Southern California, Dec 2024–Jan 2025
It was time for our annual trip to Southern California to join my family in making mochi for the New Year. Because Kellen, Brady, Tynor, and Mallory joined us, we also stayed to celebrate New Year's Day with my family. In between the two, we packed in a lot of activity.
Friday, 27-Dec
Our travel day began with Tynor and Mallory catching an early flight from North Carolina, where they spent Christmas with Mallory's family. After grabbing lunch in South Coast Plaza (I had taken them there earlier in the year), they made their way to our rental hoe to check things out.
In the meantime, the rest of us made our way south from Seattle and joined them. We all settled in and then headed out to dinner.
We went to Porto's, both for dinner and for us to pick up pastries to take to mochitsuki. I think the kids kind of knew what to expect, but the scale of the building, crowds, and food selection seemed to still surprise them. They did a good job of covering several items from the menu to get a good idea of the various things offered there.
As we were eating, our cousin Rachel appeared, and while we were chatting, her parents also showed up. They had the same idea of taking things from Porto's to mochitsuki, but fortunately, we were taking different things.
Saturday, 28-Dec
For the first time, mochitsuki was held in the social hall of a church, rather than a family member's garage. We had lots of space instead of trying to cram everything into a garage, and the commercial kitchen was great to get lunch ready.
Another first for this mochitsuki was having my own batch of rice. My cousin Alice said she would wash rice for me. Brady made the anko (red bean paste) and formed them into balls.
I had my normal task of cutting the cooked, ground rice into blobs that get formed into mochi. Kellen ended up cranking the machine, and Tynor made sure the rice flowed smoothly into the machine. Melody, Brady, and Mallory formed both plain and an mochi, as well as doing other tasks as needed.
Since this was Mallory's first mochitsuki, a few of us had mentioned that she should try a freshly made mochi. I think she heard it enough that there was the danger we were overhyping it, but she did agree that it was very good.
After all the mochi was made, we had lunch. There was a lot of food, both lunch and dessert. There was enough left over for people to take home generous amounts.
When everything was cleaned up, we headed out to Downey to take a look at my parents' house and how the new owners had remodeled it. It was great to see the house one more time and that the new owners really cared about it.
The next stop was to look at the Downey Rose Float Association's entry for this year's Tournament of Roses Parade. This year's float featured an operational train that people were going to ride while the float went along the parade route.
For dinner, we went to the Anaheim Packing District, which is a large food hall. We each got dessert at the patisserie there.
Sunday, 29-Dec
This was our day to spend in Long Beach, but since we weren't leaving until after lunch, Melody, Kellen, and I went over to Mile Square Park in the morning to take a walk. We went by an archery range and a couple of ponds. The fog was very heavy, but fortunately it had lifted enough to get a good look around.
Our lunch consisted of leftovers, then we headed out to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. It had been probably a decade since I had been there, so it was fun to see the changes, such as the moon jelly touch pool.
Melody and I went over to my Aunt Frances' house to pick her up for dinner. We then met the kids at The Hangar at the Long Beach Exchange, the former McDonnell Douglas site. We then spread out to get dinner, once again covering several options. While all of our food was good, the standout was the onigiri from Tenori, especially the one with pork belly.
After dinner, we walked over to Handel's to get ice cream. I had warned the others that a small was a lot of ice cream, and even then they seemed surprised when I showed them. After ice cream, Melody and I took my aunt back before heading back to the rental.
Monday, 30-Dec
This was a split day. The kids spent all of it at Disneyland. They seemed to have a great time, and Kellen and Brady even made their own light sabers.
Melody and I met with my cousin Liddy for a walk and breakfast. In the afternoon, we hung out at a coffee shop for a while, then grabbed some dinner at a grocery store.
Tuesday, 31-Dec
We all headed out in the morning to Griffith Park. Melody and I left a little early so she could do some hiking while I walked up the hill from the Greek Theater to meet everyone else when they got off the shuttle. After that, some of us started walking up towards Mt. Hollywood, which gave us great views of the Hollywood sign. I went a bit further up to get a better view of the observatory, but it was a bit hard to see through the fog.
Just before I got to the upper observation point, Melody was walking down, so she went back up with me. We then went to the observatory to start looking around. Brady had picked up tickets to the planetarium, so we all met up at the appointed time and watched the show.
Since it wasn't too much longer to wait, we stayed until the next time they lit up the Tesla coil, which I hadn't seen since I was a kid.
We then drove to a gelato store, but it had closed early. We then decided to pick up dinner at a food hall near where we were staying; as far as we could tell, they were still open. Unfortunately, the food hall was closed, so we all went to the store to grab something to take back to the house to eat. Tynor and Mallory had picked up a bottle of Prosecco, so we all celebrated the New Year.
Wednesday, 1-Jan
It was a lazy morning for us, but we did turn on the TV to see at least a little bit of the Rose Parade. We then drove over to the cemetery to see my parents' graves. While we were there, I also showed everyone other family members who were in the cemetery. After that, we drove to my cousin Roger's house where family was gathering.
As soon as we arrived, we were offered bowls of ozoni, then got in line for lunch. A little later my cousin Bob joined us on a walk to Don Knabe Regional Community Park, just across Coyote Creek from Roger's house.
After seeing the pond and walking around a large mosaic sculpture, Tynor, Mallory, Melody, and I continued on while Bob and Kellen headed back to Roger's house. The four of us walked through a car show that was going on, then found our way to the path that goes along Coyote Creek. We followed it to the next overpass.
We continued on the streets until we got to El Rancho Verde Park, where Melody tried out the various exercise equipment. We then got back to Roger's house for a while longer.
Dinner was at Taco Nazo, where there were few parking spots, but the attendant was good at pointing out ones as they opened up. When we got close to the cashiers, an employee was describing the menu and offering free fish tacos to people who were there for the first time. In our case, I was the only one who had been there before, so that was five free tacos. We ordered a bit more food and sat down to eat.
For dessert, we were going to try to get gelato at the food hall that was closed the night before, but they were closed again. Melody and I grabbed a snack at the store, doing a speed run as we got there two minutes before closing.
Thursday, 2-Jan
Another travel day, we all had breakfast, did final packing, and made our way to the airport. Melody and I were able to play on the public piano a while before our flight.
The trip north was uneventful, and after bags were collected, we said our goodbyes and headed home.
