Okay, it's Spring. Enough with the rain!

Here is Jennifer's new car and a couple of pictures forwarded to me by Dad and Shirley from the cruise. Jennifer had a big week this week, getting her new car and heading out to see some friends after getting it smogged. Her friends work as bartenders at one of the casinos and Jennifer played $20 in a poker machine in order to get free drinks and she hit her first Royal Flush for $1000. It was great timing as her new car needed to have the air conditioning serviced (nothing like a black car in Vegas with no A/C) and the windshield repaired. She also needed to set up insurance on the vehicle and her windfall came in handy in taking care of those bills.

Dad and Shirley are back from the cruise and finally back in their house after babysitting Al and Sherry's horse for the last week. Actually, it is a dog, but the size of a small horse. Dad mentioned that they should have had us come for the second week of their cruise as they got a little lonely with all of us gone. They are settling back in to routine and are happy to be home for now.

Darryl and Cheryl have bought a new home in Kansas and I believe it is 6,300 square feet, 5 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms. Cheryl will not work as she plans to clean a bathroom a day and it fills up her week. It looks like the house in Colorado will close in early April and they will close on the Kansas home in May. I wish them luck. Darryl, put Monterey on your schedule in October the weekend of the 13th. If you come out, I will work hard this year to get a house in Pacific Grove that we can rent for the weekend. I may get a three bedroom and have Neil and Lilly stay with us.

I did not play golf again this weekend as I had set up another round in Napa and it poured rain on Saturday. The sad part is that it didn't rain here in Roseville. The forecast was for a big storm with rain throughout the entire weekend, but we saw about .30" overnight Saturday night and it was dry Saturday and Sunday during the day. I have set up a round at Morgan Creek Country Club on Saturday here in Roseville and hope to get in a round of golf. The time off has been cathartic and Darla and I have played racquetball both weekends. My wind was better today, but I lost two games to one. Once I'd lost the second game I knew I was toast as I was really breathing hard. She had me running and the exercise was GREAT. I know that the weight work that I do on the Smith machine and the fifteen minutes that I spend on the Lifecycle isn't helping my stamina. if I continue to fit in an hour a week of racquetball, my stamina will continue to get better.

Work continues to go great. Matt has really picked up his game and will do close to $30,000 in net income this month and I have had to shuffle the deck in the office to get him an assistant. I have put in a hiring requisition for another assistant. I will hire that assistant for myself and have them work part time with Anthony's team. We are experiencing growing pains in the office and will have our largest month ever this month. Matt, Peter and Anthony all are on track for their personal best months and both Gail and Renee are having good months as well. I did hear from Home office that the move date is scheduled for April 27th. That came from our telephone unit in Home Office and I don't think that date will fly. We were originally scheduled to move in mid May and I think it will be earlier, but I'm guessing early May. Darla and I are scheduled to be in Monterey with her brother on April 27th, so I better be right.

The weather has really been a huge benefit for our flowers and landscaping. All of the trees are in bloom and the African daisies above and behind the pool are a huge splash of color. The lawn is growing like crazy as the yard got aerated and fertilized right before and during the rains that we've had over the last two weeks. The rain is due to take a one day break and then return on Tuesday for the rest of the week. Hopefully, the rain stops for next week.

Darla and I went out to dinner on Saturday night. I had an e-mail from Benihana offering me $30 off on dinner fro my birthday. We set up a dinner for Saturday after church and when we sat down to dinner I looked at the e-mail, it was good only Monday - Thursday. Oops. We stayed and enjoyed dinner, but it just goes to remind you that you need to check your coupons. Darla and I love Benihana and may even go one day this week and use the coupon.

Well, that's it for this week. I am still working through my reading of the Bible in one year. This week is my final exam in the ASLI class that I'm taking online for work and I will be working on employee meetings all week with reviews and goal planning for 2012. I hope you are all well. Ciao.

Ready for the Sunshine

It has been one of those weeks that we have really needed as we are so far behind on rainfall, BUT I am ready for some sunshine after a week of solid, steady rainfall that was oh, so Vancouver in it's pervasiveness. We had a few breaks, but like today, when it stopped raining for about an hour and a half, it was followed by about 40 minutes of hail and rain. I did get out and get the grass cut and another application of weed and feed applied between the showers. The lawn is growing fast. I had it aerated last week and the first application of weed and feed applied and it really took to the fertilizer. I ran the mower and had a full mower bag of lawn clippings when I was done.

