We had a busy two week visit to California. First, a stop in Santa Cruz for a week to spend time with our Double Family Fiona-Kerstin-Bruce (plusScout and Houdini), and for a lot of UCSC activities as well. 
We did a delayed Eli-birthday Segway tour along Westcliff on a day with spectacular surf; such a perfect Santa Cruz activity. 
While we were in Santa Cruz my student Sharifa gave her Ph.D. exit seminar, with lots of family in attendance, and Juniper passed her Qualifying Exam. I also got to spend some time with students Jessica and Shaneece, as well as an assortment of faculty and other colleagues. It was a whirlwind, but great to see everyone doing so well.Then we headed to southern California to split a week between my family in Claremont and Ingrid's family in Mission Viejo.
It has been great that the families are all so close together, although that is changing, with my family moving to the Arizona desert soon. We got to spend lots of quality family time, and snuck in a Christmas bird counts and a half-day in the field with my student Shannon chasing polyphagous shothole borers. Then two short weeks in California were gone, and we flew back to Sevilla, for a brief stopover before heading on to Morocco.
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