We managed to get up and out of the house early enough to watch the sunrise on the beach, despite the disruptions of New Year’s Eve.

Actually, we spent a relatively quiet night at home. “Relative” because keeping all eight cats in for the night always creates challenges.

Our big end of the year meal was built around leftovers from the night before. I pulled out several pieces of chicken that we served to friends on Friday night, combined them with a newly made spicy tomato-anchovy-garlic sauce, and served over penne pasta. Meda added her avocado-anchovy salad, and we opened a nice bottle of wine (Crios Cabernet, highly rated in the most recent Consumer Reports. Our verdict–good, but not near the top of our list.)

Back to this morning’s walk, the first of the new year. It was very quiet when we first ventured out. Almost no traffic at all on Kamehameha Highway.

–>Click on the top photo to see the rest of our first morning walk of 2012.

Then a special mention of our morning photographer friend, Janet, who set out a year ago to capture the sunrise on all 365 days of 2011. We caught up with her on December 31, as she completed the one-year self-assignment. What’s next? She’s going to do it all again in 2012! Her photos from the past year are online.