New Year Faves

It's 2019!

I hope everyone had a wonderful start to the new year and that you can look back on the week (or the past year) and find at least FIVE blessings that God brought into your life.  We call these the Five Faves and Susanne is our gracious hostess for this weekly gratitude exercise.  Head to her site to learn more about it!

I ended the year with a hike, and began the year with a hike!  Both were in Capital Region (New York State)  state parks so were very easy trails. 

Ingrid, me, Anette
photo courtesy of Anette 

Lake Ann in Moreau Lake State Park
Wilton, NY
29 December

• SATURDAY FUN!  On Saturday, the sun was shining a little and the temps were fairly mild for early winter in upstate NY so two of my hiking friends and I went on a state park hike.  The lake where we like to swim and kayak has a rather new section that the state acquired a few years ago.  I've hiked the 3 miles around the main lake (Lake Bonita) in this new section but I'd never done the trail to Lake Ann.  That trail was only 1.5 miles but first you have to hike about .9 miles in to the trail from the road, then another half mile on the main trail before this lake trail.  The lake was so pretty as you can see from the photo above.  The photos below show some of my fave scenes along the trail.  All in all, we hiked about 5.4 miles that day and it felt so good to get out in the fresh air and still have plenty of time in the afternoon to get stuff done around the house. Our goal was to do yet another trail off the main one, to a remote waterfalls but we never did find that particular trail.  So, we ended up just going to Lake Ann.  I'm so thankful for the mild weather we've been having and for a fun Saturday morning!

Partially frozen area of a swampy section near Lake Ann
Moreau Lake State Park 

Easy trail with no snow!
South-eastern Adirondacks
Moreau Lake State Park

Lean-to at Lake Ann with fireplace

bridge from trail over to Lake Ann
some icy spots on the trail here

• WORSHIP AND PRAISE:  Our church had my favorite female worship leader on Sunday and she had an amazing set of songs for praise and worship. I just love when she leads (on her guitar) and her voice is fantastic.  The drummer is the son of a dear friend of ours from way back in the 1990s when we attended a different church. He was the worship leader there and now his son is one of our drummers.  It made my heart so happy to see him on stage drumming and worshipping the Lord.  And our pastor gave an amazing sermon to end our year long Luke series.  I'm so thankful for excellent praise and worship with a soul stirring sermon.

• NEW YEAR'S EVE: Our oldest daughter was out with friends for the evening so it was just our youngest girl and Dave and I in the house for New Year's Eve.  We had been tossing around the idea of going to Boston for First Night like we did a few years ago but thankfully we decided to stay here in NY because it was pouring rain all night long!  We had fun re-watching this movie (one of my absolute fave classic books and musicals) and eating yummy salsa and chips plus some sweets and wine, then herbal teas.  Dave went to bed before the ball dropped and around 2 a.m. just as I was dropping off to sleep, I heard our oldest come in.  I'm thankful we all were safe that night.

Amanda (Ingrid's daughter), Ingrid, me, Anette, Darlene
photo courtesy of Amanda H

• FIRST DAY HIKE! In New York state, on January 1, the state parks offer guided hikes and history tours, weather permitting.  Last year most of them were cancelled due to extreme cold weather.  This year was very mild although extremely windy.  As you can see from the photo we needed hats.  My friends and I decided to do one of the local state parks so we chose Peebles Island along with about 200 other people.  Because so many showed up, the guide split us into 8 groups.  Families with children went one way, people who didn't want the history talk went a different way and there were a couple of history tours.  We did a history tour and I learned alot about this park that Dave and I have hiked in for many years.  It was really fun!  As you can see by some of the photos, it is a beautiful place for an urban hike.  Most of the history revolves around the Revolutionary war era with the Mohicans having a settlement here as well and some industry in the 1800s.  We were standing, at one point, on an old Mohican settlement that I never knew about!  And the one road that went from Albany, NY to Montreal, Canada back in the 1700s went right through Peebles Island!  I'm thankful I had this morning hike time.  It was loads of fun and good exercise!

view of the Mohawk River from the perimeter  trail on Peebles Island
Cohoes, NY

a former Mohican Settlement was located here 

the Mohawk River along the perimeter trail
photo courtesy of Amanda H

• WORD OF THE YEAR!  Over the weekend, I took an online quiz put out by the Christian company Dayspring. I found it via social media.  I answered a few questions and they gave me the word of the year "Delight" along with a Scripture verse.  I love it!  I was wondering too if I was going to keep this blog going.  It's now been 10 years since I first started blogging. It started out as a family journal and then a recipe collection and now it's a bit of everything.  My goal for 2019 is to write some devotional style posts based on my personal studying of the minor prophets along with wherever else the Lord has me. Of course I'm going to post some healthful recipes as well and continue to participate in the FFF!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

A bonus fave:  Claire heard from the University this past week and discovered she earned high honors for semester one of her 2nd year as a Russian and Sociology major with a minor in Dance/Ballet.  She earned a perfect 4.0!!  We're really proud of her, especially as she is in the Dance Company which requires 6 hours of rehearsals per week and she has an on campus job at 1.5-2 hours a day AND she volunteers with Alpha Phi Omega at Waysmeet, a local food pantry.  I'm very thankful she is doing well and seems to love what she's doing.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!