Six Months in One Blog Post

Wow, I haven't blogged since June. With having Facebook I put up a few photos and feel that covers it. Besides, Shannon does such a good blog, she usually covers everything going on in my life, too. I will try to pull a photo or two from each month since last, just to remind myself of what happened in 2013.

In July the old race team got together for lunch at dad's shop.

 In July, the 4 of us went to Maui.

 Two monkeys trying to work a hammock.

 Shannon was newly pregnant, not even showing.

 Ahhhh. Maui beaches are da-kine.

We went to Catalina to go kayaking and touring. My first time staying over there in a hotel and it was so nice.

 Went with Suzanne and John. Fun people.

August - Party with the girlfriends at Shannon's house. She hosted a Scentsy party.

I attended the wedding of Michael and Katie - Betty and Brian's son and daughter-in-law. Wonderful wedding with a huge swing band.

 It was held in Pasadena. ( I believe it was the Masonic Temple)

 The next morning I caught a plane in Long Beach,  flew to Salt Lake City, and hitched a ride to the Salt Flats to watch Carl drive the new Kuhl-Olson-Bowman roadster.

 I was there only one or two nights then we drove home. They had some bugs to work out and will run again in 2014.

In September there was a fire very near our house.

October was Shannon's 30th birthday, so we celebrated with a party at our house.

 I spent Halloween with Lacey and Brandon and the kids. Helped carve pumpkins.

 Lacey and Hazel.

 Dean the Ninja and Hazel is Snow White.

 Also in October I joined in with 4 other artists and we had a party and art sale, Art and Music in the Garden.  Suzanne and John have a wonderful, huge yard and they hosted it, and even had a live band playing rock and roll. We all sold quite a bit of art.

 Shannon put Grant to work on the project with us and Carl stopped by on his way to California Speedway.

 John and Suzanne - such nice and fun people. Thanks guys.

 Visited with brother Roy and crazy Dennis Roth one day.

 November - Peter was visiting from NZ so we had a margarita party.

 Shannon's baby shower on Nov 9th. We had around 25 people at our house. It was a lot of fun and she sure got some nice gifts for the baby.

 Andrea came all the way from Austin, TX.  Kelly got married earlier this year.

 Ahhhh so cute.

 We decorated for Christmas early. Shannon helped me and that is why it all got done.

 Shopping at Lowe's.

 On Thanksgiving I made a complete turkey dinner. We ate early because Carl must leave to go the the Turkey night grand Prix at Perris Speedway. So Shannon, Grant and I were invited to Nancy and Kelley's house. We brought some of our food and we joined them afterwards.

December 7th - We celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary.  Rondi and Neil joined us for an awesome dinner at the Magic Lamp. So festive.

Has-beens and cast-offs dinner at the Northwoods Inn. This is the annual gathering of folks who used to work at NHRA together.

We had the Fjastad Family Christmas gathering at our house on Sunday Dec 22nd.  All the families are so busy with their other families, but I was so happy that we were all able to get together.

 Hazel meets Great Grandpa Roy for the first time.

 Hazel liked the story telling, rocking chair Mickey Mouse.

 New winter caps for the kids. Hazel, Dean and Ryder (makes strange faces in all his pictures???)

WHY??? is blogger rotating my pictures???

Christmas morning at our house. Shannon and Grant came up on Christmas eve. The four of us had BBQ steaks and baked potatoes for dinner. Then I showed the old family Christmas movies from 1983 (new born Shannon) up to 1989. It was so much fun watching the kids when they were little.

I made Pumpkin waffles for breakfast.  Stockings first.

 I love Christmas morning, we stretch the gift opening out for hours it seems.

 Grant received the most gifts this year. He needed the most.

 The guys got matching skull head drinking glasses.

 Every Christmas morning, Santa Claus comes to every street in La Verne, with the firetrucks. The firemen elves give a bag of sweets to everyone. We have lived here for 23 years and they have never missed a year. We start hearing the sirens really early as they drive through the streets down the hill, then as they get closer and louder, I run out of the house yelling for the neighbors to come outside. Of course they also hear the sirens, so I don't have to yell, but I do anyway. I get way too excited.

Well, those are all the pictures I have for the year. I'm sure we did much more than was in this blog. We are always super busy and doing fun stuff.  Next year will be the year of the grandchild, so I will either be too busy to post a blog, or, I may be posting all the time. We'll see.

2013 has been a year of goods and bads. Mostly goods in my opinion. The challenges will always be there. I enjoy the happy times, which usually includes family and friends.

Happy New Year!

Love, Kathy

Continued on New Blog

Crazy stuff.
I was informed by Google Blog that I've used up my storage allowance for pictures on this account. So I started a new blog. Here is the link:   http://k-olson.blogspot.com/

I've completed the 3rd post of my Italy trip - Florence.

See you there,

Kathy

3 Nights in Sorrento

Here's the second post of my Italy adventure. On Thursday, October 11th, we got the 6 AM wake-up call. Our bags were out by the door at 6:30 and whisked away to the bus. We had breakfast and boarded the bus at 7:30 sharp. We had a long drive ahead of us, I think 2 or 3 hours (hard to remember). We were headed to Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast.

