A Retrospective of 2025 Sunday Salon Posts

Visiting three Thomas Danbo Trolls with the family in April 2025

As I look back on a year of my Sunday Salon posts, 2025 comes back into focus before many events will begin to fade from my memory. 

Please click on the hyperlinks to read more about my year.

The only post I made in January was titled "So Much Crying" and I remember why. Trump was back in power and things looked awfully bleak for our future. I read two sad books, attended a play in Seattle, Kimberly Akimbo, where I remember crying my way through it, and President Jimmy Carter died. The photos were taken the same week. The first I named "Sunrise over Mt. Rainier" taken in the small hamlet where our daughter lives and teaches. The second was taken under the convention center with a view of sunset over Elliott Bay in Seattle. It is so uniquely beautiful.
(So Much Crying, Jan. 19th)

In February we made a quick day-trip up to Mt. Rainier National Park with our four-year-old grandson. It was one of those wonderful, magical days, too. In fact, it was so beautiful we all had to shed layers due to all the sunshine creating radiant heat. Just the other day our grandson asked us if we would please take him back up the mountain again soon. Special! (Feb. 2, 2025)

In March my mother turned 96 and the family gathered to help her celebrate her birthday. I love the photos of Mom reading to her her great-grandsons and the silly one of all of us making faces.
(Spring, March 30)

We found ourselves in Olympia in April attending a "Hands Off" rally with other like-minded people. It felt good to be doing something, even if it was such a small effort in resistance against the current administration.
(A Day of Action, April 6)

I like to wander around our neighborhood in the Spring taking photos of the gorgeous flowers in our neighbors' yards. In this post I write about visiting the Thomas Danbo Trolls with the family. (See photo above.) This particular week I focused on flowering trees. Aren't they gorgeous?
(Easter Week and Before, April 20)

How quickly the year seems to be going. In this post I share a photo of Don and Jamie. We went for a hike in the Fairy Forest near our home and Jamie led us on a new route, where we discovered the woodpecker tree. Our special "Jamie Days" were coming to an end. Next school year he would be old enough to go to school and wouldn't need to spend one day a week with us. I didn't realize how emotional I'd feel about this ending.
(Memorial Day and the Beginning of Summer, May 25)

For the second year in a row we rented a house at a national park so the whole family could enjoy a week together exploring nature. This year we went to Glacier NP in Montana. The post is crammed full of marvelous photos of our experience. The above photo is taken on Logan Pass. On our way up to the summit we experienced a tremendous rain storm. But it blew over and we had a wonderful evening -- hiking, visiting with other park visitors, admiring a bachelor herd of bighorn sheep. So many memories. The highlight of the year. (Glacier National Park, July 6)

"Busy Summer 2025" is the title of this August 10th post. That is for sure. We raced around all summer from one event to the next. On this particular post I talked about our family reunion one weekend followed by my 50th-year high school class reunion the next. Earlier in the summer we celebrated Don's 50th-year reunion also. I love this photo of the cousins being photo-bombed by our grandsons. After I got home from the class reunion I created a list of the top 50 books I've read since high school graduation. It is linked in this post. 
(Busy Summer, Aug. 10)

For the first time in a long time our church hosted a weekend family camp. I grew up attending an end-of-summer family camp with the church of my youth. I also attended church camp every summer during high school. It is a tremendously favorite experience of mine. I talked about all three of these experiences in this post. Our older grandson, Ian, taught himself how to paddleboard as you see in the upper right photo.
(Family Camp, Sept. 15)

Don and I spent a week in Eugene in October helping Mom move out of her house and into a very nice retirement community. It was an exhausting, demanding event but all my siblings chipped in to help. And it felt like we stepped out of time for a week. Now we no longer have to worry about Mom driving or wonder what she is eating. Pictured: the moving crew.
(Back to Standard Time, Nov. 2)

Based on this wrap-up one could easily get the impression that all we do is go on vacations or to the theater. Of course, that is not correct but this post will not disabuse of that notion. Our younger daughter took the whole family to see The Lion King musical in Seattle as her Christmas gift to us in early December. Almost right after we got home from this wonderful event, our area was hit with a ferocious rain storm which caused all kinds of terrible troubles for many, many people. I spent a lot of time early in the month creating a best-books-round-up list for 2025 and linked the results here.
(December Fun, Dec. 13)

And that brings me to the end of the yearly wrap-up with a post about all the books I liked and didn't like in 2025. I also find myself finishing up other posts, like my yearly challenge list, and creating other lists, like my favorite novels, nonfiction, and audiobooks. I can really drag out the end of the year almost all the way to the end of January!
(2025 Survey of Books)

Goodbye 2025. Hello 2026!

-Anne