wrapping up a month of break

I arrived in Tahoe as planned on New Year's Day, after a leisurely breakfast at Stan and Chrissy's.  The next day I headed to Minden to go have lunch and a ride with Marissa.  I hung out after the ride with Leigh Wayne and helped with few tasks around the ranch before we put the horses in their own corrals for the night.

view from the back of little bit

Saturday morning I caught up with Kelly over a cup of tea - she's a PT at Barton Memorial Hospital that I've known from Sierra Community Church since she was in high school.  I had lunch with Anna and her daughter, reminiscing about our days teaching snowboarding together.  In the afternoon I went back to Minden and helped plant four trees at Leigh Wayne's ranch.  The hope is that the horses won't eat these pine trees so they can grow and provide shade in the summer.  They've chewed up every other type of tree that's been planted there.

pulling stumps and planting trees with the help of some heavy equipment

Sunday afternoon, Bruce, Lauren, and I went to watch the second Hobbit movie.  It was well done - deviates a lot from the book but not too much in a negative way.  I was staying with Bruce and Carmen, their daughter Lauren was home from college on her Christmas break.  Carmen didn't join us because she had to work.

Monday I drove to Gardnerville to reconnect with Erin and Chris.  I met Erin at Sierra Community Church, and became friends with her through rock climbing.  When I first met her, she had just finished PT school at University of the Pacific.  We lost touch for a while, but I recently found her on Facebook.  It turns out she now works in Carson City as well as running a very small hippotherapy practice at her house using their two horses.  We took an enjoyable hike just walking out her door and into the hills.

Tuesday morning, Lauren and I hiked up Twin Peaks for beautiful views.  Because of the limited snow we were able to hike in running shoes and do some scrambling up rocks.  As soon as we got back, I visited with Danielle, another one of my Sierra Community Church friends, and her little baby boy, for lunch.  Then I joined my old boss Rick at Emerald Bay Physical Therapy and we went up to Lower Echo Lake to go ice skating.  It was cold and windy but fun anyway.

me and lauren on top of a big rock

panoramic view from twin peaks

rick and moose - moose was not happy about the ice

panoramic view across lower echo lake

my shadow on the ice

Wednesday morning I got to Sierra shortly after it opened and took a few runs.  Amanda, the former office manager of Emerald Bay Physical Therapy, joined me for a couple runs.  I headed off the hill to pick up Pearl at her office in Folsom for lunch.  After dropping her off to pick up her car at the dealer, I drove down to Walnut Creek.  I hung out briefly at Starbucks before joining Chris and Libby and family for dinner.  I left their place in time to pick up my mother and her carpool mate Caitlin at taiko in Newark and give them a ride home.

me with amanda on grandview chair at sierra

pearl and me after lunch

anne (chris' mom), t, chris, and libby

I only had a couple days left in the Bay Area.  I visited with Steph when G had her dance lesson on Thursday, and then spent Friday afternoon with Alice.  The rest of the time I spent at my parents' place or running last-minute errands.

alice and me

Saturday morning my father dropped me off at the airport and I headed back to Atlanta for my LAST semester of school.

holy days

I arrived back in the Bay Area on Thursday night, December 19.  The next day I went shopping with my father with plans to make a curry dinner, when we noticed that live crab was $4.99 a pound.  Our menu quickly changed to crab - curry could be made at a later date.  Before we actually started cooking, we rode our bikes to the Roasted Coffee Bean to join my mother and the Anvicks for coffee after my mother's bike ride with Janet.

scott, janet, and kate anvick with my mother

crab - the top one clamped a claw straight through the hard plastic cooler (upper left)!

Saturday I got together with Steph in the afternoon, then joined her family for the Christmas program at the church they've been attending, Abundant Life Christian Fellowship in Mountain View.  My older goddaughter sang a solo while my godson sang in the chorus.

t in front in the black vest, g in the red headband
below is a brief snippet of g's solo

Sunday afternoon I got together with Alice after lunch and then joined her family at Living Hope Community Church in Cupertino.  Monday my father and I went back to Ranch 99 and got the remaining ingredients to make roast duck curry.  One ingredient in the curry was butternut squash - I chose a huge one and used half of it to bake "pumpkin" muffins the next day.

Besides baking, on Christmas Eve my parents and I had dinner in Castro Valley with one of my mother's Taiko drumming buddies, Carol Jo.  Cheryl was also supposed to join us, but was unable to at the last minute.  We proceeded to Danville after dinner to Jen's (another Taiko buddy) house for dessert.

Christmas Eve - my mother, carol jo, and jen at jen's house

Christmas Eve - back home

Christmas was a relaxing day at home.  The next day the three of us took a hike in Fremont Older Open Space up to Hunter's Point.

Christmas morning

my parents and me at hunter's point

Friday I got a chance to catch up with Karen - thanks to her mother Cathy for taking a photo for us!  That evening the Anvicks joined us for our Christmas ham, a few days late.

karen and me

Saturday evening I headed to Fremont to be the "surprise guest" at an annual gathering of friends - 28 people hosted for a sit-down dinner!  I knew this group mainly from CIBC (Chinese Independent Baptist Church).  It was a lot of fun to see the faces of my friends when they came in the door and realized I was there.  I hadn't met some of the kids, hadn't seen many of the adults in over 10 years.  Big thanks to Mama Cez for hosting and inviting me to join!

gathering at matt and cezanne's place

I spent that night at Matt and Cezanne's house and went to CIBC Oakland the next morning, getting a chance to see many friends including my old roommate Cynthia.  Cynthia, Libby, and I went out for boba tea after church and then I joined a group of families with young children for lunch.  Later that afternoon I drove up to Albany to pick up Liz, a friend I met at Reality Church in San Francisco this past summer.  We went to Tilden Park and hiked up to Wildcat Peak for a panoramic view.

cynthia and me at cibc

liz and me on our hike

I stopped in Castro Valley at Stanley and Chrissy's place for dinner - there were three families there, and Chrissy had organized some games for after dinner which were played Family Feud style, including putting popular toys and animated movies in order of release date and some charades.

Monday afternoon I got a chance to see Melvina in her Sunnyvale Eichler.  Mel still remembers with fondness that she was able to she was able to spend the day with my family on the one Christmas she had to spend away from her family (they lived in New Jersey).  I got home from Mel's in time to help prepare for and join in a crab feed, an annual tradition my parents have with a select group of friends.

On New Year's Eve I visited Yvonne and her daughter A in Dublin, helped Cynthia's kids make gingerbread cookies, and was a semi-surprise guest at another annual gathering, the Tang Annual Hot Pot Potluck.  Once again, I got to catch up with friends I hadn't seen in many years, as well as enjoy lots of good food and some funny pictures.

if you look carefully in the reflection, you'll find me, yvonne, and a

tang annual hot pot potluck - really , we had a good time!

I spent that night at Stanley and Chrissy's in Castro Valley - that put me slightly closer to my New Year's Day destination - back to Tahoe!