It’s been two months since our last blog posting. We’ve been mostly in the Bay Area, spending time with family and friends. Pete cooked Thanksgiving dinner for his family.
Kristina's cousin Cynthia had turned 50 in October while we were on retreat, so Kristina planned a girls-night-out, and Pete took Cynthia to a yoga class and lunch to celebrate.
Cynthia's husband Humberto has his birthday close to Thanksgiving. We enjoyed dinner with him and other family members to fete him on his birthday.
We were fortunate to stay a month at Cynthia and Humberto's. They had renovated their downstairs which gave us a separate bedroom and bathroom. This is a photo of Cynthia with her sons Julian and Emilio. We enjoyed a day at the San Francisco Exploratorium together.
We also took the opportunity to check out the burgeoning craft brewing scene in Oakland, and spent time hanging out with Humberto.
During our time away from blogging we also took a break from photography, so we don't have a lot of pictures to share. We went to Alcatraz with our friends Lance and Laura.
We went to see the Ai Wei Wei show, which we found visually interesting in the prison setting. This is a beautiful dragon kite entitled With Wind.
In the adjacent New Industries room we saw portraits of 176 political prisoners from all over the world.
It was incredible how our eyes and cameras saw these as faces when up close they looked like Legos.
Our friend Laura is an artist and she had volunteered to work for four days on the Lego portraits. She shared her experiences about the process, including stories about how they ran out of the smaller sized Legos because the volunteers used whatever size Legos they wanted.
From Alcatraz the views of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge were wonderful.
We have wanted to visit Laura's studio for a long time, so we were glad we had a chance to go. Here Laura is in front of her latest large format painting which is amazing. Here's a link to her website with other photos of her works.
Laura and her husband Lance have a persimmon tree is their yard and they peel and dry the fruit in the Japanese style called hoshigaki. We loved the flavor and texture of the persimmons she shared with us.
We also stayed a few days with our friends Sean and Paul. They go all out with decorating their house for Christmas. Sean is with Kristina in front of their enormous tree.
Sean spends December working as part of a quartet called Ye Olde Time Christmas Carolers. It was fun to go to one of his gigs.
Here are two of our nephews, Sacha (right) and Jeremy, at a Christmas gathering with Pete’s family.
Kristina's birthday is close to Christmas and she celebrated at her sister Debby and brother-in-law's house with a tasty cake made by their daughter Megan.
It's also the time of year for us to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Patty and Bill took us out to a wonderful meal at Pamplemousse.
We enjoyed some terrific food, including seared scallops with chanterelles and lobster.
While in San Diego for Christmas, we organized our gear at Kristina's Mom's house to get ready for another trip.
Here we are with Patty and all our stuff as we are heading to the airport.
First stop on our trip was Kona, Hawaii. We rented an Airbnb condo with an awesome lanai, a screened porch that let in the tropical breeze and sounds of the birds. This is the view we enjoyed from the lanai.
The Mokuaikaua church is almost 200 years old and is the oldest Christian church in Hawaii.
They had musical services on Sunday that we enjoyed listening to from our lanai.
Two years ago we had gotten certified in scuba diving in Kona. We wanted to dive again in beautiful Hawaii. This is the dive boat we were on.
We bought an underwater case for our point-and-shoot camera, so we could take better pictures. This is an Eyestripe Surgeonfish.
This is Porcupine fish. Because it wasn't feeling threatened, it wasn't puffed up and didn't have its spines up, but it was still big.
On our first dive Pete was fortunate to see a Manta Ray close up! Its wingspan was 8-10 feet.
We also saw plenty of eels, including this White-Mouthed Eel.
There were smaller creatures too, including this Fried Egg Nudibranch.
Of course, scubafish were also common.
Mermaids, however, were not so common.
Here is Kristina with Alexia. She was our divemaster when we got PADI certified. Now she has her captain's license, so she splits her time between being a scuba instructor and driving a boat. She drove us and 25 others to night diving with manta rays.
We made two dives, with the first in the late afternoon so that we got familiar with the dive site. We saw several manta rays on this dive and plenty of other fish.
Once the sun had set we dove again. This time we had lights to help us see, and to attract plankton that the mantas eat. Yes, that's a manta right above Kristina!
It was an incredible experience to be so close to these huge fish! This photo of the manta's eye shows it looking right at us.
The graceful mantas do somersaults called barrel rolls to funnel more plankton into their mouths. Pete made a movie while we were sitting on the ocean floor. Click here to watch it on You Tube.
The spot patterns on each manta's underside are unique and this is the main way an individual is identified.
We left Hawaii and flew to Japan, and it got a lot colder. We spent a night close to the Narita temple so that we could visit it.
In Japan it's traditional to visit a temple on New Year's Day, and it was packed! There were lots of police officers with bullhorns directing the crowd.
At Naritasan Shinshoji temple people were giving donations and making wishes for the new year. Here they are tying paper wishes to strings.
