Emma asked me if it got cold here. Well one time it got down to 45 degrees in the morning and that felt pretty cold for here. And one day it was only 58 degrees in the day so that felt cold. But yes you are right not like 20 degrees in Utah, and Idaho. But today is 70 degrees and sunny. We had about one week of rainy weather. I know most people do not like having rain but California has been in a drought for about 7 years and no one can water their yards or flowers and very restricted on what water they use. But then they had one week of rain and it flooded some areas but also filled most of the lakes and reservoirs. But California did not save all the water and some ran off into the ocean. Well of course not just water ran off but also the mud with it. So for about another week after all the rain the ocean had about 100 feet into it where the water was brown from all the mud being washed into it. So when the waves came in it looked like hot chocolate and whipped cream washing up!!There were no people in swimming then. It was not dangerous but just not fun to swim in muddy water. Then now it is all back to nice clear water. Oh also when the mud and rain washed into the ocean there were also trees and branches and wood chips. So now there is more of that stuff floating in the water. But the water is still clear in most areas.

This is some of the wood that floated to the shore so people are building fun little huts. This would make a nice big fire on the beach.

We went on a walk on the beach Saturday and saw lots of people walking dogs and even some people riding their bikes and had the dogs in baskets or a baby stroller, not having the dogs walk. But then we saw 2 goats!! Taking the goats for a walk!

We see lots of people taking their surf boards to the beach, but most of them come in cars and trucks with the boards on top. We also see people on bikes carrying their boards. I just thought it was fun to see this man riding his bike with his surf board on the side. He actually had hooks on the side to carry it. Another man had his just in his arm while riding his bike.

A couple weeks ago we went down to the Getty Museum and this is one of the areas. He had a huge area where he wanted it to be like the Roman era and had pools of water and fountains statutes of people. Some of the things he got from doing archelogy digs and digging up statutes from where the volcano erupted in Pompeii.

Not sure if you can tell from this picture but this is way up on a hill so the buildings in the back ground is the Los Angeles city and the highway with 6 lanes of cars going both directions. This is a garden area of cactus plants.

Grandpa and I were just being a little silly making shadow images on a wall.  2 headed sillies!!

This is a friend of mine, Sabina who is in our ward. She invites us to come to her home. It is a small one bedroom trailer and she is from Peru. She was married but her husband died last year and they had no children. She is a wonderful lady and always so kind to me, and gives me hugs every Sunday when she sees me at church. We go to her home, and we talk and she likes to cook Peruvian food for us. Then I help her with her computer- how to print out pictures, how to down load them from her camera to her computer, how to send a picture, all that stuff. She was very scared one day when she wanted me to get some pictures from her camera to put on her computer but there was no memory card in the camera so only a few pictures. Well I gave her my memory card to use but then by the time I was doing other things on her computer I saw her memory card and she was so thankful because there were the only pictures he had of her husband. So we found them and saved them for her and printed them out. So it was a good day!

Sabina wanted our picture too so she took our picture.

Grandpa is super busy on the phone many days. He has the office phone where the car shops who are fixing our mission cars call and he gives them the authority to fix or repair the car and then the missionaries call him in the office or on his cell phone so I had to take a picture of him while on hold with one phone answered the cell phone and talked to the missionary.  Of course he had to be a bit silly for the picture. But he does work with both phones every day.  Sometimes I answer his cell phone while he is busy on the office phone.

Jon and Summer, Josie and Wyatt came down to California for a few days. We went down to Long Beach to see them and spend the day. They actually went to Disneyland the next day. It would have been fun to go with them, but maybe another year. Josie got a cute haircut, and Wyatt is walking and growing much more. Goes up and down stairs and likes to explore. They came down from Oregon on a train which was a long ride and slept on the train.  Fun to see them again.

We went to a sea shell shop and saw this beautiful coral.

We are getting ready for our Self Reliance Devotional coming up in 2 weeks. March 26^th. There were about 200 invitations sent out to come that evening and they will be able to sign up for classes to help them get a better education for work,  finding a better job, starting their own business or improving finances. So we are hoping 80-100 people come. We have papers, pens, name tags, booklets, and all sorts of things ready for a big group. We have a power point presentation and videos all set! So hope some show up! But we will have classes for the next 3 months for those who want to attend those classes.

We give talks in another ward this Sunday and that will be 7 out of the 8 wards in our stake. The other ward is a Spanish speaking ward so we would not do well in that one. Smile

love you all and miss you!

mom