The boys are home on Spring Break and Darla and I took them to Fat's for dinner tonight. It is a local Dim Sum restaurant and we enjoyed a Dim Sum basket before dinner and then shared fried rice, honey walnut prawns, Hong Kong Chicken Chow Mein, Shanghai noodles (with pork, shrimp, chicken and calamari), and sweet and sour pork. We ate at 4 o'clock in honor of Dad and Shirley. Actually I had a 6PM online baseball draft for a keeper league that I'm in and had to get home. They all went over to visit Lucas at Don and Alicia's home. Becky was in tow as well.
Both boys have an interview with an engineering firm on Tuesday morning in Stockton. It is a firm that did a lot of business with Earl's firm in Stockton and one of our friends knows one of the owners. David was supposed to go see him, but somehow wrangled an invite for Daniel as well. Daniel has actually been done with school since December but hasn't been able to find a job. With David graduating in June, the rush is on to see what they can find. Daniel had to get some engineering certification testing done before he could get a job in his field and has that now. Hopefully, he will find something soon.

I did not play golf this weekend because of the storms, but have set up a game in Napa next Saturday with Bob Pando and Neil and Darren will drive down with me. I haven't seen Bob since Monterey in October. I did get out and play on Monday and even though I invited my buddies to join me, they would not let me pay my own way and were nice enough to host my golf up at Winchester. The course is very difficult and humbling. I shot 48+45 for 93 and felt lucky to get out of there with that score. My first par didn't come until the 14th hole and I quickly followed that with a birdie on the 144 yard par three 15th over water. It was really the only highlights of my round. We had a great time and it is always fun for me to spend time with good friends.

Jennifer has bought herself a car, an SUV actually a 2001 Chevy Blazer with 93,000 miles on it. She had a company truck, but they wanted that for an intercity job and gave her an older Toyota that broke down on her when she was driving to California. They will give her the company truck back when the job is completed, but she didn't want to get stuck without a car again. One of her coworkers happened to have a car that was sitting unused and had been since he was in the Army a few years ago. He took it in and had it serviced for her and she has to get the air conditioning fixed. The blue book on it was about $2700 and he sold it to her for $2200. She will take it in next week and get the air repaired.

Darla just bought me a new Kindle Fire with points she had accumulated with Silpada. It was a contest that ran from July 1st to February and she had enough to order me a Kindle, get herself a Coach purse and get us a new 4 slice toaster. We had a toaster with 4 slices, but two of them were burned out and the other didn't pop up all the way. It was a toaster from Dad's parents that finally has given up the ghost. Darla has an i-Pad and I like to read books on the i-Pad, but she is so busy with it that I can never get near it. The Kindle Fire has a full processor and internet capability, so will be nice for me to have. It is so funny watching Darla at night. She is working on the i-Pad, has her phone within reach and often texting with her Silpada team and friends and then has her computer plugged in and going as well and often is pulling up stats for her team as she talks. She is a multi-multi tasker.

The rain really got to me this weekend and I set up a racquetball match with Darla while she was out shopping for new sheets for the bed on Saturday. I texted her that we had a racquetball court at three -thirty. When we went over to the gym, they didn't have Darla in the system. It has probably been eight months since she has been to the gym. She does Wii fitness in the house and runs the neighborhood. We had to get her signed back up and it will now cost me an extra $15 a month for the gym because I wanted to play racquetball. I am happy to say that I beat her two games to none, but it was a hollow victory as I was out of breath and sweating so bad after we finished that Darla was concerned about my heart. I also bruised my achilles heal on my right foot. I was lying on the bench on my back outside the racquetball court trying to catch my breath. Her endurance is so good because of the running. I work out on weights during the week and ride the Lifecycle, but it didn't prepare me for running full tilt for forty five minutes.

Work is going great. We are on pace for our biggest month ever this month and I will have a full staff as of Monday, with Peter back to full time hours and Connie back from her surgery on February 1st. The move is scheduled for mid May and I won't have much time to get everything squared away, because my CEO will be in the week before Father's day to tour the new offices.

