Mom Gustafson's End/Beginning of the Year Visit - 2011/12
Posted by Amy Evelyn Oden , Thursday, January 5, 2012 1:21 PM
My mom came down for a visit to ring in the new year - and to help us both prepare a bit for Baby O.'s arrival and pack up for our big move to San Dimas! We were so grateful for her helping hands - and squeezed in a bit of tourism as well. We enjoyed a meal with both of her brothers' families - my Uncle Lynn in Glendora, and my Uncle Paul, from Thousand Oaks, who was gracious enough to bring his crew all the way to Pasadena when we discovered, half way to meet them, that our car was overheating :/.
Highlights of her visit include...
Highlights of her visit include...
A trip to the Reagan Library! Patrick & I had been wanting to go for a long time and they had special Christmastime exhibit with 20 trees, each decorated for a decade (or two or three) of history since America began, as well as the Reagan museum and Air Force One.
Piece of the Berlin Wall
On Saturday, we attended Shuvah Yisrael (Patrick's parents congregation) and enjoyed a lovely long lunch out all together afterwards. Unfortunately, no pics of us all, but Mom Oden snapped this one:
We also enjoyed viewing the Rose Parade (on January 2 this year due to New Year's Day falling on a Sunday - weird Pasadena thing about scaring the horses parked at churches on Sunday...). One major advantage of Fuller housing is being able to leave one's apartment shortly before 8:00 am when the parade begins, and then walk about four blocks south and find a perfectly good space to stand and watch the festivities. We anticipate this being our last year with such an advantage (or so we hope) - so we had to indulge!
Wow! Those floats are amazing!