The Holidays are Here

It is amazing to me how fast the Fall has come and gone. It seems like we were just swimming and relaxing in the pool two weeks ago. Oh, wait, we were, but that was Nuevo Vallarta. Dad and Shirley are in Hawaii and I lost their e-mail that said when they would be back. I know they left the week that we were in Mexico. Darla has the tree up and the house decorated, but I won't put the lights on the house until next weekend. It has to be December for me before we start burning the Christmas lights on the house.

The boys were home for Thanksgiving and they ventured out Thursday night to get the Black Friday deals. What a marketing gimmick the retailers have come up with and how the American public follows in line like sheep. WalMart will bring in 25 42 inch tvs and sell them for $199 and 500 people will show up with pepper spray in hand to try to get one of the loss leaders. I've learned to do almost all of my shopping online and tomorrow is Cyber Monday, another gimmick, but one that they can't limit quantities on. I'm in the market for a new laptop as I'll be working this next year as the handicapper for our golf club and want to be able to use a laptop to store all of my handicapping tools and programs on. I was thinking of getting an HP laptop, but Daniel talked me out of it and has me looking at a Lenovo. He had all sorts of problems with his and now Darla's has a short in it where you have to have the lid open about eight inches for the screen to turn on. Both David and Daniel have Lenovo's and swear by them. We'll see.

We had a very nice holiday weekend with temperatures close to 70 degrees once the sun came out. Friday was gorgeous with a bright blue sky and warm temperatures. I woke up about *;00 AM and realized that I had forgot to put out the trash the night before and ran out to see if it had already come. It had. The day was so nice that I threw on some sweats and washed the 300 for our trip to Paradise and Darla's folks for our one day late thanksgiving celebration. Darla and i had fixed a small turkey on Thursday and watched NFL games all day. I think Darla was on overload by the time Baltimore had wrapped up their game against the Niners.

The drive up to Paradise was nice, but it got colder and more overcast the farther north we went. It had rained overnight in Paradise and everything was fresh and clean and the sun finally showed it's face about 2 PM. We ate a big helping of Thanksgiving fare and I promptly fell asleep on Earl and Francis' very comfortable recliner in the living room. The guys were playing cards and I said that I'd catch the next game, that I was just going to close my eyes for a minute and woke up 90 minutes later. I gave Earl a bad time as we hadn't been up to see them since Easter. I told him that and he said that we never come see him. I told him that I come up every time I get invited.

I did play golf on Saturday and unlike Friday it was foggy, wet and cold. i played with Boyd, Matt and Darren and I shot 41+44=85. Matt shot 81, Boyd had his regular 78 and Darren shot 94. It was good being out with the guys and I enjoyed getting a little exercise after all the heavy meals of the two prior days. I then went out and raked leaves off the side street side of our house. I have six trees on that side and they are all shedding their leaves at a frantic pace. I raked them into piles on the street and the city should be out Monday to pick them up. Darla and I went to church last night.

Today we just relaxed and I watched football as Darla put up the holiday decorations. I went out at halftime of the afternoon games and cleaned up around the pool and vacuumed up leaves from the interior side yard of the house next to the garage. I sprayed down the deck and realize that I will probably have to put another coat of the stain down on the patio next Spring.

The picture of Samantha is from Jennifer's FaceBook and a picture taken by John and shared with Jennifer. We Skyped with Jennifer and Samantha last Tuesday and we only saw flashes of Samantha on the screen as she somersaulted by. She was standing on her head on the couch in the back of the room and we were laughing at her and I think she decided to put on a show for us. The Skype experience isn't quite up to the energy level of a three year old. Samantha will turn 4 later in December. Jennifer flew out to Dallas and spent thanksgiving with her Mom while Samantha spent it with John and his family.

Well, that is it. I have some boxes top put back up in the attic and Darla is fixing turkey tacos for dinner. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Remember as you face the hustle and bustle of the holidays, remember the words of C.S. Lewis: "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." Amen to that. Ciao.

