Happy Holidays!

Happy New Year!

Another year has come and gone… they just seem to go by faster.  2017 has been a good year for us.  We are well and continue to enjoy good health.  We continue being active in our different activities.  

Our two sons, now in middle age(!) are doing well.  Bob and Natalie have decided to divorce and that process is now underway.  Mike continues in his DJ and video editing business and seems to be both doing well and enjoying the work. 

We continue to enjoy golf, hiking in the Arizona deserts and California beaches, and attending classes, lectures and other events at ASU and Mesa Community College.  Gary remains active in the ASU Emeritus College, New Frontiers and the ASU Retirees Association.  Vina continues with her Spanish group, volunteering with Call 12 for Action and playing Mah Jong.

Our big trip in 2017 was spending September touring England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.  Gary is still working on pulling the photos together and writing a narrative – hopefully he should be done in a month or two.  When finished he will post it here to our blog.  

Also at the blog is a review of 2017 with pictures. 

We wish you a healthy and prosperous 2018. 

Gary and Vina

The Year in Review with Pictures - 2017

Food and Friends was the theme for the year.  Thank you all for being there for us.

(Click on the underlined links to view pictures). As is our custom, 2016 ended with our return to San Diego for the holidays. We arrived in time to attend the Hiking Club’s 2016 Holiday Party.  Good people and a good time.  While there we discovered the completed path to the clubhouse Gary had been working on with the Oaks North community center for a year.   We thought it an impossible task but are happy to report that when we returned “The Path” was in place.  We have enjoyed using it all year. 

We had traditional Christmas eve tamales and then Christmas dinner with family at the condo.  We made a beef wellington for Christmas day with both Bob and Mike helping with the cooking.  Both have turned into good chefs. 

We celebrated New Year’s Eve playing cards at June and Mickey Greer’s home with friends.  As we are all getting up in years, we made it an early evening and rung in the New Year on New York time.

We returned to Arizona and began 2017 with a visit from good friends John and Joan Hendricks.  John (and to a lesser extent Joan) are car buffs.  Despite having lived in Arizona for more than 38 years, Vina and Gary had never been to the famous Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction.  John, ever the historian,

regaled us with stories about many of the cars.  We were really glad that we went.  Later that evening Dave and Karen Schwalm joined us for dinner.  We followed that with more classic cars at the Concourse de Elegance at the Biltmore Hotel the next day.  We learned later that this was to be the very last time that this event was to be held.  Glad we got be a part of it. 

Eating and wine seem to be favorite pastimes.  Rigatony’s is one of our favorite restaurants in Tempe.  Each fall they sponsor a Winter Classics Wine Dinner.  We were there to try new foods and new wines. 

We had more friends and more food with a small group of friends from Gary’s grad school days.  We joined Dick and Pat Richardson, Shap and Dyan Wolf and Laurel and Bruce Kimball for a lovely dinner.    

More activities with the arrival of spring including a brilliant yellow display from our palo verde tree in the front yard. 

Vina’s Spanish Group (they get together

twice a month and just talk in Spanish) took a trip to visit the Frida Kahlo art exhibit at the Heard Museum.  Fascinating artist and interesting art. 

Our neighbor and good friend Loui Olivas celebrated his 70^th birthday in March and he threw a great party.  We were really happy to be able to help Loui and Nena celebrate this milestone. 

May proved to be a very busy month for us.  We

travelled to Cincinnati, Lake Tahoe, Sacramento and ended up in San Diego. We went to Cincinnati to attend our niece Sandra’s wedding to A.M. Kinney.  It was a great family and dog friendly wedding.  We went to the wedding rehearsal dinner, the actual wedding and recovered the day after. In addition to helping Sandra and A.M. celebrate we were able to visit with family members and friends. 

Shortly after returning to Tempe, we took another flight up to Sacramento, rented a car and drove to Lake Tahoe to help Gary’s (younger) sister, Joy, celebrate her 70^th birthday.  Even though it was May, there was still snow in some parts of the area. 

