California Christmas 2023: Day Seven - Christmas Day

 I am feeling better but still a little feverish and coughing and congested. Sheila has gone to share Christmas at Anza while I stay here in Carlsbad. Yuck. She cheered me with a text that included this video...

And Ruthie wanted this picture sent to Grandshaw.

Sheila made cinnamon rolls for everyone...

Later the whole family came over to Carlsbad. The girls showed me some of their Christmas  bounty -- Clem her big snake puppet and Ruth her Pikichu doll. Then they went to the neighborhood pool for the "polar plunge!"  It turns out the water is heated.

Then leaving me in Carlsbad they left for Heather;'s house and the annual Christmas gathering of the Bass and Carlin families. Sheila sent this picture:

California Christmas 2023: Day Five & Six

 Christmas Adam and Christmas Eve and a blur.

I woke up with the beginnings of a cold. We packed up to move from Blackbird to Carlsbad.Then to Anza for a while.   Suz was sick and threw up. While there we Face-timed with Lillian. I was feeling bad so we went back by Blackbird to fold clothes we'd washed. We stopped at Walgreens for some NyQuil on the way to Carlsbad. I took the NyQuil and went to bed.

Lousy night. Woke several times to take more meds and back to sleep. 

On Christmas Eve I was miserable. I think I had a low-grade fever. I stayed at Carlsbad and nursed my cold while Sheila did laundry and grocery shopped. We watched part of It's A Wonderful Life, but I couldn't stick with it and made my way back to bed.

Just a miserable two day fog. Missed the Christmas Eve services. Ugh.

California Christmas 2023: Day Four

 

Back up Apollo this morning. I tried to keep the  cell phone plumb so that the steep grade is discernible.

California Christmas 2023: Day Three

It is just glorious to wake up in Vista, California with my favorite traveling companion. But was a gloomy morning as I walked... 

...up Indian Rock toward... 

steep Apollo. Here I am cheered by the kindred spirit who still has his/her Veterans for Biden poster, now modified to read "2024." I am also pleased that they have added a Ukrainian flag. 

One of these days I hope to find this gate open so I can check out the "Indian rock"  In the  several years that I have been walking this route I have never seen the gate open.

Guess it's still autumn here.

It is hard to think of my good looking life-partner as :Granny"... .

..but she is wonderful...

 ...and beloved in that role.

During the pandemic Vista instituted a drive through light show at Brengle Terrace Park, just down the street from our grandkids house. It was great fun and we got to enjoy it two years ago. Now that "in-person" events are allowed again they have continued the new "Jingle Terrace" with a walk-in event with lots of lights, but also...

... crafts. Our kids colored coloring sheets and wooden ornaments...

And then walked on to the Moonlight Amphitheater where we've seen several plays, but tonight there was... 

a children's scavenger hunt among the chairs that occupied Clem and Ruthie for quite a while. 

Clem's friend Jude was there with his family.

The railing became a jungle gym.

Suz was put in charge of a large box of popcorn.

The kids loved the music of the...

The Jingle Terrace Band --Antidote -- was quite good.

California Christmas 2023: Day Two

 I walked to Anza the quick way today -- directly by way of Bobolink (with the Dorsey shortcut) and Bobier.

The Dorsey Way shortcut

Made it.

Granny and Suz

Easiest smile in creation.

Watching Bluey.

In the afternoon we visited the Carsons for a pre-Christmas getogether and gift exchange. 

The lighting was poor and the pictures not great but  here's the princess fashion show presented by Bridget...

And then the gift exchange...

California Christmas 2023: Day One

I am always interested to keep track of our flight on Delta's flight Tracker. We started out from Atlanta almost due west, and I noticed we'd pass right over Cheaha Mountain, Alabama's highest point and the lower northwestern flanks of which hold the two little lakes that are home to Camp Mac and to my brother David's home. Watching out the window I was amazed to realize I could see the two lakes and the stone retaining wall on David's lakefront property! How about that! 

But a few minutes later clouds covered the view out the window and I turned to the available in flight movies. I watched the old Jimmy Stewart movie, "Shop Around the Corner" and then Tom Hanks'  more recent "A Man Called Otto." Otto ended as we sat on the tarmac at San Diego's airport.

One of our bags was not at the baggage claim, though a very similar bag was leftover. When the folks at the service desk checked, though, someone had realized their mistake (I presume) and here came our big blue bag after all. Whew!. Brannon picked us up for the 45 minute drive turned t an hour or so in the heavy traffic. Sheila ordered pizza en route and we picked it up on Santa Fe and brought it with us to Blackbird Drive. What a blessing to be reunited with those three little girls (and their parents and grandparents).

Visiting at Mt. Tabor

Until today Sheila and I have been licking our wounds since a few weeks before our church of over fifty years (over sixty for me) officially disbanded and have not gotten out of the house on Sunday mornings, except for one Sunday at Cave Spring United Methodist Church. But we rousted ourselves this morning and drove up through Texas Valley to Everett Springs to visit Mt. Tabor United Methodist Church. 

Our friend Dale McConkey is the pastor there. We should have realized that Dale would be absent, since he just lost his mother-in-law. But if we couldn't hear Dale, what better sub could we have than Wayne Hopper, another friend and once the associate pastor at Trinity. He preached a good advent sermon on John the baptizer and being a messenger in our time. 

It was good to see a crowd there and many folks that we have ties of one kind or another with. Several were relatives of kids I've taught. And one couple not only are parents of one of my students but also friends from the seventies of my late sister Beth. 

Afterwards we were invited to stay for their advent covered dish dinner! It took a LOT of arm-twisting of course, but we finally gave in. <Wink!>  It was a typical absolutely scrumptious pot luck meal with fried chicken and veggies and casseroles and lots of desserts.

For a country church Mt. Tabor has a wonderful church plant with a nice dining room and kitchen and an attached gym/activiteies room.

We got just a few pictures:

Faith and Carl Melear are parents of Connor whom I taught about 15 years ago. BUT my siblings will be interested to know that Carl's Daddy was the owner of the famous Melear's Barbecue near Fairburn where my Dad loved to eat. Faith and Carl both knew my sister Beth and her first husband Randy Hearn. Carl actually attended their wedding.

We love (Rev.) Wayne Hopper. He served as pastor at Mt. Tabor for a long time. He lives practically next door in Everett Springs terms. He is a friend of many in my family including my late Mom and my sister Joan and her husband Jim (another retired pastor).

It was good to visit with Ray Barton. Ray has been my Facebook friend for a long time. He is the nephew of our late dear friend Wint Barton and cousin to our current neighbor George Barton. We enjoyed retelling Wint stories.

We missed taking pictures with a relative of the late Cleo Marion -- a dear friend of my parents in the sixties. Then there were Dunagans and Sharpes and other Bartons and our friend Harriett who has remarried and whose last name escapes me right now.

We missed seeing Dale, but we sure did have a good time worshipping and visiting at Mt. Tabor. About the only other thing that would have made it better would have been if Mt. Tabor's most famous daughter had been home to sing a song or two -- world famous mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton.