Our Year in Review: 2015

In thinking back on 2015, I have to say that Vladi and I had a pretty good year. Around the New Year, I like to look over things that help me remember what we did and although I didn't record a lot on my calendar, when I started looking through my pictures, I was surprised by how much we did this year (and I'm so glad that we took a lot of pictures). There were a few things that didn't get recorded photographically but I will try to include all the important stuff in my narrative. We started out January with Vladi on disability from a fall he took in October of 2014. He dislocated his thumb but it took the doctors a couple of months to figure that out. He had surgery on it in February of 2015. After surgery, the pain persisted and after several months, it was determined that he had arthritis in the joint and he probably will not recover full use of his hand. He is still on disability a year later and we are playing a waiting game to find out what happens next as far as his work is concerned. Also in January, my friend Cathy went into the hospital, where she was in intensive care for over 6 months after she had breast cancer surgery. She amazed everyone by recovering from a very serious condition. The hospital she was in for most of the time she was hospitalized is within a few blocks of my house, so as soon as I cleared it with her family to visit her, I tried to be there as often as I could to read to her and sit with her. I met her wonderful Mom, Janet, and got to know her as we sat with Cathy. I am really grateful that I was able to do that. And I'm amazed and delighted that Cathy is making such incredible progress in her road back to health.

As you can see in this picture, along with Vladi and my "I support Cathy" bracelets, we also continued to wear our "fitbits", in the hopes of tracking our steps and motivating us to get more exercise. 

One of our favorite activities is taking our dogs different places for walks. We started our year, 1/1/15 by taking Zuli (we didn't have our 2nd dog yet) to Venice Beach, CA. and walking around the neighborhood canals.

On a trip to the dog park that month, we met Bella, the first of Zuli's siblings (from a different litter) that we would meet this year. We subsequently met 2 of her other siblings later on.

On my birthday, Vladi and I traded in our 2 year old light blue Prius V for a new red one. A couple of months later, we traded in his Avalon for a new white Prius. So in April, we had 2 new cars in our driveway.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. In February, we celebrated Valentine's day with a trip to Carpenteria with Zuli. We walked around the town and then had a nice meal at a place called Nutberry, which had an outdoor table where Zuli made herself comfortable. . . and spilled all her water. 

Also in February, Vladi and I attended an estate planning seminar with Vanguard Legal Group and got all our affairs sorted out so that if anything happens to either or both of us, our stuff will be passed down with the least amount of hassle and expense. It is an ongoing process for us to decide where to be laid to rest but we are thinking about it long and hard.

In March, our favorite beach, Rincon, looked like this: 

It seemed like every time we went to the beach this year, the landscape looked different. One time it would be covered with rocks, another time, the rocks would all be gone. It made us appreciate the power of the ocean. . . 

We were excited by how our avocado tree looked in March. We thought for sure we would get a great crop this year. But alas, we were disappointed. We got nary a one avocado. Hopefully, next year.

Mid-March, I got to attend a baby shower where I got to take some silly pictures with my daughter and our dear friends, Cher and Lael. It was great fun to see a lot of old friends.

Christy had a rough start to her year but by March she was doing a lot better and she found a job (at the Brat Haus) and a home in Santa Barbara, CA. It is one of our favorite places to visit and she is thriving there. 

At the end of March, she celebrated her 29th birthday at a wine garden in Malibu with us and a few of her friends.

April was a big month. Along with getting our 2nd new car, we made several trips to the beach. And toward the end of the month, we were anticipating visits from the north (Ben) and from the east (my niece, Jessica and family.) We had a most wonderful time with some of our favorite people. We made another trip to the Brat Haus, but this time Ben and Christy ate with us.

We made a trip to the beach with Ben. 

And when Jessica arrived with her kids, Vladi was a big hit. 

We had a gathering of family including my sister, Barb and her husband Dennis, my sister Samantha, my brother Randy, and several of Jessica's friends from when she grew up here in So. Cal. Everyone had a great time. Some people came later in the day so not everyone is in this pic. 

The next day, it was time to introduce Jack to the beach. Jessica had 2 different cameras going. She is a master at recording memories! Jack was quite intrigued.

Their visit was definitely one of the highlights of our year. 

And that was the day we took a couple of my favorite pictures: I love this one of me and my precious girl. 

And this one of me and my sweetheart:

 Oh yeah, and the last day of April was when we took this little guy home. . . 

We met him on our favorite beach. It was destiny. 

In May, we got Roscoe neutered.

May and June were all about getting to know our new pup and taking our babies on outings to the beach. or just hanging out with them at home. 

