New Years Eve

Another great day. We put a 13 lb. turkey on the Ronco rotisserie BBQ outside and enjoyed a great dinner with Joan, Barry and Jim Allen an old friend of Ron's from many years of boilermaker days.
Jim was the 1 man band for the evening entertainment at the Clubhouse for the NY Eve dance. We enjoyed a great dinner, then went up to hear Jim play: very good; then stopped at friends and back to our place for the countdown to NY Eve with the ball drop in New York celebration and toasted each other with a glass of champagne.

Pretty Spot

We're parked on the pond looking across to the mini golf and pickleball courts. We have the prettiest sunsets to watch looking up to the Tram and at the gate we can look out through the mountain passes where you see headlights all the way to L.A.

Boxing Day

This is a Canadian tradition only. The day after Christmas you would take your wrapped boxes of Christmas gifts to visit your family and friends and exchange with them. It was fitting that our Canadian friends Roger and Myrna from Vernon are here and came to visit today.

Christmas Day

Well, we did something entirely different this year. Because there were 13 of us, we went off to Augustine Casino for their Special Christmas Buffet. It was delicious. We had deep fried turkey which sounds dreadful but was absolutely delicious, with all the trimmings and then some.
Here's part of the gang in their Christmas sweaters and Ron and I with our Christmas tree outside.

Christmas Eve

We are having a wonderful time with sunny days, although cool at night. There was fresh snow up on San Jacinta Mtn, very pretty.
We drove over to Cherry Valley to see Clint and Nadine and then went to George's deli for a German lunch and to shop.
We had an outdoor get together with Angeline & Roy, Debbie & Peter, and us at Barry & Joans. We even needed a thatched umbrella to keep the sun off the food.
Ron and I enjoyed our usual cold cuts, sausages and breads for our Christmas Eve dinner. Here's our 2 Christmas trees and Santa on the dash.

Laundry Day

We've very busy with all our friends and activities. I finally had to catch up on the laundry now that we're out of bathing suits and shorts and wearing real clothes and long pants often.
Sure have been having cooler weather. Some gifted artist did these paintings of local cacti on the walls of the laundry room so it's very cheerful in there. I've got used to doing 2 - 3 loads of laundry at once: wash, dry, fold and put away for another week instead of doing it 3 - 4 times a week. I think I prefer this now.

Christmas Decorations

We had a lovely get together at Don and Lila's Saturday for Lila's birthday, then a housewarming Monday for Willy and Jo at their new mobile in Desert Crest.
Ron and I went shopping and wrapped up our Christmas shopping. We hear that Santa has put presents aside for us.
The park is all decorated and just a delight to see hundreds of lights everywhere. Arla makes these Rudolph reindeer faces from the bottom of the palm fronds. This sign says Caution: Young and old at play. I had a visit with Santa Claus today.

Outdoor Happy Hour

We had an outdoor happy hour with 5 Canadian couples. We had a big rain last Saturday and the local mountains were covered with snow. We hate to admit, we were reduced to the need for long pants and Ian even put his toque on and Joan wore her gloves!!!!

Indian Powow

We went down to a local casino where the Native Indians were having their annual winter gathering. It was truly amazing. There were about 500 natives there from many different areas and a lot of singing and dancing by all. I would have loved to have known where they were born and how the elders grew up. It would have been nice to have a brochure explaining the meaning of their truly magnificent costumes.

Busy Time

My goodness time flies when you're having fun. We had the old crew over for happy hour Sunday. Monday I had to take my computer to town to order new hinges for it. One has completely detached, on my 3 1/2 year old Dell.
Tuesday night was Bunco for 16 ladies and Wed. we met Judy and Bill Warne from home at the VFW for a visit and tacos.
We had a class today to make lighted Crystal Christmas trees. You threaded many Crystals of several shapes onto safety pins, then stung them onto wires and wove 7 layers together to get this tree, 13 inches high with a string of mini lights inside. It's very pretty on the dashboard.

Winter arrives

Well, we woke to rain on the roof and 56 degrees. We're getting your jetstream leftovers coming down here. I was the only one in the pool, swimming my 50 lengths in the fog coming off the 89 degree water with cool rain falling on me. It was delightful although getting out was a dash for the shower and I biked home in a wet suit covered by my rain jacket and dried off there. We're back to the pool hall for the regular Wed. and Sat. tournaments. Great bunch of guys, 14 today. I'm the only woman but it's fun. We now have 8 hamburger tickets and 8 for Ice cream cones.

Back to Catalina

We were up early to get back to Catalina in Desert Hot Springs, our home park for our busy day. Ron was off to Bocci by 10 a.m. and I swam my lengths, showered and was at the Clubhouse to try on bathing suits plus accessories, as I was asked to model in the fashion show at 2 p.m. We modeled 4 suits and 1 cover up and it went really well and was lots of fun. I won a piece of jewelery from the store as a prize and 'had' to buy a $89 bathing suit I wore, chocolate brown with leopard trim, for $30.
We're glad to be back here and resume all our regular activities. Here's Don, Tim and Julius playing in the horseshoe tournament.