On the Road with Benny & Sparky: Celebrating the Holidays in California

Happily we have been busy, busy, busy! It has been a while since my last blog post so I will try to catch up here…

On December 17th we finally found ourselves back in the great state of California after a lovely time in the beautiful green (rainy) state of Oregon. We spent a few more nights camping along the route before we got to the *MiniMassie Home in Mission Viejo on Tuesday, December 21st. We had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas with all of our kids, grandkids and their extended families. We headed north on December 27th and spent one night at Bonelli Bluffs RV Resort before arriving at The Thomson home in Covina on the 28th. While there we celebrated New Year’s Eve (okay, in all honesty we were pretty much all in bed by 10:00 pm!) and enjoyed spending time with Cheryl and Jack. It was great for all 4 of us to have dinner with cousins, Susie and Jaime Carranza on New Year’s Day. After five nights with the Thomson’s, we left on Sunday, January 2nd with Joshua Tree National Park in our sights.

*Dan, Claire, Lexi & Ellie

“Sparky” frosted over in Redding on our first morning back in California. This has been a cold trip so far - but hey, it is Winter!

The drive past ancient vineyards on our way to our next Harvest Host stay in Lodi, CA.

We really enjoyed the large field that “Jessie’s Grove Winery” in Lodi offers to Harvest Host guests. They can accommodate up to 15 rigs but there were only 3 of us the night we stayed.

Doing our best to comply with the Harvest Host request that we spend at the host business what we might have spent on a camping site. This was a very tasty red flight and the prices here were amazing!

Mark loved his dessert wine flight.

Jessie’s Grove property was so interesting. It has a long history and many of the grapevines are over 150 years old. They also have some very old farm machinery around the property. I asked Mark to pose with this Massey-Ferguson Tractor.

There were lots of sweet animals on the property including this smiling goat.

The view from the kitchen window of our RV

I felt a little ignorant of the fact that the Lodi area has so many wineries and so many of them are quite old and well-established.

Our next stop on our trip south was at Lindy’s Landing Campground in Reedley on the Kings River.

Selfie by the river

Our final night before we got to the MiniMassie’s was at the Valencia Travel Village. We decided to take Sparky through a car wash and then we headed to a huge mall to do some window shopping. While we were there we took this photo of our reflection in one of the giant ornaments on a big Christmas tree. We ended our evening with a delicious dinner at Wood Ranch Grill. It was a nice break from all the time we have been spending in the RV.

On Tuesday, December 21 we finally made it to one of our favorite “campsites” - the MiniMassie driveway! The first order of business for me was to get my Christmas cards in the mail. I had a fabulous and hard-working helper in Ellie!

Ellie also helped us with some Christmas grocery shopping. Dan and Claire generously fed all 11+ of us for the better part of a week so we offered to cover a few of the meals. It was so much fun to have Ellie join us at the market - she did ask for a few items but I was impressed with her healthy choices! She asked for a small container of grape tomatoes and ate all of them as a snack when we got back home.

A friend gave the Massie family a fun basket of goodies and Ellie made a hat of the container! (BTW, this is a rare smiling photo of Ellie who usually refuses to have her picture taken.)

Christmas in Mission Viejo

Benny in the MiniMassie driveway

Notice our tiny lighted and decorated Christmas tree in the window of the RV. I made little ornaments using my beads and jewelry supplies. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

On Wednesday Dan, Claire, Lexi, Ellie, Mark and I went to Knott’s Berry Farm. I cannot remember the last time we were there! We had the pleasure of seeing and hearing the MiniMassies’ dear friend Lisa Taylor (in green) sing in front of the hotel in Frontier Town.

Lexi, Dan, Ellie and Claire

Our beautiful oldest granddaughter, Lexi. She has a style all her own and we love it!

“Papa” Lexi and “Birdie”

Daughter and father, Lexi and Dan

“Papa” Ellie, Lexi and “Birdie”

Claire, Ellie (who does not like her picture taken), Lexi and “Birdie”

Mark with his dates at Knott’s Berry Farm

Annual tradition - puzzles! This was a great one.

Our grandpuppy, “Rawley” was missing his family, the MiniBergs (Kyle, Kelly, Andrew, Owenn and Wess) who were at Disneyland for three nights. Mark is consoling him. He is such a sweet guy (well, they both are!)

