Family Dinner

Sunday December 13, 1992

Prayer is answered. I awake feeling good. We're ready to go to Phil and Deb's about 10:00. We read the Sunday paper and leave about 11:00. We are first to arrive. We visit with Dee and Deb. Phil and Steve have gone to Pick up Frank's folks in L.A. They arrive about 1 p.m. Paul & Judy & Tayler arrive about 2 p.m.

We have a nice lasagna dinner about 3 p.m. We open gifts. Steve & Dee must leave early to pick up a friend at the airport from Australia. We stay until 5:30. Stop in Simi for a hamburger.

Donna and Bob arrive about 10 p.m. We talk until 12:30 a.m. I feel real good.

This is the first time I have heard of a Reina Family Reunion. It sounds like Frank's oldest son Philip and his wife Debbie hosted the early Christmas dinner in Palmdale. How nice! It must have been somewhat difficult to get everyone together as Frank's parents lived near Los Angeles Airport 70 miles away and needed a ride, and Delores (Dee), Frank's daughter, and her husband Steve, lived in San Diego, 170 miles away. For Mom and Frank to travel from Simi Valley was only 60 miles, about a one-hour drive. Frank's youngest son Paul and his wife Judy lived right there in Palmdale.

What a busy day for Mom. I am so glad she is feeling better. It sounds like Dr. Semrad was right about her tumors shrinking and the fluid in her abdomen being gone. For her to have such a long busy day and be up past midnight visiting with her best friend from Pollock Pines, she must have been feeling great. Praise God!

Cherry Picking in Leona Valley

Wednesday June 24, 1992

Up at 7 to leave at 9 a.m. with Jim and Shirley to pick up Robin and Delores in Mission Hills and drive to Leona Valley to pick cherries. It's a long crowded ride with six big people in our car. We go up through Bouquet Canyon, but come home from Palmdale. When we get to Leona Valley we get a map of all the cherry pickin places. We find a place to pick apricots also. The lady at the place where we pick cherries is really nice to us and we stay awhile to visit. We stop for lunch where we got the maps, a small hometown restaurant. We have great hamburgers and peanut butter pie.

We are home by 3 p.m. so at 7 p.m. we go to a movie and then come home to have dinner and watch TV.

I have had terribly gas and pains all day. It's probably all the new vitamins I'm taking.

And I'm thinking it was probably too many cherries and apricots! I had never heard of Leona Valley, but looked it up on-line and saw that it's on Elizabeth Lake Road near Palmdale. When I was a teenager my parents often took my brother and I to Elizabeth Lake or Lake Hughes, both of which were in that area of Leona Valley. I remember lots of signs for cherry picking. The fact that Leona Valley has maps of the cherry farms almost makes it sound like wine country where I live and you can get maps to hundreds of different wineries.

My dad liked Lake Hughes so much that he and his second wife actually bought a cabin there many years ago as a weekend getaway.

Newport Dunes

Friday May 15, 1992

Alarm goes off at 6:30. I had forgotten what a dreadful sound that is! I'm too tired. We take 20 minutes to rise. By 9 a.m. we are ready to leave. Frank calls Robbie. They're ready too, so we leave 1/2 hour early to meet for breakfast at Millie's in Mission Hills. We have a great breakfast and are on the road with our trailers by 11 a.m.

We arrive about 12:30 at Newport Dunes, a beautiful RV park 1/2 mile from Balboa Island. We have all day to see the area on our bicycles. Then we drive out on Balboa Island and take the ferry to Balboa. It's nothing like I remember as a teenager. It's crowded with expensive homes and boats.

We have steak dinner with Robbie and Delores in our trailer. Our friends begin to arrive about 7:30. By 10:00 all 9 are here. I felt really good all day today, even riding the bikes.

I have never been to Newport Beach, which is a coastal community in Orange County, Southern California, but did a little research on the town, which has a population of approximately 85,000 and a median home price of $1 million. Definitely, a place for the rich and famous! Where I live in Northern California a comparable community might be Sausalito or Tiburon in Marin County.

The campground where they stayed looks just beautiful, right on the water with a nice sandy beach, swimming lagoon and marina. At $225/night for their current summer rate the place is too pricey for my camping budget. I hope they got a group rate!

I Have a Terrible Cough

Sunday January 19, 1992

Up early. We must check out at 12:00. We visit a bit and pull out about noon and arrive home about 2 p.m. I have a terrible cough today so decline a last group walk to the beach in the morning. We also decline to stop for lunch with the group in Camarillo because we are going to a potluck tonight at Turners.

Once home I hurry to make an El Dorado casserole for tonight, then lay down to rest. My chest and back hurt.

We arrive at the Turners with Robbie and Delores about 6 p.m. There are 12 of us from our square dance club. The food is great! Everyone but me square dances to records and tapes. I enjoy watching, feeling too punk from my cough to participate.

No chance here of Mom turning down a social engagement, even when she's feeling "punk".