7am hike with Debbie up bump & grind

Ray and I usually hike on Sundays but Ray wanted to go in the afternoon. I know what happens, come the afternoon and I am not in the mood to go out and exercise. I am a morning kinda exercise gal.
I had planned on going alone this morning until last night at St. Marguerite's I asked Debbie to go on a 7am hike. I know Debbie from PG.

Mt. San Jacinto on the left of the I-10 and Mt. San Gorgonio on the right behind Debbie.

Mt. San Gorgonio and the windmills.


Not a bad day........
10:00am had a massage
12:00pm Ray and I went to see No Country for Older Men. Great acting. But would someone please explain the point of the story?

First Snow on Ray's Day

Last night while on my hands and knees with Ray, mopping up rain water from the kitchen/dining room floor, the electricity went out. Our first storm lasted most of the night. Thank goodness the pot of chili I'd made earlier in the day was still on the stove top. I lit candles, set the table and we dined at the dry end of the dining room and ate the chili. Ummm good.

But neither Ray nor I are very good when the electricity goes out. We've experienced this many times and every time we freak out with the discomfort of...what do we do now that all our normal distractions are no longer available: computer, TV, well lit reading. What did people do before the days of computer and TV? Being still and being quiet are the boogie men. Ray and I ate our dinner and then finally just got in bed.I guess people slept a lot more in the "old days".

The lights did finally come back on an hour later and we got up out of bed. It was only 8pm for goodness sake. I went to my computer. Ray went into the TV room.

The rain continued through out the night. Towels sopped up the rain water (now also coming in through the large office windows staining parts of the new wallpaper).

But, this morning, while at my desk, I looked up and out through the office windows and noticed the sun beginning to shine on first-snow-topped Mount San Jacinto. Beautiful!


While out photographing the first snow I noticed this little bird apparently taking in his own particularly special view this sunny drier morning.


I know you'll read this blog today Ray, so, Happy Birthday again!

BB Study

A big hug at the meeting before Deb moves to Washington this coming Sunday.

I'm not going to tell you how many photos I took trying to get a photo where one or the other of my lady friends didn't have their eyes closed. I stopped trying after I took this last photo. I couldn't believe it when I looked at the LCD screen and saw that they both had their eyes closed. Try as they did to keep their eyes open, it just wasn't going to happen.

Ray is going to be 30 Saturday, December 1st!

This came in the mail the other day from Leo. Until I posted this photo I couldn't tell what Leo had written at the bottom under the coin. Cheap card by Leo!

Before Leo moved back to Oklahoma a couple of months ago, he had always gifted "his friends" with a celebratory coin on their birthdays. He prides himself in the uniqueness of this coin giving tradition. I can't remember, but I think Leo bought about 500 of these coins.

When Leo found out that Ray's birthday was upcoming he told me he'd mail Ray off his 30 year coin. The tradition still lives on even though Leo moved away. Yeah.

Thanksgiving dinner begins with some introductions.

I'm so proud of my family, I wanted you to see them. Here is a 3 minute video I shot with my little Canon Powershot A640 as my brother, Don, was carving the turkey. Everyone was quite patient while I was video taping them.





Cut and paste the url below into your browser to watch a larger size of the same video.

http://www.mydeo.com/videorequest.asp?XID=8290&CID=145386

Check out more Thanksgiving photos in Flickr.

My brother Don's Piper, Meridian airplane he flew back to a small airport not far from my where we stayed at Ginny and Walid's home for Thanksgiving.

Ginny and Walid's home called Pop Castle.

I spent all day yesterday trying to make sense of the tons of photos I took over Thanksgiving while back east in Virginia at my sister Ginny and Walid's home. Hope you check out some photos I posted on Flickr. Click on the bottom link (not the photos)- where it says Gottagolinda's photos - to be taken to all my albums I now keep on Flickr. Click below the 3 featured photos where the text says: More of gottagolinda's photos - to be taken directly to my online albums.

Meet the Sher Kids

I thought it would be fun for you to see the very short movie I asked Colleen to take of us following Thanksgiving dinner.