June was also the month I got to reconnect with my little sister Maureen. After my mother died when I was 2, Lenora and Jack Webb took me in as my father sorted out how to raise us on his own. The Webbs hoped to adopt me but my dad wanted to bring all his children back together eventually so he did not allow them to adopt me. They were able to adopt a different baby girl the next year, however, and that girl was Maureen. I was with the Webb family until I was 8 years old (6 years) but when I returned to my biological family I lost touch with them, although Lenora and Maureen attended my first bridal shower when I was 21. Many years passed before something made me think about Maureen one day and I decided to look for her on Facebook. I think I found her very soon after she joined the site. We have since been catching up with each other and although we haven't spent a lot of time in each other's physical company, I am hoping that we get more of a chance to do that in the coming years. We have much to talk about. So far, we had one glorious day together at her home in Newport Beach. 

In July, we made a trip to Alameda (near San Francisco) to celebrate our grandbaby Gideon's 1st birthday. It was fun spending some time with the Singer family. Aside from the birthday party in the park where we met some of Adam & Olya's friends (with lots of babies), we spent a little time at their house where Gideon played with his new toys and I got to read him a book and make animal noises for him. It was fun getting down on the floor and making him laugh. We also went to a petting zoo, where he wasn't too keen on the animals (to be fair, they were all pretty big). Since the petting zoo was in a pretty area, we took a nice walk. And then we had lunch at a cool deli where Gideon seemed right at home. 

Around midsummer, I started taking hour and a half lunches from work so that I could come home and walk our dogs in the morning because I was having trouble doing it after work (because of the heat and I was too tired). I am happy to say that I have been pretty consistent in doing that at least 3 days a week. I hope to do even better this year and up my average to at least 4.

 

In August, we got together at the dog park with a couple of Zuli's siblings (from different litters but same parents). That's me and Zuli, Susanna and Sadie, Monica and Bella, and Ranee with Enzo. Bella and Enzo were from the same litter. Zuli was before them and Sadie was after. 

On August 21st Vladi and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. When we were trying to think of something fun to do that day, we discovered a website called UrbanAdventureQuest. We wanted to go to Santa Barbara and do something different than we normally do. This website gave us the perfect activity. It's kind of like a scavenger hunt where you collect clues and get points. You see things in a place that you wouldn't normally pay attention to. You learn a little history and have a fun time in the process. It's available for a bunch of different cities and we have since done 3 more of them. I think Santa Barbara was my favorite so far. We had a wonderful day.

This was another trip to Rincon in August.

And this was a hike in Wildwood after we got ourselves some hiking boots. 

In September we took the dogs to Santa Barbara with us. There are many beautiful places to walk there and in the summer there is an art fair every weekend so it's fun to walk along and look at all the stuff the very creative people come up with. Our babies are so cute, aren't they? 

We had a couple of special days in October. To celebrate Vladi's birthday, we got tickets to see the LA Galaxy play the Portland Timbers in the last game of the regular MLS season. The Galaxy got killed 7-2 but the Portland Timber's momentum carried them on to win the MLS cup for the year. And since Ben lives in Portland, I'm okay with that. 

We attended the Bass family's annual Halloween Party the weekend before Halloween. The Pope had been so much in the news that we got our costume ideas from that. We put them together with a few things from our costume box and a few purchases from the Good Will store. They came out well enough that I even won the "best costume" prize. 

In November, Vladi and I attended a Memorial for a girl named Karen that I used to work with who passed away very unexpectedly. A lot of my past and present coworkers were there. Karen was remembered for her uniqueness and bawdy sense of humor. She will be missed.

A few days later I got this picture on my morning walk on Veteran's Day. Our neighborhood was decked out! 

We captured this shot of the way our dogs like to sleep.

And on the 10th anniversary of when we met (11/21) Vladi and I did another UrbanAdventureQuest at the Getty Center. Another fun day but I was tired and hungry toward the end and got a little cranky . . .

Olya, Adam and Gideon visited us the day after Thanksgiving and we had a nice dinner at Ali Baba's Cafe in Simi Valley. Olya and Adam say it's hard to find good Mediterranean food near them so they really enjoyed it. (We did too.)

And finally, in December, Vladi lit his beautiful menorah in honor of Hannukah.

On another of our walks in Santa Barbara, we saw this beautiful Christmas tree on the pier with a backdrop of sailboats and a rainbow. Even though it rained on us a bit, it was again, a wonderful day.

I don't have any pictures of our Christmas celebration but Vladi, Christy and I had our annual Eggs Benedict breakfast with Richard, Cher, Lael and Tommy. After all the years we've been doing it, we have it coordinated pretty well now with each of us preparing part of it ahead of time and then putting it all together at the end. It turned out great! And after we ate, we went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens at the Muvico theater. Had a fun time even though the seats I bought ahead of time turned out to be in the 4th row. A little too close, but we survived. 


In summation, 2015 treated us pretty well. Other than the pain in Vladi's hand we don't have any other major health issues. Our kids are all healthy and making progress in life. We have 2 wonderful dogs that make us smile with their antics every day. We look forward to many more adventures with them. And we look forward to a resolution to Vladi's disability issue in the coming year. Hopefully he can retire and I can start looking into retiring myself. Stay tuned . . .