Jimmy's been playing with his Christmas presents.

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Happy birthday Ginger!! From Mac and your shy brother! 🎉🎈

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Corgi cake for Jimmy from his team and managers at work.

Happy birthday, Jimmy!!
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Full moon over the bay bridge lighting up the water

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Dinner in North Beach

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Those Retzlaff boys...❤️

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Evening Walk

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4th of July in San Francisco...

don't forget your parka and don't be disappointed with the fireworks being obscured by the fog.
Happy 240th, America!
___
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Jimmy's working away in there while I enjoy my day off.

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It's Not Gonna Happen Again This Year

Last February I didn't blog the whole month. I almost let that happen again this February, but it's the 11th hour, and I've decided to stop the no-blogging madness.

There's no way to stick to a theme for this post since I haven't blogged in a while. So here's a random mish-mash of February 2015...

We were in Southern California for a few days...
I finally got to meet my grand niece! She's 14 months old. My niece drove over an hour just to have lunch with me and my SIL. Also got to see the nephews for a brief moment. And spent an evening and the next morning with my BFF and her kiddos.

Jimmy had to work. He was recruiting at his alma mater. I went to college 15 minutes from here, at Cal Poly Pomona. So I spent a lot of time here, too.

We were staying in Pomona at the fairgrounds. Here's a pic I shared on Instagram for Throw Back Thursday the week we were there.
Jimmy was really into car races back then. We went to the Winter Nationals in 1988 at the fairgrounds. It's hard to tell, but we're posing in front of the Grand National, not the moving truck. It was Jimmy's favorite car back then. I used to love the Saab 900 Turbo. Random.

Also shared this gem from 1987...
Our 1st selfie before 'selfie' was a common term.

We were there Valentine's Weekend...
We treated ourselves to the best fish tacos in California...at a little hole in the wall in Pomona. Two nights in a row. We lamented that Jimmy didn't like Mexican food in college. I remember hounding him for Mexican food all the time but his version of Mexican food didn't extend beyond Del Taco. Now it's probably our favorite style of grub.

Before leaving Southern California, we stopped at another favorite, Bob's Big Boy.

There's a whole hockey store down there that sells just goalie equipment. Not even regular hockey skater gear, just goalie! It's huge and Jimmy's version of my craft store. Couldn't resist a snapshot of these King-kong sized goalie pads.

Back home...
Jimmy actually went to work this way one day last week. The day before, he won a bottle of "Gorilla Snot Hair Gel" and was told to come into work with spiky hair the next day. One of their mottos is to "Be Unboring". Nailed it.

Apparently you're suppose to change the strings on your guitar every 3-6 months. Who knew?? The strings on my guitar were over 5 years old, but only used consistently for the last year or so. But they were due for a change. I was nervous changing them, but I did it all on my own. My guitar has never sounded better and motivates me to play even more.

Rodeo Beach

This is the 3rd year Jimmy and I have gone to Rodeo Beach for our anniversary.



The sites and views along the way never get old.
The lowering sun made the Bay Bridge glisten.

The Golden Gate Bridge always looks good no matter the time of day or weather.

And every year I can't resist taking this snapshot, even with all that yucky smog.

There's a little bit of marshland between the parking lot and the beach and for the last couple of years, we've seen a handful of egrets fishing for dinner. Or maybe those are cranes. Or maybe the one with the outstretched neck is the egret, and the other ones are cranes. Even after a bit of googling, it's inconclusive and I'm more confused than before.

We had a little more time this year to walk along the beach before sunset. This year Jimmy took most of the photos with our big camera.
He took a snapshot of me taking our annual photo. A selfie of our selfie.

Here's a 2 minute slideshow of some of our photos and videos of the sunset at Rodeo Beach on our anniversary:

Day 3-5 Gratitude

I totally flaked out of posting my daily gratitudes here, so for continuity, I'll quickly update them...

Thankful Day 3:

1. Reconnecting with old friends. Staying in touch with family and friends here and on instagram. Love seeing all the reunion pics. (my high school had a multi-year reunion in September. I wasn't able to go, but I enjoyed seeing all my high school friends photos).
2. Being able to enjoy a city life and a rural mountain life.
3. Having a good amount of creative energy. I always have something creative going on.


Thankful day 4:
1. eye contact.
2. laughter and giggles.
3. forearms. um...did i just say that outloud? (ok, so one of my bff's and I have a recurring inside joke about forearms, but my husband will attest to my love of his forearms.)


Thankful day 5:

1. multiple farmers markets within walking distance.
2. griffins, unicorns, elves and imagination.
3. holding hands every now and then, even after 29 years.

Angeles National Forest

After Reggie's bar mitzvah, we drove up to the San Gabriel Mountains. Jimmy went to college in Claremont, I went to Cal Poly Pomona about 15 minutes away. Whenever we needed to get away from college life, we'd drive up to Mt Baldy in the San Gabriel Mountains.

This is the exact spot that Jimmy proposed to me 24 1/2 years ago. I had just come home from visiting my best friend who lived in Florida at the time and jimmy wanted to go out to a nice italian dinner. Afterwards, he wanted to take a drive up to Mt. Baldy but I complained because I was so tired from the trip. I was pretty much like "dude i don't wanna drive up there I'm so freaking tired" but in 1990 lingo.

When we stopped, he hugged me like a normal hug but i could hear and feel his heart beating a million times a minute. I was clueless. Oblivious, said to him, "your heart is beating a million miles an hour". The rest is history.

We got up there just in time to watch the sun set. I had forgotten about how beautiful it was up there. There were so many layers and layers of mountains that stretch to the ocean.

We drove a bit more and caught this view of downtown Los Angeles before it got dark.

24 1/2 years later. Where does the time go??