We then drove down the mountain and back to Sacramento where

we visited John Hendricks and Winston.  Unfortunately, Joan was

in New York those days but did return in time for us to have brunch with her before we headed back to Tempe.  John was a great host and we visited the Sacramento History Museum and the Miraflores Winery in the foothills. 

Middle May and time to head to our condo in San Diego for the summer.  We enjoy hiking with the Rancho Bernardo Oaks North Hiking Group.  Our first hike of the summer was a hike around Poway Lake followed by a group picnic.  A great way to start the summer.

On Memorial Day we joined son Bob, his girlfriend Melisa, and some of their friends for a nice picnic at Mike Kennedy and family’s new bed and breakfast, which was still in the process of renovation.

We went on five different hikes in June: Blue Sky Preserve, San Diego Botanic Garden, Torrey Pines State Reserve and Chicarita Creek.  We continued our learning about food and wine at a

cooking class at Café Merlot located just around the block from our condo. It was a lot of fun, cooking with a bunch of other people and then tasting our efforts.  We also went to a wine dinner at Capri Blu – another restaurant we enjoy in San Diego.   

We were able to get together with more family in June when we drove up to La Habra to join Elsie and Eddie Avalos and John and Vera Davis for lunch.  John and Vera were on a summer trip around California.  It is always good to get together with family.

At the end of June, good friends Dave and Karen Schwalm came to

San Diego for a visit.  We took them on a walk along Mission Beach and to a wine dinner at a different Italian restaurant.  Food and friends. 

In July we had a big event- a birthday party

for our good friend Bob Serrano on the occasion of his 80^th birthday.   Gary and John Hendricks coordinated the event.  John and Joan came to San Diego and we got to

spend a few days with them as we prepared for the surprise party.  We visited Coronado and the Del Coronado hotel before we went to a wine dinner at Capri Blu. 

To surprise Bob for his 80^th birthday we contacted some old friends who came to San Diego to join in the celebration.  We took a boat ride around San Diego Bay with

Michelle Parker, Jason and Kristen West, John and Joan, and Vina and Gary.   After the harbor tour, we walked over to the Fish Market restaurant where Bob was surprised by Tom McCready and John Harwood from San Jose State Toad Hall days.  Rich Menken and Susie Wright surprised Bob with phone calls.  Bob was both pleased and truly surprised. 

We went on five hikes during July: From Belmont Park to Tourmaline and back, the Mission Beach Boardwalk, Torrey Pines (south) and Moonlight Beach to South Carlsbad and back.  Love those beach hikes!

In August we went on seven hikes and enjoyed one wine dinner.  The hikes were: Walking Harbor and Shelter Islands, Dog Beach and Ocean Beach Pier, Hiking Coronado – Naval Air Base to Amphibious Base, Hiking Pacific Beach, Batiquitos Lagoon Walk, Hiking Pacific Beach to Mission Beach Redux and our last beach walk of

the summer, the Mission Beach Jetty.

Our last wine dinner of the summer was from the 3 Steve’s Winery.  Another great tasting experience.

In September we took a tour of England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland.  Don’t have the pictures of that quite yet ready but hope to have them posted soon.  Check back at http://garyandvina.blogspot.com/ when they are ready.

Back in Tempe, we started late on our normal fall activities: golfing, taking and teaching classes with New Frontiers, Call12 for Action, Mah Jongg, exercise and yoga classes and whatever else interests us along the way. We went to the ASU Football games and enjoyed most of them.  We saw several Broadway plays at Gammage auditorium on the ASU campus.  We went to Rigatony’s Autumn Wine Dinner. 

We headed back to San Diego for Thanksgiving with our family.  

Then back to Tempe where we celebrated Vina’s75th Birthday with a gathering of the extended family after attending the New Frontiers Holiday luncheon earlier in the day. 

   

December began with a full moon over the land.  Here are some pictures from Tempe.  

We are looking forward to spending the Christmas holidays and New Year’s Eve in San Diego. 

We are fortunate to have good friends and family in both Arizona and San Diego.  Life has been good to us and we have much to be thankful for. 

We wish you health and prosperity in the new year and hope that our paths might cross in 2018.