Christmas in Wonderland

Hello Family and Friends,
While we miss spending the holidays with all of you, we are having a nice time here in LA. We have decided to spend our off-time over the next week doing fun things and eating out. The weather has been cooperating nicely, with highs in the mid-70's and beautiful sunshine. Here is a nice screen saver for those cold winter months ahead.

This is the Christmas tree at Hermosa Beach, one of our favorite hangouts. This picture was taken standing on the pier zoomed in towards the city.

Yesterday we decided to go to the San Gabriel mountains to do some hiking. A 30 minute drive from our house put us in the mountains where the drive became awesome. Another 30 minutes and we arrived at our chosen trail head, Switzer Falls at the end of Arroyo Seco. We stopped at the grocery store on the way and filled our day pack with some chiabata bread, smoked gouda cheese and ham lunchmeat. After a gorgeous 2 hour hike we came to the falls, where we enjoyed our simple lunch uninterrupted atop a streamside boulder. We hiked back out, and enjoyed the drive back to the city and home. This picture is on the return trip where the trail hugged the side of a mountain.

It's hard to see, but there is a nearly vertical drop of a couple hundred feet. Next time we go hiking, we'll take some panning equipment as there is gold all over this area of the mountains.

Well, Merry Christmas to all, and God Bless you in the New Year.