Photo Blogging Challenge (Dec. 2014): ‘Tis the Season

This is the last day of the year and it's time once again for P.J.'s Photo Blogging challenge.  This month, the theme was 'Tis the Season, and I've approached it, at least in my mind, from a traditional and non-traditional viewpoint.  Some photos will make perfect sense with the theme, while others will need some explanation.  But you already know I'm going to explain all of them anyway, so here goes.

1 and 2.  The Evolution of our family Christmas trees
Christmas day, the family gathered at my sister's house to celebrate the day.  Lots of good food was had by all and by the time the last of us had eaten the last portions of cheesecake that my other sister had made, most of us could probably have just rolled down the hill back to our own homes.

My sister's Christmas tree is the only tree in the family, that I'm aware of that has just white lights.  I believe that all the rest of us have colored lights on our trees.  Growing up, for the first ten years or so, our family tree at home was all blue.  Blue ornaments, blue lights - everything was blue on the tree.  Christmas of 1971 or 72, we went back to Indiana to have a "White Christmas."  While we were back there, my last surviving grandparent passed away.  He had been suffering from what we would call today Alzheimers disease, so it was not totally unexpected.

We ended up staying a couple of extra days because of the funeral and other family obligations that come along with an event such as this.  One of the things that ended up coming home with us were a lot of really old Christmas ornaments from my grandparent's estate.  The next year, we used those ornaments on the tree and over the next 10 years or so collected, purchased, etc., other ornaments so the tree was no longer a blue tree.  We got new light strings with multi-colored lights to add to the non-blue theme.  Some ornaments were even made.


As each of us eventually moved out of the house, the ornaments that had been given to us as children were taken and subsequently added to our own Christmas trees in our new places.  My daughter has taken her ornaments that have been given to her and she now has them displayed on her tree in her place.  My middle son didn't have a tree this year and isn't totally settled yet, so his, plus my youngest son's ornaments still adorn our tree every year.  In the near future, I'm sure this will change.

Both my older sister and I have a strong affiliation for things Disney, so it was no surprise to see several Disney ornaments on her tree.  This one of Dopey Dwarf climbing the staircase heading up to see who was up in the Dwarve's bedroom struck my fancy.  To took several shots, because the shutter speed was very slow, one thirteenth of a second, which is usually too slow for hand held shots.  I'm very pleased that this one is in pretty fine focus.  

3.  Games
Every time I blog this particular post, I look forward to the next month's theme.  This is one of the few times I'm disappointed I can't use this photo for next month's theme as the theme for next month is Games.

In our house, the kids tend to generate the games and it was no exception this year as several games were pulled off the shelves and others were given as gifts this year.  Growing up, I enjoyed playing games although sometimes found few takers.  I can't imagine my competitiveness had anything to do with that. <smirk>

The day after Christmas, the kids gathered around to play games.  My middle son's girlfriend is an artist and began sketching us as we played Settlers of Cataan.  My youngest son is on the right and he's not complete obviously, but the rest of us, moving counterclockwise from the upper right, my son, my daughter, myself and my future son-in-law are all there.  She did an excellent job capturing the character of each one of us in this drawing.  If you look closely, you can also see that each of us are labeled and identified.

4.  Trip to the Lake
My father-in-law lives up in Lake Arrowhead and for the past several years, we make a trip up there over the holidays to visit with him.  This year, he went all out for us to enjoy our short stay up there.  Blintzes, tamales, the chocolate cake that was to die for were just some of the treats he had for us.

Usually, we'll go down to the lake to feed the ducks and this year was no exception to that.  It's no wonder the ducks and geese are fat and happy up there as there were all sorts of people doing the same thing.

The shot is of my middle son on the left and my future son-in-law.  I had a couple of different shots of the two of them, plus one of them with my daughter, but this one turned out the best of the set that I took while we were down there.

Both men get along very well with each other, which is a very good thing.  We are all looking forward to July when Brian and my daughter Kathryn tie the knot.  He is very good to her and he is a very welcome addition to our family.

5.  The Granddaddy of them all
Finally, what seasonal blog would be complete without something dealing with the new year, which is literally right around the corner now.  In some cases, it's already here and you might even be reading this in 2015.

Growing up in Southern California meant watching the Rose Parade and watching the Rose Bowl on television.  I actually attended two Rose Bowls in the late 70s, courtesy of my good friend who was attending U.S.C. at the time.  U.S.C. was a powerhouse in football back then and they usually contended for the Rose Bowl every year back then.

Every year, we'd get the Pac 10 vs. the Big 10.  Since we were from northern Indiana, our allegiances were more toward the Big 10, especially since my father attended Notre Dame.  We wouldn't root for U.S.C.  We would very often root for west coast teams in other years when U.S.C. wasn't there however.

