Thanksgiving and Christmas

During my time with Woodside Fund, I have often referred to the period of Thanksgiving to Memorial Day as the "busy seasons". Given my "balance" issues, for the past several years, I found that, even with the company's generous two-week year-end shutdown, I had difficulty getting in spirit of the season, traditionally my favorite time of the year. From this point of view, I very much looked forward to the 2008 Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year celebrations. And good celebrations they were.
Miki and Mom flew in to SFO on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, in time for a dungeness crab feast, before we drove to El Dorado Hills in Wednesday for our celebration at Jeff & Darcy's new home, also joined by our Southern California-based nieces.

After the eating, drinking, and merriment of Thanksgiving, we enjoyed some local wine-tasting on Friday. That evening, Anna and Sarah introduced us to the board game Settlers of Katan. A good game, but I certainly would have enjoyed it more were it a 50-minute game, as opposed to the 3 hours it took us to complete!

On Saturday, we set up and decorated the Christmas tree, while watching It's a Wonderful Life.

Mom and Miki flew home on Monday. I spent a good portion of the next couple weeks on Christmas shopping and composing holiday cards, along with a little bit of reconnecting/networking with friends and colleagues. Then I returned to El Dorado Hills for an early Christmas celebration with Darcy and Jeff before they headed East for the holidays.

Miki, Jack, Mom, and I gathered in Lake Havasu City for Christmas. For the second year in a row, Miki and Jack had weather-related adventures en route, needing to drive all the way south to Tucson to get to LHC, because snow and wind had closed swaths of I40 in New Mexico and Arizona. Thankfully, they arrived safely and in good spirits. We enjoyed a relaxing, mellow celebration. On the 26th, Mom threw a "Bunco" party -- a lot of fun (especially since I won!), and great company.

I drove back to Half Moon Bay on the 27th, and then flew to Bigfork on the 29th for a brief New Year's celebration with the Illichs, also celebrating Alyson & Jim's wedding anniversary on the 29th. Having "tweaked" my back the prior week, I wasn't able to do any downhill skiing at Big Mountain (that is, Whitefish Resort at Big Mountain), but Jim, Colter, and I had some fun times in Whitefish anyway. All of us enjoyed some great walks in the snow around Lake of the Woods, and we had a fun and colorful New Year's Eve dinner and party with some of the neighbors at Alyson & Jim's home.

Upon my return home on the 1st, it was time to start preparing for my imminent New Zealand tour (when not watching football or Stanford basketball.) I broke out the hiking boots, took advantage of the clear, crisp weather, and explored a couple of the trails in Purisima Redwoods Open Space Preserve that I hadn't taken before -- good training and beautiful views!