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!