Tag Archives: california

Winter is almost over! Well, here anyway

Prunus cerasifera

Our Cherry plum tree, or Prunus cerasifera, is already blooming.

Isn’t that a beautiful sight? We’re enjoying some really wonderful weather here in Southern California. Our Cherry plum trees (also known as Prunus cerasifera according to Wikipedia) are, true to nature, starting to bloom their cute little pink flowers. These trees normally bloom in mid-February, so they’re right on schedule. Later on their gorgeous, deep purple leaves will grow in and stay with us until late autumn until they fall off.

I know I’m so lucky to be living in a place that doesn’t have to worry about a snow storm coming in and wiping these beautiful flowers out. And do you see that blue, blue sky behind the tree? No photoshop necessary — it really is that blue.

Hope winter is treating all of you nicely! If not, don’t worry! Spring is coming just as quickly as it can. 🙂

Raining!

The rain is coming down pretty steadily here in Southern California! It’s probably nothing novel to the rest of the world, but rain is a big event here since we hardly ever get any. Apparently we’re in a drought (when are we not?) so it’s mostly welcome. I’m just glad it came this week and not last when I was on vacation. 😀

I’ll post more about my vacation once I get caught up at home!

Going to Catalina!

Yes friends, I am going to the Island of Catalina with my church’s college group this weekend. It’s going to be so fun, I can hardly contain myself! Anyway, since I wasn’t really sure myself where Catalina is, I thought I would include some maps I found on the intarweb:

Catalina island
Here’s a map of the island. The main city is Avalon, and that’s were more tourists are. We’re going to Two Harbors (on the northern end of the island).

Cool view of Catalina
This is a view of Catalina in relation to the California coast. Can you believe it is only 22 miles away from LA? That’s like… from my house to school, hehe. 😀

The islands of So Cal!
This is a map of all the islands off the coast of Southern California. Bet ya didn’t know So Cal had islands too, biatch! xD I figured out that the island that we can see from Mike’s house on clear days is NOT Catalina, but an island called… guess what… San Clemente Island! haha. 😀 I wonder if there’s a ferry that goes out there? That might be fun to explore. 😀

I’m really excited, I’ve never been to Catalina. My mom went with my sister’s troop to White’s Landing (see map, it’s a little bit north of Avalon) because I guess the Angeles Girl Scout Council shares the shore there with the Balboa Yacht club. Boars invaded their camp ground and jumped in the trash cans, haha. xD

Also my mom told me that my grandparents used to take the ferry out to Catalina in the ’50s and dance in the Grand Ballroom they had out there. So I asked myself, what does this ballroom look like? I found some pictures at This site…:

outside the ballroom
The outside of the ballroom. Isn’t it magnificent?

Some dancers in the 40s
Some dancers during the forties. I love it. 😀

It looks so wonderful. Maybe once we come back from Catalina Mike and I will want to take a romantic weekend and go there. 😀 I guess after we get married or something. ^_^ Chad said that he’s seen wild buffalo and boars on the island, and my mom said she has too. Ooh! So exciting! 😀

I also found a picture of Two harbors:

Two harbors
Pretty. 😀