First Two Nights of Chanukah

Hey again, right now I am in the Washington DC airport waiting to board my next flight to Ottawa to see my family. Wanted to give a short account of the past couple of days of my trip.
I left off last on day four of my trip having just met up with Brandon in Simi Valley, one of the vallies just outside of LA. The next day was the first night of Channukah! Brandon’s comes from a large jewish family and they invited me to come to their big family get together with lots of food, relatives, and gifts, and candle lighting. On the drive out to his grandparents’ house for the festivities there was snow everywhere. Apparently this year there was a freak snowstorm that even left snow in the desert. Brandon’s family was very generous; they planned ahead of time to include me in everything they did, even gift giving and a huge cookie with my name on it next to all the cousin’s signed cookies. His Grandma made sure to give me a kiss on the cheek when I arrived and his Grandpa compared me to the likes of welcoming Elijah into their house. Their family reminded me of ours, it was really funny how everyone got along and all the similarities the big family had with my mom’s big side of the family (latkes and brisket too). When we got back from his Grandparents huge channukah party we had channukah with Brandon’s parents, sister, and girlfriend. Once again the Bermans treated me to a channukah gift of a collared t-shirt.

The next morning we went for a hike around Brandon’s house along the tops of the valley. The terrain in the area is really cool, on one side of the valley it is filled with hundreds of huge houses and on the outside all there is are winding roads and mountains. I am just not used to seeing such a drastic change in the edge suburbian area to the country side. Also, I’m not really used to the terrain of lots of vallies and ridges caused by the huge faultline that this part of California sits on. I’ll post a couple of pictures of the surrounding area. Brandon’s neighbor brought this CO2 powered BB gun pistol up there with us and we target practiced hitting a old truck parked in on the tiny vallies. After the hike we went over to Brandon’s neighbor and watched discovery channel dvds in his home theater. The theater is really really nice, huge comfy chairs, surround sound, soundproof walls, and a projector. After that we had dinner and did the second night of channukah with his immediate family and girlfriend. Once again the Bermans gave me a channukah gift and included me in their family. After channukah Brandon, his girlfriend Amy, and I went to his beach house in Oxnard. The beach house was super nice and even though it was dark, and I couldn’t check out the ocean, I could hear the ocean from his rooftop balcony.

Today Brandon and I woke up and left the beach house at 4:00AM to get me to LAX in time for my 8:00AM flight to Canada. There was no traffic so I got there with plenty of time. That brings me to right now, it is 4:30 in the afternoon and I am in Washington DC waiting for my connection to Ottawa.

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