Mom's 70'th Birthday Celebration

No one can believe mom's turning 70! I'm lucky to have half her energy level and sometimes have to remind her to slow down?!

Fred and I arrived in LA Friday evening and my brother Klein took us out for a wonderful sushi dinner. I haven't had uni (sea urchin) in years! I never dare unless I'm assured it's absolutely fresh. It's quite a unique flavor. Fred's favorite was the monk fish liver. (Fred: mmmmmm liver!)

Saturday was the big night for the banquet. Somehow creating invites for mom's shindig turned into creating table favors. My "brilliant" idea was to make boxes with photos of her through the years. I have to admit it turned out pretty cool. But making 56 is a labor of love! Thank goodness for all the extra hands (Fred, Albert & Greg) to help fold and ultimately stuff sweet buns into them.



Dinner was to start at 6 at Hop Li's. But with my family, that's the "suggested" arrival time for the early birds. The usual suspects from my mom's side of the family were there (about 36) and the remainder (7) were my dad's brother's family and a friend. Also as usual, it's a lively noisy group.

Mom put together a wonderful 10 course meal, the highlights being a fillet mignon pepper beef, shark fin soup with crab, lobster, 2 steamed rock cods, a mushroom medley over sweet pea greens, and seafood shitake rice. The cake from Kelley's Bakery was once again amazing - a layered cake with chestnut and buttery Napoleon. Yum!

Here's a few photos but cousin Kenny took loads more so I'll add them to the blog later this week.



Mom's photo album by Kenny & Ida
(Unable to view the slideshow? Click here.)

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! ;)

Graham's visit

Graham, my nephew, visited for a week at the end of August. Just now getting around to posting it! He's almost 15...and has renewed my faith in teens. Another great Seyffert kid! Wow, Will and Linda are amazing parents.

Some fun things we did with him are go the a Willie Nelson concert at Red Rocks (pix below), mountain bike, play guitar hero, go to Elitch Gardens (roller coasters and water slides), and chow down on hot pot.

Fun Filled Week with the Nieces - River Rafting Outing

Emma and Hannah stayed for the week and we had so much fun! The highlight was heading up to Glenwood Springs for a white water river rafting and kayaking day. The first half of the day, was spent 8 miles up river from the town, riding the larger rapids. I think the largest might have been a 3. As you can see from the beginning of the slide show, it's fairly frothy and absolutely fun! It was also COLD! We started in the morning and the sun was not in the canyon yet. Each white water section dumped on us generously...where was the 90 degree temps promised! They had us paddling but we're fairly sure the guide did all the work.



Finally the sun peaked into the canyon to warm us some. As we entered calmer waters, we entertained ourselves by chucking each other overboard. At midday, we came ashore and chowed down on the bbq lunch provided by the guide service. Sufficiently dried, warmed, and fed, we headed back to the river. This time, we had a smaller raft and a couple of double and single kayaks. We all traded off and took turns in the kayaks. The guide gave us some basic tips and set us off. I'm sure nothing was larger than a 1+, but being lower to the water made for more excitement and good fun. When that didn't keep us busy, splashing, chasing down the person with the water gun, and dunking them did.

After the rafting tour ended, we headed back to the hotel. Apparently we hadn't had enough of water. The hotel pool had a killer kiddy water slide. It was amazing how much speed you could pick up in it!! I tried to warn the guys but they thought it couldn't be that bad. On the second to last turn, each one of them picked up so much speed, they slammed in to the side of the slide causing an enormous splash and commensurate shudder of the slide. We have each of them on video below. Boy, did we get a lot of laughs out of it. We retired to the hot tub to nurse our tired bodies from a hard day of fun!

Red Rocks Concert - Emmy Lou Harris & John Prine

Went to our first concert this season at Red Rocks. Emmy Lou Harris opened for John Prine. Both were wonderful. Emmy Lou seems to be more beautiful as the years roll on. She has such an ease and gentle charisma on stage. You can imagine her being a country diva on stage; instead she's simply at home.

Prine, what a consummate performer! I think the last time I saw him was about 15 years ago at the Strawberry Festival. Unfortunately for him, he's not under the same graceful aging spell as Emmy Lou. He stiffly walked with a slight limp to the mike. I wondered how this would affect his performance. But the moment he began, he was lively, light and playful. Whether he played alone or with his 3 piece band, Red Rocks resonated with his presence and music. It's still hard to believe that a 3 piece band can "fill" so much space. They also treated us with several duets; twangs intertwined, her's crisp, his lilting.

Here are some pix with our little camera...

Xmas in LA

What a great visit to LA for the holidays! Thanks to everyone who took time out to lunch or dinner with me! Sometimes you go along during the year and feel like you really don't have too many people but close family in your life. Then the holidays come around and what can I say but feel loved and honored by everyone who went out of their way to see me. I was booked solid for the week! On top of spending Christmas with famliy (both sides of the famliy), I got to see my best friend from high school, my photo teacher from high school, my ex's daughter (who is now 21! OMG she was 3 just yesterday!), my friends from Countrywide, and my new friends from the China trip this year. What a blast. I still can't believe it's nearly 10 years since I moved out of LA. The ties and memories are still strong though. There's no "home" like the place you grew up.