Random Days & Friends over the Holidaze

In Japanese: BONENKAI!  An end of the year party. With some of the great women I've gotten to play tennis with!!! Betsy from Santa Cruz, Lisa from Australia, Val from England, (me) and Polly from Louisiana? with the SOUTHERN twang! xoxox

Hey, and then the 23rd...THAT'S how I got Zen to smile- "for my BIRTHDAY!"

Christmas Eve, Grandmom, Uncle Lynn, his wife Lorraine, her daughter Grace came for sushi dinner.

December 28th-30th we spent most of the time in San Francisco. Zen's High School team had a tournament there. One of those nights Taka and I got to spend at Jeff's!
 In Jeff's new house which he's been renovating~ It was the BEST!

Going to the corner, not even half a block away from his house, we can look to the right and see the ocean at the end of the road.

AND Jeff cooked GUMBO for us~ In his spankin' new kitchen!

I love men who can cook! Like they say, the way to one's heart is through the tummy.

By the way, we met Jeff the first time in Japan, and only since then usually only at reggae events. So this was fantastic to catch up with him in S.F., which is ONLY an hour and a half from Santa Cruz. I'm sorry it wasn't sooner~ but then again, the timing was good with the comfy home (and bed!!!)

So, back to business! Before our boys LEFT for San Fran they had this shooting practice, but mainly they had to write notes...which the Coach had for them about the first team they were to face in the tournament.

And it was an incredible game. One I've copied to send to colleges for Zen. He played incredibly and his team won by ONE point.

Zen did get his new sneakers in time for this tournament!!!

Lookit~ MY foot next to his shiny, new equipement.

The boys do seem to get in some good stretching

Zen did get ALL TOURNAMENT! Meaning voted out of eight teams...the top 10-14? players.

Lastly we got to have lunch with Mako and Gerhardt from Oregon, in SF for the GratefulDead-(that's 'minus') -Garcia..."Further" they go to every New Year's! AND not only see them, but follow them to another new friend's home we never had the opportunity to go to~ Junko and Mark's

many FRIENDS and FRIENDS of FRIENDS!!! Not only them but we also caught up with Victor and Eiko, Aria and Rue AND Nalu and Kaya in SF...crazy!!! AND FULL ON!!!

And my Beloved~(the photographer) with me through it all! Taka-my-hero!