New Year’s Party

We had a quiet little New Year’s party at our house last night with Troy and Youngin.  We ate Lorena’s absolutely fabulous tamales and some really amazing dip Youngin put together with cream cheese and seven pepper jelly.  Wow.  I pretty much gave in to eating very badly for an evening, so my starting weight for the weight loss death match will be a little higher than I had initially planned.

The absolute highlight of the evening was the pictures Troy and Youngin showed us of their trip to Argentina.  They were amazing.  We were glued to our seats for over an hour.  The scenery was great and the descriptions of the trip were just perfect. The thing that I really liked about the pictures was the fact that, between stunning pictures of glaciers, mountains, lakes, strange trees, and all the other picturesque items that just about anyone would take on the trip because of their magnificence, Troy and Youngin took pictures of stuff that was just commonplace in Argentina. Some of it, like the little garbage stands in front of the houses to prevent dogs from tearing up the garbage was interesting because it commonplace in Argentina, but not here.

Then there was the machinery, old cars, wagons with HUGE wheels, and odd uses and modifications of cars, trucks, and equipment. I was thinking how much my dad would have enjoyed seeing that. There were also very interesting birds from very small, colorful birds sitting in trees and on the ground to huge, odd-shaped, ostrich-like birds to tufted woodpeckers to a magnificent Andean Condor soaring over open hill country with snow covered mountains in the background. There was a llama/camel like animal called a guanco and too much other stuff to mention it all.

We especially appreciated hearing about Troy’s aunt who has worked in Argentina as a missionary for decades. Much of her time is spent riding buses. The country is huge. She seemed so cheerful and happy to be there, living in very humble circumstances, doing her best to bring the gospel to people who often do not know or acknowledge they need it. I would like to meet her someday.

Finally, after Troy and Youngin went home, we called our good friends at the annual New Years party we went attended when in Oregon. We ended up getting on Skype so we could look at each other. We would have loved to be there in Oregon with them. All the Joyces (including Vernon), the Pedginskis, and a number of others were there. I was quite discouraged looking at Bryan. After he beat me like a drum in last year’s weight loss death match, I enter this year’s death match with fear and trembling after seeing his svelte new physique on Skype.