2012 Hughes Airwest Christmas gathering...

Continuing our holiday celebrations, we went to Jan and Tracy's last night for the Air West Christmas get-together.  Jan and Tracy had decorated their house and it was very festive.

We all brought side dishes to go with Jan's Buttermilk Fried Chicken (yummy!!) and had a very delicious dinner.  It was great to see Jan and Tracy, Bill and Gloria, Judy and Russ, Chris and Jack, Charla and Linda.  Sadly, we don't get to see them as much as we used to, so gatherings like this are special.

Everyone was doing well and making plans for the holidays - some with families, some are traveling and even working.  But everyone was looking forward to the holidays and the coming year.  What a joy it is to have good friends like these!

 

 Jan and Tracy's Christmas tree and some of their decorations.  You can see that there was no shortage of desserts!

The beautifully decorated table

 

 Gloria and Jan

Chris and Judy

Al, Tracy, Bill and Russ - gathered around the bar!

 

 Charla, Pat and Linda

Happy birthday, Judy!  Judy's birthday is the 13th of December so a birthday cake seemed appropriate!

 

 Ready to blow out the candles!  I hope she made a wish!

Judy cutting the cakes

 

I made "frilly" scarves for all of the girls

 

 The Air West gang - minus Jan, who was taking the picture

What a great evening!  We loved catching up with everyone and look forward to seeing all of you in the new year!

Holiday Brunch with Jon and Sue

On Sunday, December 9th we met Jon and Sue at the Cliff House for our annual holiday brunch.  Sadly, Jacob had committed to working that day, so he was unable to join us.

Brunch was fabulous, as usual, and the day was spectacular!  Beautiful blue skies and plentiful sunshine!  After a leisurely brunch, we walked around outside of the Cliff House to enjoy the views and take pictures.

The tide was out and there were lots of people about enjoying the great weather.  We went through the giant camera - camera obscura - which projected the camera's view via mirrors onto a giant disc inside the "camera".  It was quite amazing!  Google "camera obscura" it's the ancient discovery that lead to modern photography.

After Jon and Sue left, we went for a walk along Lands End.  When the trail became too mucky and muddy, we returned and walked through the park above the Cliff House, which was once home to Adolph Sutro - immigrant from Prussia who as an engineer helped develop San Francisco and served as Mayor.  He owned much of the area around Lincoln Park and included the area where the Cliff House stands now.  

And what an amazing view he had!  We were able to climb up to where his home had been, and stayed to watch the sunset.  After that it was time to head home along the Great Highway, where we had an amazing orange sky almost all the way to Moss Beach.

A grand and glorious day!  And while we certainly missed seeing Jacob, it was great to see Jon and Sue and catch up with them.  We love our holiday tradition with them!

 Behind the Cliff House with the beach behind us

 A beautiful day with a very low tide

Jon and Sue

 

 Lee and Pat

Sand Art!!  We watched this guy with a rake create this amazing work of art - you can see him in the upper right hand of the picture.  And, by the time we left the area, the tide had begun erasing it!

 The camera obscura!  Inside the building is a dark room where the images captured from the camera lens in the roof are projected onto the disc inside the room - very amazing!

 Walking along Lands End

The view from Sutro Park

 

The wall surrounding the area where Sutro's home once stood

 

 Enlarge this picture - to the left of it are a series of steps leading to the top of the hill - the first step is just big enough for one foot - they get slightly larger as they go up

 And the sunset begins.....

 And here it is, in all it's glory!  Just beautiful!!

What a great day!  Thanks, Jon and Sue, for braving all that traffic, too!  We loved seeing you!

Half Moon Bay Christmas

Half Moon Bay celebrates the Night of Lights on the first Friday in December.  We went into town to take part in the festivities - the lighting of the Christmas tree, Christmas carols by the Half Moon Bay High School Chorus, chestnuts roasting on an open fire - Lee had never had roasted chestnuts before - free roasted marshmallows for the kids, the parade with all of the floats and people decorated with lights (which was a good thing as it was DARK), all of the children scrambling for the candy that was tossed from the parade floats, entertainment at La Piazza, lots of people dressed in red and wearing Santa hats, even the pets!

It was a true small town event and we really enjoyed all of it!  There were hula dancers performing and the evening was closed out by the Peninsula Scottish Fiddlers doing lots of great Scottish folk songs.

The night was clear and very cold (for us!) so a great way to kick off the holiday season.  And it looked like lots of people were taking advantage of the shops being open, too.

On Saturday night we went down to the harbor the the "lighting of the boats" - each year many of the boat owners decorate their boats with lights and it's so pretty on the water.  Santa was there listening to wish lists, a small band played Christmas carols and the HMB High School chorus sang again.

