THE NEW (AND IMPROVED) DRIVEWAY

We moved to South Pasadena in 1985 (in July).  Since we bought the house, our driveway has been a challenge.  It's long, curvy, and tough to negotiate.  When the boys first learned to drive, we decided that if they could make it to the street without driving over the lawn - they could drive anywhere!

So many cars rolled across the lawn that the sprinklers were permanently squashed on the south side of the run.  In the summer our lawn always looked pathetic - no sprinklers - no lawn.  About a month ago, Charlie asked Paul Chen (our friend and contractor) to expand the driveway.  The photos below are the great result.  As an accidental aside, the neighbor behind our house has a strange property.  It's 600 feet long and 200 feet wide.  The neighbor actually lives on a perpendicular street, and the width of the property extends behind our house.  While Paul was working on setting up the driveway expansion, the neighbor decided to trip trees along our mutual property.  Apparently, the trees were the only thing keeping the fence at the back of our house upright.  Our south side neighbor John told us that the thought our neighbor to the north had his fence down.  No, it turned out their fence was fine - ours was tipped away at a 45° angle.  Paul added the back fence to the project - now all is fixed.  Here's the front drive photos.

MINIATURE GOLF

I mentioned in a slightly older post that we had gone miniature golfing with Ian, Sarah, Sean, and Harriet.  Here's a few photos of the adventure.

THE HUNTINGTON GARDENS - CHINESE GARDEN

Charlie and I used to belong to the LA County Art Museum.  The problem was that it took us almost an hour to drive out to the museum and at least 15 minutes driving around trying to park. We then would go to some wonderful exhibit that would take us about an hour to see.  Back to the car and another hour trudging home.  Needless to say, we didn't go very often.  Eventually we decided it really wasn't worth dragging out there.  Close to our house is Huntington Gardens which have always been a treat to walk around.  Several years ago they began to charge an entrance fee.  We decided we'd join, and go as often as we could.  We manage to walk around the gardens at least once every other month at the least.  They have built a new Chinese Garden which is particularly peaceful.  Here's some photos of us in the garden.

THE HOLIDAYS

From the beginning of winter break until the beginning of February, we had a lot of house guests.  It was hectic, but a lot of fun.  The most difficult part of the month + was having company and needing to work at the same time.  Ultimately, it just made me tired.  Glenn, Krysty, and Kayley showed up first.  Due to the work on Krysty's parents' house, our house became home base.  When Ian, Sarah, Sean, and Harriet came through, we ran out of bedroom space, so Ian and Sarah ended up on futons in the living room.  Ian and Sarah (and children) came down again for New Year's  - more futons on the floor.  At the beginning of January, Glenn made a trip to Vancouver to do some work - Krysty stayed with us.  Toward the middle/end of February, Glenn took a two week trip around Canada to recruit for UBC.  Krysty went to Oklahoma to see her Grandma and cousins for the first week.  The second week she was back with us.  Then they left to drive back to Vancouver.  Our house was so QUIET it was unsettling.  The photos above are a few from our time of company.

We had driven up to see Ian and Sarah before December.  Here's a photo of our rainy trip down.

Over President's Day week-end we drove back to Ian and Sarah's.  Another rainy week-end, but Sarah found an indoor miniature golf course.  Half of it was normal room light.  The other half they had darkened and had glow-in-the-dark holes (our balls, clubs, and anything white glowed too).  Here's a photo of our favorite site on the way to and from the north - good old Arvin Edison.

 Now the visitors, trips, and company are over.  Just some quiet week-ends and teaching until spring break and a trip to Vancouver.  Later on, a trip to see Ian and Sarah again.

ANOTHER TRIP NORTH

The weather isn't exactly conducive to travel.  It's been rainy all afternoon.  I went to a faculty teacher meeting this morning.  I had planned to visit Ian and Sarah in Haywood today, but really hadn't realized that our furlough day-make up was planned to be the extra President's day weekend day (today).   I left the meeting a bit early which really made the difference in the trip.  The rain really increased as we drove becoming quite heavy the last two hours.  Fortunately, the weather put people off traveling, so the traffic wasn't as heavy as it could be.  We managed to get to Ian's by 8:30 - in time to see the grandkids before they went to bed.  Everyone was tired, but visits are good! 

We've taken the drive north so many times we know the high lights by heart.  The first highlight is Arvin Edison - the water tower seen above.  Our next highlight is Gorman (1 hour north).  Then Harris Ranch (3 hours north).  We stopped at Apricot Tree (3.5 hour north) for dinner - better than we remember.  Then on to Ian's.  Even with a rainstorm, the drive is always entertaining.

Soon - what happened between Christmas, New Year's and the beginning of February.

I REALLY LIKE RAIN BUT.....

We got back from San Francisco on Sunday afternoon.  It was a rainy drive pretty much all the way south. We left San Francisco in a downpour.  The central valley wasn't too bad, but the drive over the Grapevine into LA was teeming again.  Raining hard enough that cars and trucks were making their own misty clouds.  Really not pleasant driving.  We picked Wally up.  After three days playing with horses, a sheep, and other dogs in the rain, he smelled horribly.  He wasn't exactly an example of pristine dog-dom when I dropped him off on Thursday.  The days on the farm in the rain turned him into something worse than a park vagabond.  Miracle of miracles - Pat's Pet Grooming was open on Monday (because of the Christmas Holiday) - so Wally got his bath and a trim.  He looks a lot better - and smells like a dog rather than horse pee and whatever....

The rain was light during the day today, but tonight it's started up again.  Our pool is up to the brim, the trashcans are full of water.  At least, so far, our house hasn't leaked.  This is the first rainstorm in as many years that I can think of where some room or another hasn't had a leak.

We've had fires in the fire places today - lovely and cozy.

Cosmetic bags coming out of my ears!

Last October, when we came back from our trip to Paris, I noticed that my favorite travel-cosmetic bag was falling apart.  I had bought it years ago at a Crabtree and Evelyn store (it was a Vera Bradley round bag).  I looked around for a replacement, and finally settled on the Vera Bradley web site.  I basically bought it's clone.  That was at the end of October.  This evening when I was fiddling around on my computer, I checked my email.  Good grief!  Vera Bradley had notified me that they had shipped a cosmetic bag.  Whoa!  They had sent the "bill" and the shipment notification.  I called customer service and told them my cosmetic bag tale.  After my explanation, the lady on the phone said, "hold on a second".  She then left me listening to music for a bit.  "I just spoke to my supervisor," she told me, "when the bag comes, accept it as our gift - Merry Christmas!"  Now I have 2 clones!  This is getting to be like the Sorcerer's Apprentice - Dum, Dum, Deedle-dee dum, dee dum dee dum ......