Visiting Coba

Last week we had a fun family reunion in Mexico.  The only family members missing were Emily and little girl Smith who are on a "no fly" list for a few more weeks.  

Our major outing was a trip to the ruins at Coba and then some beach time in Tulum.  All five of the grandkids were great troopers dragging around the pyramids at Coba and it was early enough in the trip that we took a lot of pictures there.

Cousin bonding

Alice love to sit on the steps

so does Rosie 

Garret got to hike the easy way

Junior Archaeologists

You can still climb this pyramid, Nohuch Mul, which is the tallest pyramid in the Yucatan pennisnsula, so it was climbed.

and then we took family pictures at the bottom

What a great family!

New Year's Day 2015

I am officially two weeks behind already in 2015.  It is very "old geezerish" to say this, but days just seem to fly by faster than they used to.

On New Year's Day Calvin and I took a walk along the Truckee River.  It was a cold but beautiful sunny day and it was fun to take a familiar walk in the winter time.

The river had chunks of ice floating down the middle and more ice along the sides.  It was only in the 20's when we were out walking.

But we were bundled up and ready for the cold.

This is the Virginia Street bridge which is scheduled to be replaced shortly.

I didn't know that Reno had so many bike paths that they had to number them. This is a segment of the yet to be completed Tahoe-Pyramid bikeway.

As I was looking at my phone pictures I stumbled on a whole batch of Alice selfies.  Never underestimate the entertainment value of a phone camera that makes a clicking sound when you take a picture.

Christmas 2014

We had a lovely white Christmas this year and got to celebrate with friends and family.  We had our traditional Christmas Eve with the Gabbarts.

Between our two families we had four little angels for the nativity-which consisted of dressing the girls up like angels and taking their pictures.  Hopefully someone got better pictures than I did.

These girls are twice as cute in person!

Other familiar scenes from Christmas eve...

and a new musical addition.

A few days later we introduced Alice to snow on an outing to Tahoe Meadows.  I would say that she was not overly impressed with cold and snow.

Racing down the hill on a sled didn't impress her much either.

even though Rosie clearly demonstrated how much fun it was on the sled.

This is a child that is clearly happier on the beach.

Christmas traditions

Our family has developed a number of Christmas traditions over the years and even though our kids are grown with homes of their own, we still keep a few of the traditions.  We still chop our Christmas tree.  This year we went to Dog Valley, which is a much closer location, but required driving on a muddy slippery road in the beginnings of a snow storm.  We went with Peter and Roque and another couple who are friends of theirs.  I like a fir tree, but we were in a primarily Ponderosa pine forest, so I was not finding a tree I liked.  After about half an hour of tromping through an increasing storm Calvin declared a Ponderosa the tree we were taking.  I grumbled but it looked like the best option. Actually I rather like it now, but it took a while to warm up to it.

You can see that it is a little thin on the branch count.

I went traditional with my attire.

As with all trees, it looks bigger in the house.

Another tradition is decorating gingerbread men. We had gingerbread cookies on our tree when I was growing up and it is a tradition that I enjoy, but not being a very artistic person myself, I try and recruit a little help with the decorating part of the project.

I think we had about 40 cookies, so everyone had to get to work.  As usual friends and in-laws had the best cookies while the rest of us go for a more unusual look.

It was fun to have Katie in town to help this year.

And the good news is that even though the cookies were a little softer than usual, none of them lost their heads jumping off the tree.

Thanksgiving 2014

We celebrated Thanksgiving in traditional fashion this year. We got an early start at the Sparks Turkey Trot.  The events included a 10K race and a two mile walk around the Sparks Marina.  Here we are getting ready for the start.  Can you guess who ran and who walked?

That's right Peter and Roque breezed through the 10K and and Calvin kept me company as I strolled around the marina.
Here are the runners at the start...

and here they are 10K later at the finish looking just as relaxed.

Mid day we put together a traditional meal of turkey, stuffing, cranberry relish, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie.

We went to movie in the evening and I declared it to be a very satisfying Thanksgiving Day.  Still not quite the same as tacos on the beach, but a good day nonetheless.

Sayulita 2014

Turkey Day is lurking just around the corner and this year I don't get to spend the day eating tacos on the beach.  Of course we got to celebrate Halloween in Sayulita this year, so I have no room to complain. 

We spent most of the week hanging out here...

and occasionally we would bestir ourselves to watch the green iguana eat all the hibiscus flowers.Trust me, the iguana is in there, but he is green.

Once in a while we'd hike through the jungle to find a beach without a crowd.

And as a grand finale we watched the Halloween celebrations in the square from a balcony restaurant.

It was a great trip, but I'll still miss Thanksgiving tacos on the beach.

Santa Barbara weekend

We spent a lovely weekend with family in Santa Barbara a bit ago.  October is usually beautiful there and this year was no exception.  Rosie had planned all kinds of fun things for us to do, but as usual the best part for me was just being with family.  The only thing that would have made it better was having Roque and the Bordelons there too.

So here we are in no particular order:

Having fun at the pool

Hanging out at the Wrights house

Doing a little rock and tree climbing

 and playing at the beach

So many pictures...so much fun