We were able to go down on the docks where the boats were anchored to get a close up look at the decorated boats.  There was a contest for the best decorated boat.  One of the boats was all festive and "Santa", in shorts and tank top, was singing and dancing to music.  We decided that he'd possibly had too much eggnog! 

But it was lots of fun, and a good way to keep the holiday spirit going!

 The Peninsula Scottish Fiddlers performing at La Piazza

Some of the lighted and decorated boats

 

 The back of "Santa" as he was dancing on his boat - he attracted quite a bit of attention

 Lights reflecting on the water

 A bit blurry, but you can see that these boat owners went all out!  I hope they won the contest!

We also discovered a houseboat at the end of one of the docks that is a beauty parlor!  Who knew??

Thanksgiving 2012

We drove down to Jim's in Grover Beach on November 17th to spend a few days with Jim before we all traveled to Gary and Joyce's in Coarsegold for Thanksgiving.

As usual, the weather in Grover Beach was beautiful!  Jim was on vacation that week, so we had lots of time to visit.  He is nearly finished with his remodel - only waiting for his drapes - and his house looks wonderful!

Sunday and Monday we did a bit of shopping as Jim was looking for a few throw rugs to add to his kitchen and entry way.  We also loaded up Jim's car with all of the old photos that we had taken from Dad's house and had been stored in Jim's garage, waiting for all of the boys to go through them.  Thanksgiving seemed like a perfect time!

On Tuesday we got up early in the morning and drove down to Simi Valley to visit the Ronald Regan Presidential Library and Museum!  Jim and Lee had visited the library shortly after it opened in 1991.  There had been many changes and improvements since then and another visit was on Jim's "bucket list".

I had never visited a presidential library and was envisioning lots of books, and not sure what else!  Needless to say, the "presidential libraries are not libraries in the usual sense - they are archives and museums, preserving the written record and history of our presidents".

We embarked on a journey through Ronald Regan's presidential experience - beginning with his childhood and continuing through his life, until he was elected president in 1982.  The exhibits took you through his 8 years of presidency, with audio, video and interactive presentations.  We saw footage of the attempt on his life on the 71st day of his first term (I had forgotten all about that!) heard many of his speeches and footage of important meetings with heads of foreign countries, most notably Russia.  There was a piece of the Berlin Wall, which had come down during his presidency and his 707 presidential jet, displayed amazingly in a vast room that was literally built around the plane.

Most interesting (and depressing) was seeing that the same issues that faced Regan still exist today - the economy, immigration, foreign policy, etc., still exist today - it seems that nothing has changed in the past 30 years......

There are 12 presidential libraries in the United States, and it would be interesting to see other, but I'm sure that the story will be the same with each of them.

It was a great experience!  If you ever get a chance to visit one, you won't be disappointed.

We got home Tuesday night and picked up Rex (who stayed with Jim's friend, Millie).  Rex was NOT happy at having been left all day and wouldn't sit with Jim!

Wednesday morning we got up early (even me!) and were getting ready to head to Coarsegold, when Gary called to tell us that Joyce had the flu!!  Needless to say, we did NOT go as none of us wanted the flu!

So we had a quiet low-key Thanksgiving dinner at Jim's.  We sure missed seeing Gary and Joyce, but we glad that they could rest and recover!

We spent the rest of the week with Jim and then headed home on Saturday.  Thanks, Jim for a great visit!

Ronald Regan - larger than life - at the entrance to his Presidential Library

Lee and Jim with Ronald

Ronald and Nancy Regan

Lee at the presidential podium.  To either side of him were teleprompters that project his speeches onto a clear Plexiglas screen - very cool!

An exact replica of the oval office - complete with the desk that Regan and other presidents before him used.

Air Force One

As you can see, the display of this aircraft was amazing!  You could walk around it, under it and through it!  And it was the shiniest airplane I've ever seen!

Lee and Jim and Air Force One

The back side of the Berlin Wall

The front side

This is where Ronald Regan was laid to rest.  We wondered if Nancy will be buried there, too

Preparing to enter Air Force One - it was interesting to see the layout of the airplane

It was a great week - beautiful weather, nice visit, nice field trip!  Gary and Joyce we missed you!  But there is always next year!!

Peter Mason's visit...

Peter Mason arrived from London on November 1st, en route to visit with Andy, Linda and girls in Hervey Bay, Australia.

We picked him up at the international terminal after a 12 hour flight from Heathrow.  Peter was in pretty good shape considering that he had missed a nights sleep!  We got home, had dinner and a quiet evening so that he could adjust to the new time zone.  Early to bed and then we were up and ready to go on Friday for some sight-seeing.

Friday we packed a picnic lunch and drove first to Treasure Island.  There is a great view of the city from there and of course the sculpture of Bliss that you have seen here before.  We took pictures of Pete with the naked woman, then drove over to Chrissy Field where we parked.  We first toured Fort Point, which was built during the Civil war era to protect the San Francisco bay from attack from sea which fortunately never came.  The fort was open and we were able to see all of it, including the lighthouse on the roof and the underneath of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Next was a picnic at Chrissy Field and a long walk along the waterfront.  The weather was gorgeous - warm with a slight breeze and pretty clear.

Saturday we headed south.  We drove down Skyline (Hwy 35) to Highway 9 and then into Santa Cruz.  Along the way we stopped at the Henry Crowell state park and had a great walk among the redwoods.  We saw lots of grazing deer, who paid very little attention to us, as well as squirrels.  Again, the weather was perfect!!

We had lunch on the wharf in Santa Cruz and enjoyed the sights from the pier, including lots of sea lions.  We did some shopping and then started home.  Along the way we stopped at the Natural Bridges State park and also the "pebble" beach along Highway 1.  Lee fired up the bar-b-que and we enjoyed one of those yummy marinated tri-tips for dinner.

On Sunday we went into San Francisco to take a "Duck Tour"!  It was a perfect day - nearly 80 in San Francisco!  The duck tour is aboard an amphibious craft that drives like a car on land and then drives into the sea and becomes a boat!  Our captain - Captain Crunch - was full of facts about San Francisco and our land tour took us all around the area, including Union Square!  I would NOT have wanted to drive that thing around downtown SF!!  We then went to the ball park and to the bay along there, where we drove into the bay!  We had a leisurely tour of McCovey cove, where the home run balls land in the bay and watched the Fish and Game boat stop boaters who were trying to sneak in with crab.  Crab season had started on Saturday and they were making sure that the crab were of legal size.  Sure enough, they detained fishermen with under size crab - and the $850 fine to go with them!

After the tour we spent some time on Fisherman's wharf where we had lunch, did some shopping and visited the new Maritime Museum.  The museum is great and has lots of great displays as well information on San Francisco's maritime history.  

The crowds finally got to be too much and we headed back to Moss Beach.  Peter had gotten a huge piece of salmon for us for dinner, which was just delicious.

Then it was Monday and Peter had to continue his journey.  He and Lee had a nice walk up to the Montara Light House in the morning and then we were off to the airport!  Peter had many hours of flying ahead of him at this point!  But he arrived safely and is enjoying the warm weather in Hervey Bay and spending time with everyone there.

Thanks, Peter and we'll see you in two years!

 Peter arriving from Heathrow

Pete with Bliss

 

And Alcatraz behind him

 

 Fort Point, under the Golden Gate Bridge

 The series of doorways in the barracks side of the fort - it was quite an illusion

The same series of doorways, from the other side

 

 The Golden Gate Bridge from our walk along the bay

 Peter and one of the many large redwoods at the park

 One tall redwood reaches for the sunlight!

 This tree was hollowed out and you could stand up inside of it, which Lee and Peter did - not so easy getting out, though!

 Lee crawling out of the tree.  Needless to say, I declined to go in and took pictures instead!

 This "island" of sea lions were floating right off the pier in Santa Cruz.  It looked like they were sleeping!  We wondered if this is a natural behavior as we had never seen them do this before - it was quite interesting.  By the way, a group of sea lions is called a "raft" - pretty fitting!

 Here's a closeup - eyes closed, noses out of the water, and barely moving

 This picture was taken at Pebble Beach - its a rock that has been hollowed out in a pattern that almost looks like a fish - all of the holes were filled with tiny pebbles.

 More of the sculpted rocks and tiny pebbles that give this beach its name

 Fisherman's Wharf before the Duck Tour!  Blue skies, sunshine and WARM!

 A nice Japanese tourist took this picture of the three of us.  He then came back with his wife and asked if we would take a picture with him.  His wife took that picture with their camera and then she got in the shot and he took it.  What a hoot!  We're in the Japanese tourists holiday pictures!

The Duck!  Getting ready to load up and take off on the tour

 Getting ready for the tour

One of the painted houses along the tour

 

 As part of the tour we were all given duck-bill "quackers"!  Here's Lee and Peter with their quackers!  Needless to say, we were a very noisy bus with everyone blowing on their quackers!  We did attract attention....

 They asked who wanted to drive the Duck in Mc Covey cove and of course I raised my hand!  I then realized that I was the only adult to do so.... so several children and I had the experience of driving - it was fun!

 I'm taking this job very seriously!

 AT&T ball park from McCovey cove

 A huge transport ship was moored near the cove

 This picture shows the loading dock for the ship - all manner of huge things can be driven into the ship and then the loading dock folds up and stows

 This rusty old tub is actually a floating dry-dock

 AT&T park from the duck

 "Say hay" Willie Mays!

Home in time to watch the sun set into the Pacific ocean

 

Peter at the Montara light house

 

And heading off to "down under", where his brother and family were anxiously awaiting his arrival