New Years Eve

A few old friends that were big part of both Steph and Doug's growing up years, plus my brother, Larry and Jean came over so we could show off my family and share memories, meet Reynard, brag about our grandchildren and catch up.

Everybody's here

Everyone flew in to spend a week with us. Happy New Year, for sure.
The girls found a few Christmas presents still under the tree.

Ripening citrus

Most of the country experiencing bitter winter cold but exceptionally nice here in Tucson. My citrus trees best shows it. Lemons ripening now, little late this year and fruit smaller than normal but still makes a pretty picture. My infamous Pomello tree has ONE Pomello on the whole tree. I've been watching it for months and maybe this weekend, I will pick it. . .and eat the whole thing!


I never get more than half a dozen or so. Think it never really gets pollinated well as there are no other trees like it anywhere near. This year only one but it is a very large single pomello.

New stuff

My kiln has been heating up this month. A few new ideas.

Christmas 2017

Quiet Christmas in Tucson, just the two of us this year.  But we managed to make it a nice one.

We spent Saturday at the Desert Museum enjoying the bird show, the hummingbird aviary, and the perfect Southern Arizona day.

Christmas Eve was celebrated at church with a 5 o'clock children's program and then back at 9pm for a glorious candle light service with orchestra and choir.

Christmas morning at the Congress Hotel for Christmas breakfast with Pete and Alice. We thought it might be crowded and noisy but we got seated in an overflow room and it was lovely. Delicious breakfast and lovely time with special friends.
AND then we did it again for a wonderful Christmas dinner with Susie at Carol and Andy's house. This is our Tucson family, can't think of a place we'd rather be than here with treasured friends for Christmas!

Lia'sViolin Concert

Lia is taking violin lessons this year along with piano lessons.  Quite the cultured little lady.  Fun video but guess I don't have to point out the rather large young lady behind Lia that is somewhat distracting!         Sorry about that.

Joy of flying

Making my way home. Flew to LA and then 5 hour lay over before flight back to Tucson. Thank goodness for credit card coupon for use of the United lounge for a comfortable wait!


Cofee and brownies and watching news of New York city bombing in Port Authority terminal--that was our in and out of the city. Hmmmm! But neither Steph or I were there today. Both almost home by now. Certainly got my attention, however.

Last day

Steph and I took that same express bus back to Palisades Park to spend some more time with those girls. 
Nice view of the Manhatten skyline from Jersey side of Hudson River on way to Palisades Park.
We had time to build a snowman and play in the snow.  Pretty great snowman, huh.

All went out to dinner at an Asian Hot Pot that was really great. Everyone had thier own individual cooking pot with personal degree of spice. The table ordered the meat you wanted and then each person picked out personal choices of vegetables and other things from a huge buffet of items. Then you even made up your own dipping sauce from a sauce bar. Not like any HotPot I had ever been to. We all ate a lot.

Soon time for Steph to Uber back to Claudia's for one last night while I stayed here to catch my flight home from Newark in the morning.

Snow and the Guggenheim

Snowing in New York! Fresh snow accumulated to about 4 inches. Have to say it was really pretty. Heavy wet snow, perfect snowmen snow that sticks to everything. We walked through Central Park on the way to Guggenheim and was like a fairyland.

Central Park lake with skyline behind.
The Guggenheim.
Inside. This was why we came to New York. To see "Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World". Experimental film and video, installation, and performamce art. So helpful to see it with Steph so she could help me decipher what I was seeing. Video art is her thing these days plus she knows the context of many of these pieces.
Just one intriguing piece that has the look of an ancient Chinese landscape painting but on a closer look is made up of a mixture of artistic genres.

Walked back to Claudia and Greg's apartment back through Central Park to a Chinese HotPot restaurant for dinner.

Claudia and Gregg, our gracious hosts in New York!

Doing Manhatten with Steph

I took an express bus into Manhattan this morning to meet up with Steph who flew into JFK from Bloomington. We both made our way to Steph 's friend, Claudia's home on the upper West side which will be our base for the next couple of days. 
We chatted a while with Claudia and Greg and then left them to do thier thing as it is a work day for Claudia, who is a professor of German studies at Columbia university here in New York. Steph and I took off to do the town. Took subway to Washington square to see one installation art piece by Chinese artist,  Ai Wei Wei.
 inside the piece you can take some pretty interesting pictures of your selves with the distorted mirrors. He has pieces at various locations around town dealing with issues of immigration. 
And then we made our way to Macys for some serious sales shopping. Steph found a great new coat plus scarf and mittens and would have bought some shoes but they were out of her size.  Mobs of people Christmas shopping and bargain shopping for the huge markdowns. The store decorations were really something. 
 then a 20 minute walk to Rockefeller Plaza to see the famous Christmas tree. 

Brought our aching feet home for a quick rest before going out with Claudia and Greg for dinner at a lovely little Italian restaurant in thier neighborhood. Just the kind of place you would imagine, a dozen or so tables, great food, family recipes. After ample wine and all that food we were ready for an early bedtime.