Happy New Year!

As the Aase clan looks forward to an exciting 2019, we’re thankful for the many blessings we experienced in the year that concludes tonight.

The 6,000-mile driving vacation Lisa and I took was a major highlight. We left from Austin July 27 in our Chevy Cruze with no agenda but to drive west. We had a few ideas of places we wanted to visit, but mainly we wanted the windshield tour of the country. We never made hotel reservations for more than a day in advance, and that led to some interesting discoveries.

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Our route took us to DeSmet, South Dakota (a Laura Ingalls Wilder site) and Mount Rushmore on the second day. After a night in Butte, Montana we were on to Seattle for two nights. We visited Dan and Sandy Hinmon (and toured the museum with Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose) in McMinnville, Oregon on the way down to the Pacific coast.

After a couple of days in Eureka, California (a delightful coastal town the size of Austin, Minn. that was one of our serendipitous discoveries due to our “No Plan” travel plan), we took the Avenue of the Giants to see the Redwoods.

Our only other two-night stay was in San Diego, where we had a delightful visit to the beach, and then it was on to the Grand Canyon (my first visit) and to Winchester, Kansas, where a couple of our granddaughters were celebrating birthdays.

Here are some other photos from the trip:

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For the first 32 years of our marriage we only took a few longer vacations with our six kids (a trip to Washington, DC and a couple of Florida trips were the big ones.) Now that our nest is empty we enjoy taking advantage of increased opportunities to travel together.

Speaking of an empty nest, here’s what’s up with our kids:

Rachel and her husband Kyle Borg still live with their five kids in Winchester, where he’s a Presbyterian pastor. On their 10th anniversary they took a cruise and left the kids with us, and that has started a tradition. We look forward to having them stay with us again in a couple of weeks, and we plan to start with a day at Mall of America’s Nickelodeon Universe with as many of our descendants (and significant others) as can make it. It’s become a great family tradition.

Jacob and his wife Alexi and their three kids live in Rochester. Jake is a physical therapist at Mayo Clinic. It’s great to see those kids every week at church (and sometimes more frequently).

Rebekah and Andrew Gatzemeyer live just seven blocks away from us in Austin with their son Griffin. Andrew works at Mayo in the appointment office, and for about a year was riding to work with me every day. Now he’s teleworking so we don’t have that ride, but sometimes I take Griffin to Alexi for day care while Rebekah is at work. She’s a nurse at Mayo Clinic Health System in Austin.

Ruthie and her husband Trevin Hoot are going to be long-term missionaries to Bulgaria through our church (Presbyterian Church in America) mission agency, Mission to the World. In May we were in St. Louis for his graduation from Seminary. They’ve raised more than 90 percent of the support they need, and so we expect they’ll move to Sofia in March.

Joe graduated from Minnesota State University, Mankato this month and is working full-time for Ameripride. He’s thankful to have a good job that he was able to do during his last year of college and that he can continue to do and enjoy as he considers his next steps.

Our youngest, John, is in his second year at the University of Northwestern in suburban St. Paul, Minn. He took post-secondary classes in his last two years of high school, so he’s planning to graduate in a little over a year. He also had a big announcement on Christmas Day:

So, if you’re keeping score, we have

• Six kids, four of whom are married
• Five granddaughters
• Four grandsons, and
• More on the way.

How many more? You’ll have to see in next year’s review.

But here’s a gallery of some of our blessings so far:

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In a future post I’ll review some professional highlights of 2018.

Best wishes for a Happy New Year!