Wet Leaves, Fires and cooler weather

We are definitely not in Mexico anymore as the weather in Northern California has turned wet and cold. Darla and I have been burning a fire in the fireplace the last few evenings and she has a big pot of chicken and asparagus soup on the range awaiting dinner. She just ran out to get us some hot french bread from the store to go with the meal. I just came in from muscling wet leaves out of the gutters, sidewalks, driveway, flowerbeds and lawn and putting them in piles on the street for pickup by the city. If we don't get a heavy wind between now and pickup, my plan may actually work. There were some high school kids across the street playing a game of tackle football and they were completely muddy and having a great time. Their parents won't be too thrilled when they get home and drag mud throughout the house, though.

I did get in a game of golf yesterday between rainstorms. It was actually fairly warm just after we teed off, but the winds blew in and the clouds with it and the sun left us and the temperature dropped pretty substantially on the back nine. I managed a 40+44=84 and got a $20 gift certificate to the grocery store for my troubles. Darla was quick to glom on to the gift card and took it with her to get supplies tonight. It was our Turkey Shoot tournament and I stayed late with Gary to post scores for the tournament. I have been asked by the incoming President of RGC to take over as Handicapper this year and I was working with Gary to see how the job has change din the nine years since I held the position. Not tremendously, actually, just a better use of technology and handicapping programs. I will take over in January and have asked Darla for a new laptop for Christmas. I have the desktop here at home which is getting dated and I can use the laptop for the Handicap Director position with the club. Gary has been great in showing me the ropes and I told him that I'd keep the position warm for him this year. He has been our handicapper for about seven years.

I had to run by the new office site this week to take a look at some possible temporary space that we may occupy before we move into the new redesigned space. Our current landlord has a trigger in our lease that allows them to increase our rent 100% if we decided to stay over. Our leasing agent had a meeting with them on Friday to see if they would waive the trigger and they can continue to see some revenue for the space past December 15th. I'm not willing to pay $18,000 a month for 5500 square feet. Our new lease is only $8,500 for 4000 square feet. Hopefully he made some headway as I really don't want to move twice. Obviously, if we have a fallback position and they realize that they are about to lose us, they will come to their senses. I would think it would be better to have three or four months at $9,000 than another vacancy in their 60% occupied building. This is a new owner that just bought the buildings in Rancho Cordova in June. I've included some pictures of the building as well as some pictures of my cute little granddaughter.

The boys will be home this week and we will celebrate Thanksgiving. They will be with their dad on Turkey Day as the Niners are on that night and we will go up to Darla's folks in Paradise on Friday. Daniel is a short timer as he will graduate in December, although he will walk in the ceremony in June. Hopefully, he finds a job quickly, maybe with Cal Trans or the Army Corps of Engineers. David has two more quarters left and will graduate in June, although he is two years older than Daniel. I think he just likes school.

We tried to Skype with Jennifer and Samantha on Friday, but Sam wasn't interested and frustrated her Mom too much. Jennifer is enjoying her job and will finally get to spend some time in Vegas working now that her company hired another tech in California. She was not happy being away from Sam so much during the week. Check out her Facebook page, they were making cupcakes this afternoon.

My Underwriting Manager, Pete, has been invited to Home Office (Headquarters) for some training and an opportunity to meet all of the Home Office managers and underwriters/departments. It will be a good trip for him and now he'll have some idea of what I do when I'm back there. He flies in December 4 and flies back on the 7th and he will be busy from 7AM until 10:00 PM every night. I look forward to hearing how he handles the jetlag. That trip follows his annual trip to Cabo San Lucas, where he leaves Thanksgiving Day and returns the following Thursday.

Well, Thanksgiving this week. I will return to the blog next week with pictures and tales of all of the overindulgence. Hope all of you have a blesses Thanksgiving as well. Just remember WHO give thanks to, eh? Ciao!

Back in the Country after a fun trip to Nuevo Vallarta

Back home after a fun trip to Mexico. Stan and Mary Frazer are friends that Darla made when she and Mary worked together at Alta. Funny thing is that I met both Stan and Mary when Jennifer was in middle school and she was friends with their daughter, Lindsay and they lived close to Diane. They still live in Folsom. They were great travel companions, open for everything and ready to travel, swim, drink or eat.