Well, that's it for this week. David brought his camera to the restaurant tonight, so has to download those pictures to my computer, so look for those this week. I hope you are all well. Ciao.

March Birthdays are in Full Force

As always, the March birthdays which start with my Godson, Chris, and end tomorrow with my birthday have come and most have gone. Dad celebrated his birthday on board the cruise on Friday and they are on the way home to Surrey today. Cheryl celebrated her birthday on Friday in Kansas looking for houses. Darryl sent us an e-mail with a picture of a house he said he bought. It was a picture of the Silpada Designs headquarters building. I will take tomorrow off and go up to Winchester CC and play golf. We are sitting in the path of a week long series of storms that are expected to hit by 8 PM tomorrow night. It looks like I will have a little window of opportunity to play golf. I will play with Boyd, Neil and Rick tomorrow.

You can see pictures of our outing Friday night with Pete and Vicky from my office. We had bought tickets for the Enterprise Rents Crab Feed. We had a blast and Pete was really good, limiting his intake of crab and using a homemade low fat dressing for the crab. I decided after this crab feed that I'm not really a crab fan, at least a crab feed, where they bring the crab out ice cold and you have to peel and eat it. I enjoyed the salad and pasta a lot more than the crab. We had set this up way in advance, but it was nice that it came when it did as it was Pete's first foray after his heart attack. He ended up winning a $5o Home Depot gift card so he can buy some work for Vicky to do.

Darla is off to Paradise today for a jewelry party. She left early this morning and met her folks at church and then they were going out to brunch. Her party was 1:30 to 3:30 and I expect her back any time. She has been busy since we got back from the cruise with parties and meetings just about every night. She had a party yesterday and today.

We did go to church last night and the pastor talked about death, which most churches tend to avoid. He said that death for a Christian is like a young boy who sits with his father at night unable to sleep and Dad calms him and when he wakes up the next morning he is in his bedroom. So it is with death, where our Lord carries us to Heaven after we go to our eternal sleep. Death is a scary proposition for people who aren't believers because their life just ends. Well, at least they think so. The eternal life in Hell is never factored in. Darla and I then went out to dinner on the way home at Dickey's Barbecue. We have a new franchise in Roseville and the restaurant is from Texas. Darla had seen one in Dallas when she was there. it was great with big baked potatoes and macaroni and cheese.

Gary, one of my agents, invited me to golf on Friday at Serrano CC. He took two of his insureds and me to the golf club, hosted our lunch and then golf. I hadn't played in three weeks, partly because of the cruise and partly because I needed a break. I was able to shoot a 44+41=85. I also played on Saturday at Diamond and shot 45+41=86. Now, I just have to figure out how to get my game going a little quicker.

Work has been going great and we just finished our biggest February ever. I owe the staff lunch, but will wait until Connie gets back the week of March 19th in order to celebrate our success and to also celebrate having a full staff back and everyone working full time. Pete has been back part time for the last two weeks and will work 6 hour days this week. We finished 2011 with just over $800,000 in profit. We lost $600,000 the year that I tool the branch over. Connie has been out since February 1st with major surgery and Peter had his heart attack just over a month ago.

Jennifer has been having some car issues with her company truck being taken for a job and the car she was given blowing an engine. She is now driving a 2002 Chevy Blazer that belongs to a co-worker and he will sell it to her but won't take payments. Darla and I have agreed to finance this for her in order for Samantha to have a proper vehicle and Jennifer not to have to rely on her employer or friends for a car.

Well, this is rather short, but I don't really have much to report. It's been a busy week since I got back from the cruise and I'm proud to say that Darla didn't gain any weight on the cruise and the pound and a half that made it on to me has already been sweat off at the gym. I am now into the Book of Judges in my quest to read the Bible in a year. I have an application on my i-phone that tracks the reading for me which makes it pretty simple. I fell a little behind on the cruise but got caught up over this weekend. My trip to Scottsdale has been postponed because my boss didn't send the paperwork in to our travel coordinator and the fares went up from $180 round trip to $505. We are looking at still doing this in April. We'll see.

I hope you are all well. Ciao.

Cruise Pictures

Cruise Memories and Art Lyon turns 75!!

