The holiday season was almost upon us but first I met with Matthew and Devon Cottle who came for the Princeton tour.

Then it was time to catch the flight to San Diego where this was my meal.

Once in San Diego and with a quiet day (haircut, lunch at Coco's, games of Ohell, ... ) in San Diego behind us, we headed to the Salk Institute where we had a physicist take these group photos though he didn't seem to understand light transport

After one more picture We headed off to Coronado Island and after parking the car, found our way to the entrance and beyond to this sign denoting this tree and then inside to the large tree that everyone was photographing before we made our way through the hotel to the back side where the human Zamboni was sweeping the ice in the skating rink (it was only 65 degrees that day) and then on to the beach with Dan and the views back to the hotel with Suzanne on the beach as Ben made his way so that Suzanne and Ben could pose for me before we went back and found this delightful bench where Suzanne and Sylvia then Ben then Suzanne and Sylvia and increasing groups of all of us posed occasionally interrupted by a passerby who wanted to take a group photo and so we obliged for these many photos

Next thing we knew, Suzanne had found Audrey and so I took this photo of Cara, Joel and Ben and then Ben took these pictures of me exploring Joel's new camera before we headed back to La Jolla and Ben and Suzanne posed with Mr. Claus before we headed to the Chinese restaurant for our holiday dinner and started with this Chinesse beer as Alan Cara Joel Ben Dansyl Audrey and Suzanne and I waited for the soups to come so that my hot and sour could be served along with the shrimp beef with broccoli chicken vegetarian and sweet and sour dishes along with rice tofu and the other 2 dishes whose identity I do not remember.

The next day, we went out to Rancho Bernardo to visit Anne as Ben Dan Rob and I engaged chatted with Anne perhaps about the beauty of these grapes before people began to assemble for these group photos

after which we admired the bag from the 99 cent store and eventually went back to dinner at home in La Jolla.

The next morning, we gathered for the train ride north to Fullerton

and as we passed this scenery Ben and Suzanne were prepared for more scenery

before Larry met us at the train and took us home to see his computer before we went to the Mexican Grill and as Suzanne and Ben read the menu and I recorded the menu of tamales and the menu of food we had our drinks our fruit salad our chips and salsa and our main courses

before the afternoon's activities, the trip to the movies to see Blind Side and finally a visit to Pizza Mania to have the world's best pizza.

The next day we walked to the international headquarters of StopLook Sign which had been fouled by graffiti writers and then decided to take an excursion to the Claremont Colleges where at Harvey Mudd we saw the admissions office and this interesting sign about student consumption of alcohol and after exploring the colleges and mapping Claremont McKenna we made our way to a local arboretum we we recorded the growth sometimes noting what we were seeing and even as we were observing we were learning about cultivars and after a few more photos we saw Benjamin Pond (a peer to Walden Pond, no doubt) where Ben posed and then Ben and I posed together before heading back to observe some more plantings

and recording this sign that would remind us where we were.

Back in La Habra, we had the traditional dinner at El Cholo where Ben and Larry Suzanne Larry and Janet and I began with chips and dip and then proceeded to our main meals before sending Larry off to deal with the challenges of fabricating 100,000 pounds of plastic.