On the way we stopped for lunch at a special place that made fresh Buffalo Mozzarella cheese. We were served different forms and flavors of the cheese, made fresh from real buffalo milk.

The building was so cool, and there were ruins just off the patio where we had lunch.

Afterward we drove further south to Paestum to see 3 Greek Temples, still standing from VI Century B.C., and a museum that held artifacts.

Carl, these old fish hooks are for you.

The village was abandoned and moved across to that hill, where the people could see as the enemy approached.

 Still standing after a couple thousand years. We could learn from them. This is the Temple of Ceres.

 This road was built by the Greeks and goes through the town. You can still see the divots in the rock from the wagon wheels.

 Joyce, Mel, Helen and Greg.

 The Temple of Neptune, the best preserved of all the temples.

Temple or Basilica? The great Doric temple dedicated to Hera is the oldest in Paestum. (I bought the little book, that's where I'm getting this information)

 We found the restrooms and the Gelato in the little cafe across from this building. Then we got back on the bus to head north to Sorrento.

 On the way to our next hotel the Hotel Corallo in Sorrento. (it means Coral)

 We arrived at the Hotel Corallo, this is the lobby lounge area. We were waiting to be called to go to our rooms. The view of the ocean is out the windows to the left.

 I believe this Villa next door belongs to a wealthy Russian.

 We waited outside on the veranda, watching the sunset.

 The hotel cocktail lounge with real goldfish in that vase.

 From our room, looking at the others in our group at their balconies.

 Watching the sunset from our private balcony at our room.

 This room was the best! It was so pretty in the coral color and the coral lamps.

 Never did try the bidets. Not that adventuresome.

On Friday morning, Oct 12th, we departed at 8 am by our private coach (bus) for Positano, Amalfi and Vietri sul Mare, along the world famous "Amalfi Drive".
Of course it rained, but the drive and the views were still spectacular. That is the road carved into the hillside that we just traveled. It was tight and the cliffs were steep and we had about 6 to 8 inches to spare.

 We stopped to see the sights and purchase some treasures alongside the road.

 Our bus driver was amazing.

 We stopped at this ceramic shop so I could purchase a pair of ceramic salad tongs that had Amalfi stamped into the wooden handles. The others bought much more, in fact some of them had theirs shipped home. The ceramics were so beautiful and pretty expensive. I also bought 2 trivets.

 We are at the main square in Amalfi.

 Yum....lunch. Oink Oink!

These beautiful shiny copper lights were hanging in the cafe where we had lunch.

 Here's Andy.

 After lunch, we left Amalfi and drove back up to Pompeii. We took a route over the hills, did not re-drive that same windy road. This is Pompeii and that is Mt Vesuvius in the background.

 The city was covered in ash in 79 AD and is only 1/3 recovered at this time.

 Real bones of a real man/woman who was stopped dead in his/her tracks by the volcano.

 Real teeth, yep!

 We were back at our hotel in time to watch another beautiful sunset.

 The bus took us to town for dinner on our own and some shopping. It was a Friday night, so the folks were all out and about. This is such a great place, Sorrento.

 I had the ravioli and a cocktail.

 Kathy had fish topped with pomegranate and corn. She raved about it.

 We had the front row table outside.

 All I can say is WOW, what a vacation!

Saturday morning we headed to Sorrento's Harbor to depart to the Island of Capri, by fast boat.

 The ladies were attempting to gather the menfolk for a photo of them. The guys were getting a little rowdy.

 On the boat to the island.

 Capri harbor.

 Then on to another bus to the top of the Island to a town called Anacapri.

 Capri is known for its handmade sandals. They sure were beautiful and expensive.

 The Limoncello store!! I had a brilliant idea to have a Limoncello party on our last night, outside on the veranda after dinner. Well, it poured rain, and by then everyone was beat. Everyone had purchased a special Limoncello glass for that night. We ended up having the Limoncello the very last night of the entire trip. It was worth the wait.

 We took a funicular down the hill to Capri. That was fun. Of course we sang the song.

 Back to the boat and back to Sorrento.

On the way back we stopped at a wood factory.

 Salute! my little Limoncello cup. We had dinner at the hotel in Sorrento.

 Sunday, October 14th. 7:30 am departure by coach to Florence. I believe it was about a 6 hour drive. We stopped along the way.

 Stopped at a Cameo store where they hand carve beautiful cameos and sell coral jewelry. I bought a coral ring.

 The countryside was beautiful.

 Got lucky with this shot out the bus window.

 Along the hillsides were Medieval villages.

 We stopped at Orvieto. Perched on a plateau of tufa rock, with the outline of its world famous Duomo visible for miles around, the city of Orvieto has adapted to the needs of the modern day tourist by transforming itself into a car-free haven. We took a funicular up to the city.

 The heart of Orvieto is the Piazza del Duomo, onto which look the town's most important public buildings and the facade of the Duomo, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture with it polychrome marble inlays and dazzling mosiacs.

 Inside the cathedral is the San Brizio Chapel. Unfortunately we were not allowed to photographic inside, but it truly was so beautiful.

 The town square with cafes and shops all around.

 Group photo.

 On the way to Florence. This is Tuscany.

Next stop Florence. Whew, I'm exhausted.
Kathy