Wow ... a groovy Solstice pic courtesy NASA! (A hat-tip to 
polaris93 for the link!)This is the "Analemma", the movement of the sun over the course of the year ... pictured over the Temple of the Olympian Zeus in Athens! How cool is that?
This pic was achieved by taking an exposure at the same time of day on several dozen (reasonably evenly-spaced) days over the course of the year (and then adding in the foreground shot).
At the Winter Solstice (yesterday), the Sun would have been at the lowest point on the Analemma ... with the curve created by the Earth's axial tilt, and orbital eccentricity.
This was the first year in a while where The Wife and my wedding anniversary actually hit the Solstice ... we got married on the Winter Solstice back in 1991, but the day moves around quite a bit, and this is the first one that I can recall in quite a while when it's been on the 22nd!
The experiment of having Daughter #1 "babysit" Daughter #2 worked out fine, so The Wife and I were able to go out and have a nice dinner and not come home to carnage ... which was nice! We ended up using some Lettuce Entertain You gift cards we'd been given and splurged on Ambria ... although it was a bit of a shock being back in a top-notch fine cuisine restaurant again (I miss the days when we had money).