We had some issues early on in the trip. We flew out Sunday morning at 6:00 AM and ran into our neighbors from behind us who were on their way to Cozumel. Our flight was to Phoenix and we had a layover there. When I walked off the plane, I went to the Departures board and saw the flight to Puerto Vallarta was at Gate A-7. We went and had our travel docs checked and approved at the gate and then went to have breakfast. We finished and ran to the gate and were boarded after having our boarding passes checked. We were one of the last groups on the plane and we had another couple already in our seats. I called the flight attendant over and she checked both their tickets and ours and said the seats had been "double booked", but there were plenty of seats available and we just moved up three rows. As we were getting ready to push back from the gate, I looked out at Gate A-9 and saw our flight number and Puerto Vallarta as the destination on the neon sign on the Jetway. We were on the wrong plane!! The jet pushed back and we took off.

When we arrived, our luggage was not on the plane as we were on the wrong flight. We waited for the correct plane 90 minutes later and our bags (and my clubs) were not there either. We filled out lost luggage paperwork and took our carry ons to the resort. Darla and I had packed swimsuits and tank tops in the carry-on and were able to swim, but I had to miss golf on Monday. They called us Sunday night and wanted to know where to send our luggage. I told him Nuevo Vallarta and he said that we did not check in for our flights and they pulled the luggage off the plane. I told him we checked in on the earlier flight and to send it. He said they had no record of that and how did he know we were in Puerto Vallarta? I told him we checked in on a US Airways flight and perhaps the TSA might be interested in how lax their security was in Phoenix. He told me our luggage would be on the first flight in the morning and would be delivered to our resort.

We had to go without our toiletries and went out Sunday night and bought toothpaste and a toothbrush, deodorant and some sunscreen. Stan and Mary bought swimsuits and other clothes as well as toiletries and plan to bill it to US Airways. We spent the day at the pool and our luggage finally arrived at 4:00 PM. The bags and some of the clothes were wet and we found out that it had rained in Phoenix the night before. We called and told them to add that to our claim.

It got much better after that and we had a nice meal Monday night after getting to clean up and Darla having all of her hair products and makeup.

We bought the meal plan again this year and were able to get 6 dinners and 6 breakfasts for $300. It's a great deal as the dinners include an appetizer, main course and dessert. We ate well and had 4 dinners at the resort and 3 breakfasts. We did go offsite to PV for lunch one day on a bus tour of PV which included a tour of the city, the set of the Night of the Iguana (from 1963!!!), a tequila factory tour and a lunch at Las Cascedas. The first five pictures are all of this venue. The food was good and the views and the ambiance even better.

Darla and I did go to the member's update, which is an excuse to upgrade your time share. We tried to upgrade to the Grand Bliss when we were with Dad and Shirley, but did upgrade this year to the Grand Luxxe. I get free golf and Darla gets 2 for 1 massages and spa specials. The Grand Luxxe has a larger suite and a junior suite on the lockout that includes a small kitchenette and a living area. We have two weeks that can break out to a month if we use the lockout. We are very happy with the deal that we got and the resort is expanding to become the largest in Mexico and they will add two more golf courses, one designed by Greg Norman and the other with Tiger Wood's new course development company. The Greg Norman course is being graded now and is expected to open in 2012 and will be exclusive to Grand Luxxe owners. I can access any of the courses, but Mayan and Grand Mayan members will only have access to the current course.

They now have 18 holes open and it was worth the wait as the course is a nice combination of wide open fairways, sand, waste bunkers, water and the jungle surrounding it all. I played twice and shot 81 and 83. Stan is not a golfer and shot 122 and 124, but seemed to really enjoy himself.

Bob and Debbie were along with us, but unfortunately, Debbie was sick a big part of the trip and missed out on a lot of our stay.

We did make it up to Buscerias, the small Mexican village about twenty miles north of Nuevo Vallarta. We really like Claudios, Maison Bay, a restaurant on the beach that makes large margaritas and great Mexican food. We went there with Dad and Shirley . We found out that they have a special on Fridays that includes (for $20) all of the margaritas you can drink and all of the Mexican Food you can eat. We were there on a Thursday and our bill for 6 of us was $114, which was less than the special and we had a shrimp stuffed avocado appetizer that was to die for and the girls had coconut shrimp that they really enjoyed and the guys all had mixed fajitas. We will go back next trip as well. We were all a bit loopy after two margaritas and a double shot of blue agave tequila that was on the house.

I have some pictures of Samantha and Jennifer that I will save for next week. Jen's job is going well and she is enjoying having weekends off. I will check in with all of you next week. we got home at 11:00 PM last night and we were both pretty tired today. Be well. Ciao.