Harbour Cruise, Fondue, Old Friends, New Friends, A Flat Tire

"What do these things have in common?", you may ask. The short answer is that they all helped create a Merry Christmas in California.
This is our third Christmas here and I was ready to skip the holiday - no snow, no family, no visitors - all combined to make me believe there was no Santa. But, being the stubborn person that I am, I decided to create some cheer. One might think the chance of getting tickets on the Harbour Light Cruise in Huntington Beach, the day of the actual last cruise, is non existent. The Internet gods were with me and Mark and I enjoyed an evening boat ride while sipping coffee and Baileys as the lights of the harbour entertained us. Still in need of a tradition we decided a Christmas Eve fondue was in order. This is a feast we shared every year with our children, while sitting by our fireplace. Be darned if I was going to cut up meat, buy a fondue pot or light a fire in California (yes we have a fire place) so I did what I do best - I made reservations. There is a fabulous restaurant called The Melting Pot that serves - you guessed it - fondue.
So far I was doing an adequate job of celebrating the season but it took a few surprises to really brighten up the holiday. My old friend Lynn (she's not old but I've known her a long time) sent me an email saying to expect a delivery on Christmas Eve. This was not unusual as she has sent me flowers at Christmas before. Answering the door bell and seeing her standing there holding flowers was, however, a great surprise! She and her husband had decided, at the last minute, to fly down from Edmonton to visit family in Newport. We spent Boxing Day shopping and eating hot turkey sandwiches together, just like in CANADA!
Our new friends (I say this because we've known them a shorter time and they are young), Seth and Lauren, joined us for turkey dinner on Christmas day. They surprised us with a bottle of champagne, which added a festive air to Mark's wonderful dinner. I still can't believe we ate all those brussel sprouts!
This brings me, at last, to the flat tire. It has become a new tradition to walk on the beach on Christmas Day. Let's just say it makes not having a white Christmas bearable. Mark had gone fishing (what else is new?) so I drove the short distance to Sunset Beach. Upon returning to my car I discover one tire is completely without air. I consider it a miracle that I made it to the ocean at all, and I was walking distance to home. I hope everyone reading this had a wonderful Christmas full of events that will make you smile for years to come. Maybe you will have pictures to jog your memory, as for us, we forgot to take any! The ones on this post were taken this morning.
PS - I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the Li family for reading my blog!

Hope This Works!

It's been a while since I've posted on my blog because I forgot my password and the blog spot wouldn't accept my email. I reset everything today so Merry Christmas. A couple of notes on accessing this blog - several people complained that they couldn't get the comment area to work. I figured out how to set it so anyone (even those with no account) can comment. Let's see if it works. I will resend this address as I also was told that this blog couldn't be found. These problems are due to my inexperience but I'm determined not to give up! I'll post some pictures of the Great Wall this week (if you click on the pictures they appear larger!). Hope everyone who manages to find this had a wonderful holiday. Love Bonnie

Guiln to Yangshuo

I am quoting from our itinerary - "Enduring memories are created today as you cruise down the Li River to Yangshuo." The scenery was spectacular, and I'm sure enduring memories were created on 100 or so boats that left the dock from Guilin at the same time. It looked like a parade or, on a few occasions, like a boat race. Some of us were a little tired, as you can tell, but the weather was warm and we totally enjoyed our day cruise. I'm sure that Richard and Julie got better shots than these - the mountains are surreal. The picture taken from our hotel window in Yangshuo gives you some idea of the topography.

Reed Flute Cave

I had to look up why they call this Reed Flute Cave. Turns out the reeds growing around the outside of the cave are used to make flutes. I think our guide told us that, but my brain was over loaded with information. It doesn't seem to hold very much these days.
This cave is huge (240 meters long, for those into numbers). And believe me when I say it is a strange and beautiful sight. There are hundreds of stalagmites and stalactites (don't ask me which grows up and which grows down because that's Mark's job to remember). These pictures don't do it justice. Some areas are enhanced with coloured lights, but all the pillars are made of limestone - which is really milky white to grey. The one picture is actually a reflecting pool in the middle of the cave. The cave is located just outside of Guilin - more on that in my next entry. If you have any questions (not that I'll have the answers but I've learned a well know "tourist guide" trick -if you don't know make something up) just click on the comment bar at the bottom.

The Panda Bear

This is a video of a Panda we saw in the wild. Okay, so it was in a zoo, but it was in China. I'm including this video for two reason. One, I wanted to see if this would work and, two, my sister loves Panda Bears. Brenda went to the zoo in Ohio to see one and I remember her saying that all Pandas do is sleep. Granted, the female panda was sound asleep, but the male in the video put on quite a show.
Well, I've tried to upload the video twice (waited over two hours the second time and received an error message). You'll have to settle for these still shots and believe me when I say he walked, ate and talked (we'll he actually didn't talk but it makes for a better story).

