California Christmas Part 2: San Diego

Jay's Aunt Darlene, Uncle Brooks and cousin Brooks have been important figures in his life.  When Jay was in pre-school and Julie and I were stuck at work, Darlene would sometimes pick him up in the afternoon, putting "Ghostbusters" in her cassette player for them to sing together on the way to her Leucadia house.  Jay would stay there with her until Julie picked him up after work on days when I was working up in Orange County.  In later years, Uncle Brooks showed Jay ski techniques above my skill levels, including going through trees,

When Darlene learned Jay and Sasha would be in California for Christmas with Sasha's family, she and Brooks generously offered to host all of us for a mid-day meal at the yacht club near their home.  They already know Libby, who has skied with us in Big Sky and also been down to their house in San Diego for Mother's Day.  

It was nice opportunity to introduce Sasha's sister Whitney and her husband Adam, who both went to Cornell, the alma mater of Uncle Brooks's grandfather, about whom we've heard many amusing stories about the old west.  Whitney and Adam also went to UCLA for graduate school, which happens to be where Jay's cousin Brooks (and also our daughter Gina and her husband Laszlo) completed their undergraduate studies.  Small world.

We enjoyed another delicious meal and interesting conversations.  

Our grand-dogger Jojo made the trip down, as did Libby's dog Rennie.  With local pups Teddy and Rizzo, our group headed out for an afternoon walk around the lovely bay.

That everyone made the trip down was a nice gift.  It is a good 2 1/2-hour drive each way, and we are thankful for Jay driving and the others for loading into their thankfully roomy Range Rover for the trek.

Because they had a long drive home, they missed the treat of seeing the illuminated lights young Brooks had stranded around they yard to accompany the seasonal harbor lights.  It was beautiful each night of our stay.

On Christmas Day, we went to church in the morning.  We stayed after church for a Christmas singalong accompanied by the keyboardist with a bright playing technique that kept the mood light.  Darlene made a fantastic dinner centered by Chateaubriand.

A totally unexpected surprise was Darlene pulling out index cards with our mother's original fruitcake recipe, written with her hand, as well as our grandmother's.  Young Brooks had come across these and other treasures while sorting through family papers.  It is interesting how close Gina and Amy came to the original recipe, just going on memories of how it looked and tasted.

With conversation and walks, the day passed leisurely, capped by watching the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on PBS.

The next day, we visited Julie's sister Jacque and her husband Mike at their home in El Cajon overlooking a golf course in the afternoon.

Our niece Kelsey and her boys Lucas and Henry were there to greet us.  Her husband David, who recently decided to walk away from his white collar job to work hands-on as a plumber, had returned to Mesa, Arizona, where they now live, because he had to work that week whereas Kelsey as a teacher and the school-aged boys had the week off.

Kelsey is an elementary school teacher who recently switched to the challenging role of teaching English as a second language to children who recently arrived from non-English speaking countries, including some from Afghanistan as well as from Spanish-speaking countries.  She takes it a step beyond, helping the families of those school children work through getting cable service, for example, so that the kids have internet.  She received many sweet letters written in English from grateful students before they went on Winter Break.

A friend of Kelsey who also has two boys came over, and despite Jacque telling them that the pool had not been heated, all chose to jump in.  Boys will be boys!  They all had a lot of fun splashing around and just doing the same kinds of things I liked to do when I was a kid.

Including family get-togethers in this travel blog can be tricky for many reasons.

Some folks are camera-shy, and every photo will have better likenesses of some than others.  In addition, while few beyond our family and close friends peruse this type of post's details, I certainly don't want to invade anyone's privacy or put anyone in an unfavorable light.

So, I will just summarize that Julie and I were happy to spend time with everyone and hope they feel the same.

As evidenced by the photos, the weather could not have been better during our time on the West Coast, living up to the Sunny Southern California travel ads.