Hiding

Someone didn't want to take a selfie.

-at the cabin last weekend. That's snow/ice/rain on my hair, not dandruff...I feel compelled to make that clear for some reason. :P

(attempting to blog from my phone. I think one of the reasons I haven't kept up my blogging is because I'm not on my laptop as much anymore. My phone has become my source of all things internetty. I don't really like the way the layout that the blogger phone app uses, but I guess its ok in a pinch, especially since I'm such the bloggy slacker nowadays. Though if you're on Instagram, I post there a few times a week. You can find and add me there. In the meantime, I'll try to keep up here, too.)

4 more days

Just 4 more days till Christmas! Are you ready? I've been ready for days and days. Despite being sick and homebound for several days. Yup, never even left the building for over a week. It was nice actually. Except that we missed one of our favorite Christmas parties of the year. I think this was the 1st time we've missed it in the 9+ years that it's been hosted. But I worked on the annual family calendar, finished up my Christmas cards and did a ton of online shopping.

I also made 16 of these "kiss"mas trees. 16 of us are getting together next Wednesday.

Spent a day playing sou pastry chef for my MIL. Her Christmas cookies are always a special treat. This was the 1st time I've been able to help her. It was a lot of fun.

I wrapped most of the presents last night. A couple of days ago, I saw these tags on Cathy Zielske's instagram feed. Loved the inspiration and made some that are kinda similar. Pretty cute, yes? Even though I know most won't even notice them and they will probably just go in the recycling pile. Oh well. I can't help creating, even if what I make ends up being tossed. But these were so easy to make on my cutting machine.

Since we're both feeling much better, we went outdoor ice skating again last night, then enjoyed the Christmas lights on our walk home. It feels different being in the city during the holidays. There aren't homes decorated with lights in their yards. Because there aren't any yards. That's one thing I miss about the suburbs, the Christmas lights.

But the decorations in office buildings and retail windows are grandiose and magnificent.

Even the weird water fountain outside of our building is lit up in red and green.

I'll end this with a funky photo effect...
My BFF Monica told me I had to try this technique. So last night, I set up my camera and tripod to see what would happen. We have a tall skinny tree, so the effect is leaner than the ones in that link. But I like how the windows of the building across the way zoomed into our living room, too. Kinda neat.

Tomorrow...the days start to get a little bit longer. Yahoo!

12.4 Almost Daily December

Since I wasn't able to keep up with my November Daily Gratitude, I told myself that I wouldn't do my traditional Daily December this year. But I'm enjoying looking back at the past 4 years that I have kept up with a Daily December posting. December can be wild and crazy and it's easy to get lost in the chaos. But looking back at my Daily December posts, it reminds me what is so special about this season.

Although it wasn't quite December yet, Jimmy and I started the post-Thanksgiving season with a little bit of outdoor ice skating.

Monday I got together with my crafting friends for our Christmas dinner.

One of them made this adorable 'kiss'mastree. I'm gonna make several of these this year, also. Too cute not to copy!

11.10 This letter from 1986

I mentioned recently that Jimmy and I sent lots of letters and cards to each other in the first two or three years of dating. Reminiscing over these momentos makes me love him even more.

Here's what the letter said so you don't have to strain, if you're interested:

July 5 or 6 or whatever (The Trip to Paris)

This is a very long and tedious trip. I am very confused about time. Right now, it is midnight where you are, 8:00am in London, and 9:00am in Paris. We land in about 45 minutes, over a half hour early. The flight to New York was O.K. It got extremely turbulent about an hour before we landed. I got a little air sick but I was O.K. At New York, we had a little over 2 hours to kill. We bought some hot dogs from a hot dog cart in the Airport and ate them. We walked outside, because the airport didn't seem like New York, it seemed like California. We went outside and were completely enclosed by the terminals, so we really couldn't see the city. It was like the airport was a big circle and we were in the middle. We went back in, and I tried to call you 4 times between 5 and 6 your time, but no one answered. Then we left for Paris at 9:25 New York time. The flight has been pretty dull. I realized that it would be 10 days again before I got a hug and that really hurt.

A New View

The company Jimmy works for moved into a newly renovated building. It was built in 1925 and at the time was the tallest building west of the Mississippi. We live a mere 1 1/2 blocks thataway.

Someday soon I'll get some snapshots of the building with my real camera.

Rhino ride in a Thunderstorm

When Jimmy took the boys out for their annual off-road ride on the Rhino they got caught in a major thunderstorm and were soaked through to the bone. Maybe it wasn't so fun while it was happening, but they sure loved watching the video and reminiscing and laughing about it that night after they were warm, dry and fed.


Here's a front view of their ride:

Safety First. Danger Next.

Camp Retz is over and everyone is back in their respective homes. Tired but happy.

Every year, our days on the lake consist of boating, tubing and rock jumping. As the boys get older, bolder, stronger and braver, they're doing more heart palpating adventures.

But, as the saying goes, Safety First!
...Then danger.
Life vests for everyone! Then you can go as fast as you can.

Fishing is pretty safe. For the humans at least. Maybe not so much for the fish.

Tubing is fun, fast and safe because if when you crash, you just crash into water.

Next on the list is rock jumping. A little more dangerous than the previous activities, but dad's always there to make sure they clear any hidden rocks.

Ending the day and the week with the most dangerous jump. My stomach jumped to my throat. But I had confidence that the dads had scoped the spot and made sure it was deep enough. But these boys fearlessly jumped at least 25 feet into the lake off that rock. That's almost as tall as a 3 story building!

So our running joke this week was Safety First. Danger Last.
I think we accomplished that.
Thankfully with nothing but a few bruises and scrapes that we'd all acquired though the course of the week.
(say a little prayer for us for next year)