We had lots of rain in Mission Viejo. Here is a view from the kitchen window into the backyard at the MiniMassie home.

Another of my Christmas traditions is to make sugar cookies and have the grandkids decorate them. This year we did gluten-free chocolate chip cookies and the kids still had fun decorating.

Lexi and Wess decorated the most cookies.

Here are the beautifully decorated (and quite tasty) cookies!

The five grandkids on Christmas Eve ~ Wess, Lexi, Ellie, Andrew and Owenn

Santa had lots of stockings to fill.

Here is our other grandpuppy, “Zinnia.” She is a member of the MiniMassie family.

Ellie fell in love with this hat at Knott’s Berry Farm and was so happy to receive it on Christmas morning. She hardly took it off the rest of the time we were there.

Of course we had to have our family’s traditional cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning.

Kyle also made his family’s traditional Kringler on Christmas Day ~ yum!

Claire made the delicious Serbian bread called, Priesnac. Our family has renamed it “Cheese Brownies!” OMG ~ they are amazing! (Feel free to ask for the recipe. If you have our cookbook, “Recipes and Memories,” it is included there.)

Everyone had fun with arts and crafts.

After we finished the bird puzzle, we started building a 3-D boat puzzle. Apparently, this is a ship from a Harry Potter book.

Ellie and Lexi made a wonderful trifle for dessert.

On December 26th, we all went to The Laguna Playhouse to watch (and experience) a fun melodrama play. Robin Hood was set to 70’s disco music. We all had a great time cheering and booing!

What fun around the table eating Dan’s yummy Hambone Stew.

After dinner we played the kids’ always requested, all-time favorite family game ~ “Telephone!” They just love this! Here are Andrew and Ellie.

Ellie passing along the phrase to Wess

And Wess sharing with Owenn

Owenn is telling “Nana” (Toddy) what he heard

Now Toddy is sharing with Dan

Dan whispering in Claire’s ear

I wonder what Claire is telling Kelly?

Kelly passing along the message to Kyle

Now it’s Kyle’s turn to tell Mark

And then Mark tells me!

Ellie received some wonderful paint pens, tiny canvasses and a blank wood cabinet. This is what she did in just one day!

I love this blossom on the vine near the entry to Dan and Claire’s home.

Zinnie modeling her “ugly sweater!” It was actually quite cute.

Wess, Claire, Owenn, Kelly, Kyle Lexi, Ellie, Dan, Robin, Mark, Andrew & Rawley the dog

I always request a family photo when we have all 11 of us together and I always get push back, so this year I told everyone that they could wear whatever they want and nobody would tell them to comb their hair or anything else. This was the result. I think it is a very good representation of our family. A couple of the kids chose to stay in their PJs, a few are without shoes (I wore my slippers!) Ellie preferred showing off her hat to showing off her adorable face.

Back Row: Dave, Kyle, Dan, Mark

Middle Row: Wess, Kelly, Claire, Ellie, Andrew, Owenn, Toddy, Robin

Front Row: Lexi, Stan (Zinnia the dog)

This photo includes all of us who spent Christmas Eve and Christmas together. Dave is Kyle’s brother. Toddy is Claire’s mom. Stan is Claire’s dad.

Standing: Claire, Dan, Ellie, Mark, Robin, Toddy

Seated: Lexi holding Zinnia, Stan

We realized this was the first time in a long time that all of the grandparents were together.

“Birdie,” Lexi (with Zinnia), “Papa,” Ellie, “Jedo,” & “Nana”

The girls with all of their grandparents

Wess (10), Owenn (10), Lexi (13), Ellie (9), Andrew (12)

Birdie and Papa with all five grandchildren

We left the MiniMassie home on Monday, December 27th and spent one night at Bonelli Bluffs RV Resort in San Dimas. It was a lovely park-like setting and might be a nice place for a family gathering.

A glimpse of Puddingstone Lake from the campground

We spent five nights at Cheryl and Jack’s home in Covina and while I didn’t get many photos I did take a few of us on the sidewalk in Irwindale waiting for the Rose Parade floats to make their New Years Eve trip from where they were built to Pasadena. Here are Mark, Cheryl and Jack.