's so sad. It's so hurtful. It's so stupid. I wish I could make it stop and I'm sure you do too.
So we'll just have to keep hoping and wishing and praying!
And . . . it is going to be a beautiful year. Look what we woke up to on the High Mesa, this very first day of 2015.
With our love, Anne and Ron
