December 13 through 29

Written December 21 - 32

Dear Friends and Family,

Part 3, In California.

Los Gatos, First Visit (Dec 13-18)

From Colorado we flew to San Francisco and were met by Gabby and Ava (2+ years old) and little brother Sam (6 months). Ava showed me around their new home and she continued to give me orders from then on. I loved it.

Of course we had chores to do, shopping for Christmas mostly (I bought a new camera lens for
me so Marianne can now buy whatever she wants), but plenty of babysitting too. Overall, it was a nice schedule. After a few days, we headed down to Fresno to see Marianne's mom "Mamo", with a quick detour through Monterey to see her "other" mom Klare.

	"Gigi" got to play with the kids whenever I had to take pictures. Ava is two, going on 32. Sam just watches and listens to everything. I swear he's taking notes.
This being California, I was still able to check out my new camera lens with some pretty flowers.

Fresno (Dec 19-26)

Fresno started with more chores, more shopping and a little house-fixing. I think I prefer the household chores, especially as the local roads are crowded with seasonal shoppers. We did manage one little drive so far, near sunset, to try more photography. Up at Millerton Lake I tried some shots, with nothing really spectacular, but it's all fun While I was shooting, Marianne was sketching the same scene. We are testing to see if this is a sustainable pattern: I shoot and she draws. If it works, we'll make it part of our travel routine. Somehow, I think I have the easier part.

	Fall in this part of California is dry and brown, not the best for picture-taking. But it's all practice.

Tomorrow (22nd) we celebrate Mamo's 92nd birthday and I hope to have lots of people-pictures. Stay tuned.

OK, Here's pictures from the start of our family celebrations. First up was the December 22nd celebration of Mamo's December 23rd birthday, her 92nd birthday. We had to shift days around to make sure everyone could attend everything, more or less. As often happens, celebrations start with Marianne in the kitchen, this time making "Dobos Torte", Mamo's favorite.

Next comes Christmas Eve, on the 23rd of course.

A quick post of a few pictures:

	We opened presents on the 23rd, so we get extra Christmas Eve time!
But, eventually the little family had to leave for other family gatherings in the Bay Area.

The rest of the Christmas trip was a bit of a blur. Marianne and I stayed with Mamo for Christmas and then left on the 26th. She waved to us the same as she had for Gabby, the same as she always does. After that, it was some time alone down in Los Gatos since Gabby's family had headed off to Tahoe for some skiing.

Gabby and the grandkids came back in time to give us one more session of holding and playing with the little ones. It was great, but even this had to end as we drove off to the airport on December 29th.

The 10-and-a-half-hour flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt was OK, other than the length. The three-and-a-half-hour layover before our Nuremberg flight was painful, as it always is. So near and yet so far. At least the flight itself was only half-an-hour. Our car started fine, always a question after so long, and within the hour we stepped out in front of our old village house.

It was great to be home.

John