First China Post

Jet Lag is my friend. I slept until noon today and now I'm up at midnight writing. Most of our pictures are on Richard's computer, as Mark kept filling up memory cards and downloading them thanks to Richard. With everyone snapping pictures I'm sure that there are several thousand shots of China worth sharing, but that might be a little time consuming.
The trip exceeded our expectations and words can't express the thrill of walking on the Great Wall or seeing the Terracotta Soldiers. I will include some of these pictures at a later date. For now I wanted to share a photo of the best travel agents money can buy (even though they charged us nothing).
Future entries will include a Flute Cave, Five Gorges, A Panda Bear and much more. Stay tuned.

Fire, Fire Everywhere

In case you haven't heard California is on fire - and not in a good way. The fires are far from our home but, besides the grey sky and the smell of smoke, they felt a bit closer to us today. One of the fires is in Trabuco Canyon, which is a place we hiked our first year here. It had some beautiful old trees and parts of the road are covered in a canopy of Live Oak trees. Here is a picture take in 2005. This comment made by a fire fighter earlier today.

"Live Oak Canyon is a nightmare. You have 200-year-old oak trees covering the roads and no defensible space," said Craig Daugherty, a division supervisor for the Southwest Regional Fire Group. "If we get a fire established in there, it is basically a write-off."

San Diego County is a lot worse off than Orange or Los Angeles. That's where most of the pictures you see on the news are taken - the ones involving homes. The wind seems to have died down today and it is suppose to get cooler by Friday so, rumour has it, that the worst is over. I'm still going to wish for rain!

Concert Review

First, let me be perfectly clear, these bands are old so some of the members are dead. The Four Tops and Stylistics had two original members each, War may have had a couple and we could only count one old Doobie in the Doobie Brothers. Chicago looked like most of them had been around since the beginning.
The Four Tops and the Stylistics were stylish in matching outfits right down to the shoes. They did a great job of all the old classics and The Stylistics "You Make Me Feel Brand New" brought tears to my eyes. (If you were at our wedding you may recall hearing that song.) War was excellent and even had this geriatric crowd up on their feet singing along and swaying to "Why Can't We Be Friends". The Doobie was disappointing. They had so many instrumental solos and were so busy taking bows it was nauseating. Any bar band in Windsor, especially Meadows, could have done as good a job on "China Grove". Chicago sounded just like they did over 30 years ago. If you like Chicago - this was the concert for you. Unfortunately, I never liked them back in the day and found them loud and brassy. Mark, however, thought they were fantastic.
So that's my review. Hopefully I will be reviewing !!Neil Young!! at the end of the month. If you haven't bought his latest CDs, Prairie Wind and Living with War, you really should, as he still sounds good for an old guy.

The Tale of the Ring and other Best Man Stories.

First just let me say that Scott's Best Man, Joey, has a heart of gold and in no way is this story written to make fun of him - well maybe just a little but, hopefully, he'll forgive me. First of all he was over an hour late leaving for the wedding on Friday. This wouldn't have mattered one little bit, except that he was driving to Banff with the bride, groom and the groom's mother (that's me). Did I mention he forgot his wallet and we had to go back and get it? Fortunately we were only a block away from home at the time.
Apparently, and this is in Joey's own words, he only had one job to do and that was look after Tiffany's wedding ring. Upon checking his pockets in the morning he discovered that he was not in possession of "the only object for which he was responsible". Panic set in and he went to the bride and groom's room to announce he didn't have the ring. Once everyone realized he was not joking, they tore the room apart and found the ring box. Upon opening the box Joey discovered the ring was not in it! After more searching they found the ring on the floor by the night stand. It had been placed there the night before after several people in the room had been admiring it's beauty. Why no one returned it to the box will remain a mystery.
All was completely forgiven and forgotten during the photo session at Johnston Lake. Joey was the hero of the day for picking up a large supply of beer and placing it on ice. Let me tell you a beer never tasted so good. You'll notice the Best Man is holding two beers. I'm not sure whether he was doing someone a favour, or he was drinking both to work up the courage to say his speech at the reception. By the way, his speech was terrific and brought a tear to my eye.

Check it Out!

This is for all of you who got my email this morning, and are now reading my blog. For those of you who don't know, Mushu Poo (obviously not her real name) is Richard and Stella's niece and was once a kindergarten student in my class. She got me started on this blogging stuff.
I will try to post some more pictures of the wedding and happenings around California in the future.
We had an earthquake and record high temperatures last week so I'm very glad that we were in beautiful Banff for the weekend. I've wasted an entire morning on this computer so will write more another day. I love that I don't have to bore anyone with my crazy stories unless they want to read them. Wait till you hear the tale of the wedding ring!

First Blog

Okay so my first attempt failed but some how I managed to get the picture of Scott and Tiff on my page?? Now I'll post this and hopefully it will appear like magic.
We arrived safe and sound back in sunny, hot California after a wonderful weekend in Banff. I must say my son and his beautiful bride had the best wedding I've ever seen. Most of my pictures are not that great but this one made me smile. I have a lot of work to do correcting red eye and finding better photos of the ceremony. Marilyn got some good candid shots.
If I get the hang of this blogging I have Mushu Poo to thank. See you don't learn everything you need in Kindergarten.