Taken Christmas Eve, 2003. We’d been to California before (most of my wifes’ brothers live there), but not for a while. This time all of them would be there, as would my mother-in-law. This would be the first time in a while that the entire family would be getting together.

Before we met up we had some time to look around. When we’d been to LA before I hadn’t liked it too much. I fell in love with Santa Monica though. We ate at a nice restaurant near the entrance to the pier (you can just see it in the picture: a greyish, modern building to the right of the pier where it meets the road). Then we walked around the pier for a bit.

We were all supposed to meet for dinner the following day: Christmas Day. We assumed that one of the brothers living in LA would organize the dinner, but it none of them had so we quickly called around and made a reservation somewhere. However, as we were walking around the pier we noticed a Mexican Restaurant at the very tip and went in to ask if they were open on Christmas Day. They were – so we changed the reservation. Perfect we thought. Nice weather. Nice location. What more could you ask.

My mother-in-law was 80 years old at the time. On Christmas Day the weather turned bad: much colder and very rainy and as can be seen from the picture it was a fairly long walk from the entrance to the pier to the restaurant (from where this picture was taken).

We arrived first and I remember watching my mother-in-law (with a couple of my wifes’ brothers) walking slowly down the pier under an umbrella in the driving rain. When she eventually arrived she said: “Who chose this place?”.

We enjoyed the meal though. And it was great to see everyone again.