Now with the old BCS and the new playoff system in place today, college football doesn't always have the traditional rivalries we came to expect in certain bowl games.  This year, the Rose Bowl (which is the 101st edition) is giving us Oregon vs Florida St. in one semi-final game.  The Sugar Bowl in New Orleans is giving us Alabama vs Ohio St later in the evening on the 1st.  

Given that I've always enjoyed the traditional match ups for bowl games, it should come as no surprise that I'm rooting for Ohio St. and Oregon to prevail and meet in the championship game.  And yes, I will be rooting for the Ducks in the championship game as well.  I took this shot just after Christmas when we went on a hike up the Arroyo Seco, which is where the Rose Bowl is located.  Walking back down to our car, we also found a geocache.  So what else is new?

And there you have it.  This was my interpretation of the theme 'Tis the Season.  I hope you have enjoyed these shots.  Please stop by P.J.'s blog to see his interpretation and look below on that page for the other links to others who have participated this month.

Happy birthday son

He came into world at 1 AM, straight up.  Were it not for daylight savings, he would have been born at midnight, one of those kids where you're really not sure what day he was actually born on, but because of daylight savings, we celebrate his birthday today, August 12th.

Of my three children, he was the only one who was smart enough, I guess, to keep his hands down at his side when he was born.  Consequently, he was born quickly - very quickly.  I know I've told this story many times before, but I can still remember the nurse springing up from her chair, running to the door of the delivery room and screaming at the top of her lungs, "SOMEBODY BETTER FIND DR. LEE, OR HE'S GOING TO MISS THIS ONE!!!"  Dr. Lee came in and caught our Andy about a minute later.

The second thing that really struck me about my first born son was how alert he was.  He just wanted to look around the room from the getgo.  It was almost like he was thinking, "Whoa, this is a whole heck of a lot different than what I've been looking at for the last 9 months."

I've always been interested in when people were born and who famous was born on such and such a day.  On this date in history, one of the first five men to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Christy Mathewson was born.  Other famous people sharing this date include, football player Plaxico Burress, tennis pro Pete Sampras, Jane Wyatt from the sitcom "Father Knows Best," the famous movie director Cecil B. DeMille, and Erwin Schrodinger the Austrian physicist who used a cat in a box to explain quantum mechanics.  

Still, the most important person born today is my son, Andy.  I've watched him grow up, spread his wings to explore the world beyond us.  He is everything I could want in a son and I wish him all the best on his day.  Happy birthday son.

Take me out to the ball game

I've been an Angel fan all of my life.  Since I grew up in Orange County, we would usually attend one baseball game a year at the "Big A" in Anaheim.  We'd sit up in the top deck and root for the Angels, usually over the Chicago White Sox or Cleveland Indians.  Being from northern Indiana, those were my dad's two favorite teams, so that's who we'd end up seeing all the time.

For Father's Day, my daughter bought me tickets to see the Angels play on Monday night against the Seattle Mariners.  We had tickets in the upper deck, but that didn't bother me in the least.  We were watching baseball the way it was meant to be seen - live.  In my opinion, TV doesn't enhance baseball at all.  For most of the telecast, all you see is the interaction between the catcher and pitcher.  

I go to the game to watch the interactions between the other players, to watch how they change their positions during the count.  There's a subtlety to the game that most people don't understand, because all they know is what TV shows them.  I got to point out things to my boys like why the Mariners played the infield in at one point and what the difference was between a K and a backwards K for a strikeout.  It was great to be at the park with my boys and texting my daughter updates during the game.

The Angels grabbed the early lead and Jason Vargas, pitcher for the Angels was pitching well.  In the third he gave up his first hit, a bloop over third base that just caught the line.  Then Vargas made his only mistake, got a pitch up a little bit that was drilled to left field for a two run homer, cutting the Angel lead in half at that time.

In the sixth, the Angels batted around and blew the game open, eventually winning 11-3.  While most people would disagree, I would argue that Josh Hamilton, who struck out twice in the inning, had the best at bat in the inning.  Huh you say?  His first at bat in the inning there were two men on and one out.  He took two strikes, then worked the count full and fouled off several pitches.  He extended the inning by getting the opposing pitcher to throw a lot of balls.  The more balls thrown by the pitcher, the better it is for the batter.  

Eventually, Hamilton struck out, but the number of pitches (8 or 9 by our count) that the reliever threw to Hamilton took its toll.  Albert Pujols drove the very next pitch to the base of the wall in right and the flood gates were opened as the next 8 batters reached base safely and the Angels had scored 7 runs by the time Hamilton was up again.

Most people would look at the strikeout as a failed at bat. Knowledgeable baseball fans know otherwise.  And yes, Hamilton is admittedly having a very poor season, but what I saw Monday night was encouraging.  He hit the ball hard, got two hits including a two run shot to centerfield and only looked bad on his second strikeout in the 6th inning.  That's good news for Angel fans.