Dave and Cathy's Family Blog

December Highlights:

• Mom celebrates another birthday and so does Cat
• Get to Mammoth for first snowstorm of the season
• Many trips to beach to get waves and sunsets
• Christmas with the kids
• Zach comes to town
• A visit with grandma Carol, Benny, and the cousins

A Month of Dramatic Sunsets, Waves and Weather

The first winter storms arrived in earnest this month. Relatively heavy rainfall — at least for southern California — meant Mammoth had an epic snow storm in which they received 6+ feet of the white stuff in 4 days. Luke and I were on hand to experience the first great day of the season. Well, kind of great. Snowboarding in a snowstorm has it’s challenges as you go higher up the mountain.    Namely, it gets really hard to see. To the point where the ground looks like it’s moving sideways and the next thing you know you’re on your butt wondering how you lost your balance. Luke said you can’t look down and just have to go by feel in those types of conditions — “what, like use the force Luke?” Luke just smirks when I go for the easy joke and sarcastically responds with “real original.” Too avoid the vertigo effect, I stuck to the middle of the mountain where visibility improved enough to allow me to see and, most importantly, stay on my feet.

In addition to the two trips to Mammoth, we also managed to get out to the beach a few times so that Luke could get some more sessions in with his new board. We just had to wait for all the epic surf we received (also due to the winter storms) to subside a bit as neither of us is about to paddle out into double overhead surf. It was really heavy out there for a couple of weeks, to the point where the waves damaged two or more pylons at the Ventura pier.

One side benefit of the storms were the dramatic clouds and lighting which led me to snap a few landscape shots of both the mountains and the ocean this month. It was also an opportunity for me to see Luke’s Adobe Lightroom abilities, a program he uses to enhance any special photos I take. I could learn to use Lightroom too, but at this point, it’s more fun to collaborate with Luke.

Lilah Arrives for Winter Break and Her Friend Zach Visits

Lilah finished her first fall semester at UC Santa Cruz this month, which meant she also took her first winter break. This time, she came home using air travel, but according to Lilah, the experience wasn’t that enjoyable. The worst of it was taking the bus on a winding highway for an hour to get to the San Jose airport. From the bus terminal, she then took an Uber to the airport. The bus ride left her feeling car sick in a major way, something she said took her pretty much the entire flight to recover from.  So now she’s not sure if she ever wants to take a plane back home again.

In any case, it was great to have Lilah around for 3 weeks. She took the opportunity to visit old friends and also invite her friend Zach to stay with us for a few nights before the two of them went off on their first big road trip together. Lilah mentioned her itinerary was to take Zach to Bishop first, then to Mammoth, then for a camping trip to Death Valley. This is from the gal who was never into camping before.

I let the two of them borrow my car, but before they left I said they had to attend my camping 101 class. This consisted of me showing them how to set up a tent, fill up the air mattress, and use the portable stove. I was super impressed at how Lilah organized everything and took it upon herself to drive not only to Mammoth, but also to a place she had never been to before – Death Valley. Keep in mind she drove the entire trip as Zach does not drive — he said he is working on that though.

Seeing your children take on new challenges and learning to take care of themselves is a heart warming feeling for a parent. Now I want to go to Death Valley to see what Lilah saw.

Quick Visit to San Diego County to See Benny and Grandma Carol

This year, Benny welcomed a new addition to his family – Zane. This was our chance to see the little guy. He’s in that cute 7-month old inquisitive phase. Before you know it he’ll be walking. We had fun hanging out for a day, enjoying lunch at the Yellow Deli in the town of Vista. Later, we went to Sky Zone, an indoor trampoline and obstacle course place where the kids got a chance to move around and play after a lot of sitting in the car and during lunch.

When we got to Benny’s house, we arrived just in time to see his wife Mercedes pull up in her Tesla X SUV. That got the boys excited. So much so that they ended up hanging out with Mercedes outside (in pretty cold temperatures) and going over all the features of the car, including an automated Christmas light and music show. I heard later that Luke was doing a lot of the interviewing as he asked Mercedes one question after another about the car. Thanks for humoring the boys Mercedes.

It was nice to see the family and grandma Carol. Benny and Mercedes have done some major remodeling on the house with the bathrooms, outside paint, and they are just getting started. They are gonna have a legit compound in the mountains when they finish their plans for sure.

And just like that another year is in the books. Wishing you all a wonderful 2019! That’s all for now…more next month…