Cherokee Ranch Castle

Mom was here for a visit before her trip to Germany. Took her to tour the Cherokee Ranch Castle just down the street from me, maybe some 15 miles. It's built in 1926, on a bluff with incredible vistas of the valley, foothills, and Rockies. The stories about the second and primary owner of the property, Tweet Kimball, brought such life to place. Incredible woman.

It was a beautiful clear morning as you can tell by the color of the sky in several shots. Sure, some it due to the camera exposure, but you can't get that rich color except on days like these. It's gorgeous lately; fall now so we're in for more wonderful temperate days. I love this time of year. Each day, more leaves turn...I need to set of and start taking fall pix. Love the rich colors.

I'll have to go back with my "real" camera. Took lots of pix with my pocket camera and something happened to corrupt 90% of the pictures I took. Very sad. But maybe if I get out there in the next couple of weeks, I can capture some of the castle surrounded by fall colors.

Sleepy cold day (two weeks ago!)

Had a cold snap a couple of weeks ago and took some cute pix of my boxer, Tucker. As you can see, he likes to snuggle up, especially when cold. I joined him for a little bit. There's a test of your dog's intelligence...cover your dog and see how quickly it escapes. As you can see, Tucker never passed this test. It's a dumb test anyway. ;) I tried to get a pic of Parker, the akita, sleeping but she didn't find my camera in her nose restful and found a more private quiet spot to curl up. Also have a cute pic of Judie's dog, Duke. Found a soft toy just his size!

Ave's Wedding Extravaganza Weekend

What a weekend! My youngest girl cousin married this last weekend and it was quite the whirlwind affair. We flew in Friday evening, we're picked up by Uncle Albert, and immediately headed over to the Mandarin Chateau in Chinatown for dinner. We were a bit early but we met other early birds and got to know some of the other out of town guests. It was a lively and fun dinner with good Shanghai style cuisine.

The next day, we headed over to see the Seyffert 5 for a bit before heading back and getting ready for the wedding. It was held at a beautiful old Presbyterian Church on Wilshire Blvd, just down the street from the old Bullocks-Wilshire (for those LA-ites in the know). The ceremony was catholic and presided by a dear family friend of the Schodorfs, Doc. They also had several performances/interludes performed by family and friends. All wonderful personal touches.

The reception was at Vibiana, the former Catholic church in downtown LA. It was compromised during the big Whittier earthquake in the early 90's (the new church is now right off the freeway). I used to work up the street from it when I was interning at CalTrans. It's was built in the 1800's - quite a stately mission. The renovations are wonderful. Below, we have some fun pictures of us messing around with the old confessionals.

On Sunday, we slept in just a little and headed out for Dim Sum. We even coaxed my aunt and uncle to come over to the house for a couple of rounds of mah jong. I had a great game and actually won for once! Maybe it's sort of like beginner's luck when it's been so long since the last time I played. By 4:30, the "get dressed" recommenced. The Chinese banquet was held at the Emperial Palace. The dinner was lush and delicious. The favorites at our table were the the fresh steamed rock cod, lobster over noodles, abalone, and shark fin soup.

It was wonderful spending the whole weekend with family. I spent most of my time mingling than taking pictures. Actually, except for a couple...the pix were taken by Fred. I guess that's why I'm actually in a few! ;)