I
Wishing all of you a very Happy New Year!
Kristina's cousin Cynthia had turned 50 in October while we were on retreat, so Kristina planned a girls-night-out, and Pete took Cynthia to a yoga class and lunch to celebrate.
Cynthia's husband Humberto has his birthday close to Thanksgiving. We enjoyed dinner with him and other family members to fete him on his birthday.
We were fortunate to stay a month at Cynthia and Humberto's. They had renovated their downstairs which gave us a separate bedroom and bathroom. This is a photo of Cynthia with her sons Julian and Emilio. We enjoyed a day at the San Francisco Exploratorium together.
We also took the opportunity to check out the burgeoning craft brewing scene in Oakland, and spent time hanging out with Humberto.
During our time away from blogging we also took a break from photography, so we don't have a lot of pictures to share. We went to Alcatraz with our friends Lance and Laura.
We went to see the Ai Wei Wei show, which we found visually interesting in the prison setting. This is a beautiful dragon kite entitled With Wind.
In the adjacent New Industries room we saw portraits of 176 political prisoners from all over the world.
It was incredible how our eyes and cameras saw these as faces when up close they looked like Legos.
Our friend Laura is an artist and she had volunteered to work for four days on the Lego portraits. She shared her experiences about the process, including stories about how they ran out of the smaller sized Legos because the volunteers used whatever size Legos they wanted.
From Alcatraz the views of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge were wonderful.
We have wanted to visit Laura's studio for a long time, so we were glad we had a chance to go. Here Laura is in front of her latest large format painting which is amazing. Here's a link to her website with other photos of her works.
Laura and her husband Lance have a persimmon tree is their yard and they peel and dry the fruit in the Japanese style called hoshigaki. We loved the flavor and texture of the persimmons she shared with us.
We also stayed a few days with our friends Sean and Paul. They go all out with decorating their house for Christmas. Sean is with Kristina in front of their enormous tree.
Sean spends December working as part of a quartet called Ye Olde Time Christmas Carolers. It was fun to go to one of his gigs.
Here are two of our nephews, Sacha (right) and Jeremy, at a Christmas gathering with Pete’s family.
Kristina's birthday is close to Christmas and she celebrated at her sister Debby and brother-in-law's house with a tasty cake made by their daughter Megan.
It's also the time of year for us to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Patty and Bill took us out to a wonderful meal at Pamplemousse.
We enjoyed some terrific food, including seared scallops with chanterelles and lobster.
While in San Diego for Christmas, we organized our gear at Kristina's Mom's house to get ready for another trip.
Here we are with Patty and all our stuff as we are heading to the airport.
First stop on our trip was Kona, Hawaii. We rented an Airbnb condo with an awesome lanai, a screened porch that let in the tropical breeze and sounds of the birds. This is the view we enjoyed from the lanai.
The Mokuaikaua church is almost 200 years old and is the oldest Christian church in Hawaii.
They had musical services on Sunday that we enjoyed listening to from our lanai.
Two years ago we had gotten certified in scuba diving in Kona. We wanted to dive again in beautiful Hawaii. This is the dive boat we were on.
We bought an underwater case for our point-and-shoot camera, so we could take better pictures. This is an Eyestripe Surgeonfish.
This is Porcupine fish. Because it wasn't feeling threatened, it wasn't puffed up and didn't have its spines up, but it was still big.
On our first dive Pete was fortunate to see a Manta Ray close up! Its wingspan was 8-10 feet.
We also saw plenty of eels, including this White-Mouthed Eel.
There were smaller creatures too, including this Fried Egg Nudibranch.
Of course, scubafish were also common.
Mermaids, however, were not so common.
Here is Kristina with Alexia. She was our divemaster when we got PADI certified. Now she has her captain's license, so she splits her time between being a scuba instructor and driving a boat. She drove us and 25 others to night diving with manta rays.
We made two dives, with the first in the late afternoon so that we got familiar with the dive site. We saw several manta rays on this dive and plenty of other fish.
Once the sun had set we dove again. This time we had lights to help us see, and to attract plankton that the mantas eat. Yes, that's a manta right above Kristina!
It was an incredible experience to be so close to these huge fish! This photo of the manta's eye shows it looking right at us.
The graceful mantas do somersaults called barrel rolls to funnel more plankton into their mouths. Pete made a movie while we were sitting on the ocean floor. Click here to watch it on You Tube.
The spot patterns on each manta's underside are unique and this is the main way an individual is identified.
We left Hawaii and flew to Japan, and it got a lot colder. We spent a night close to the Narita temple so that we could visit it.
In Japan it's traditional to visit a temple on New Year's Day, and it was packed! There were lots of police officers with bullhorns directing the crowd.
At Naritasan Shinshoji temple people were giving donations and making wishes for the new year. Here they are tying paper wishes to strings.
IWishing all of you a very Happy New Year!