This will be short, because the pictures are aplenty. We are back from a week in the Eastern Caribbean, Puerto Rico, The US Virgin Islands, St. Martaan and Princess Cays in the Bahamas. As you can tell by the pictures, it was a great family time and we had a ball. The picture of me with Barack Hussein Obama Darla felt was in poor taste, but I'm not punching him. It's a love tap. Hey, he even sent me a birthday card. Darla and I both sort of dreaded the formal nights, but it was a great picture taking opportunity and it was nice to hang out in formal attire with Dad, Darryl and Randy and the wives. We also celebrated Cheryl's birthday and my 55th birthday.

Shirley got the gang dancing on Thursday night and there are pictures of that as well.

I think my only regret on the trip was not exploring the island of St Martaan/St. Martin, which is a Dutch and French island and we ended up shopping with the gang for three hours and missing out on sightseeing. All of them had been to the island before and they were looking at watches and jewelry and time just got away from us and then Darla and I bought a few things and were out of cash, so we just headed back to the ship.

We did take a tour on San Juan and saw the downtown and part of the island. Darla and I also broke away from the gang on Wednesday and took a cab on a short sightseeing tour of St. Thomas and were then dropped off at Coki Beach, one of the white sand beaches with green water that is so famous there.

Darryl and Randy both had shopping agendas. Darryl bought a new Canon Rebel digital camera and a couple of new lenses. Randy bought a Tag Hauer watch in St Thomas for a small fortune. Even Dad and Shirley got into the act and bought his and her Seiko watches on St. Thomas. Darla and I are still paying for two students to attend cal Poly SLO and did little shopping of consequence. I got a tank top and a golf shirt and Darla got a cover up. We did spend some money on pictures taken by the professional photographers on the cruise ship. It has been awhile since we had any new pictures taken professionally and they turned out very nice.

You can see how close we were to Darryl and Cheryl with the picture taken from our balcony down to theirs. Randy was two rooms to the right of them as you look at their balcony and dad was down about three rooms from Randy. They all had rooms with a Jr. Suite, consisting of a bed and a sitting area with a couch and the balcony. They also had a shower and a tub. Our room was just the bed and a small desk with a mirror and it only had a shower in the bathroom. We had drinks most nights at either Darryl's room or Dad's.

Darryl and I both bought the same shirt on St Martaan and ended up both wearing the same shirt on the trip home. Darla got a kick out of it and had to take a picture.

We had a long wait at the airport on Saturday before the flight home, but that turned out to be a blessing as I had left my eyeglasses at the restaurant of the Courtyard hotel in Ft. Lauderdale and they could not locate them on the Saturday that we left on the cruise. They are nice Oakley frames and I thought perhaps someone had stolen the frames. The glasses somehow appeared during the week that we were gone and one of the shuttle drivers met me up at the Virgin America check in and brought the glasses to me. We were relieved as I would have had to order a replacement pair.

Speaking of Virgina America. I have taken many of the airlines from American to United, Southwest, Frontier, Continental, Alaska, etc., but not one holds a candle to Richard Branson's airline. First of all, he has wireless internet on the plane, DirecTv service on the seat back in front of you, video games, music, movies and television shows at your fingertips. You order your food right from the video screen and the flight attendants bring it. They don't push a big cart up the aisle and bring you cold sandwiches. More airlines should do it the Branson way, but most won't. The old joke is how does a billionaire become a millionaire? Buy an airline. So far, Richard Branson has dodged that bullet.

It was a gorgeous day in Roseville today with blue skies and 72 degrees with no wind. I was able to clean up the yard and put down some crabgrass preventer on the lawn. I also cleaned up the pool and drained off some of the water from the recent rains. I also went all around the house and sprayed weed and grass killer on all of the grass buds coming up in the cracks of the sidewalks, driveway, flowerbeds, and tree rings. We have the fruitless cherry tree on the side yard in full pink blooms and the African violets around the pool are in their full purple royalty.

Well, that is it for this week. I hope you are all well. The weather was amazing on the cruise and we saw rain once or twice, but the tropical variety which lasts ten minutes and goes right back to 90 degrees. It was definitely a tremendous memory for us and for Dad and Shirley. They are on the second leg of their cruise, having visited Princess Cays today and sailing on now to Aruba. Stay strong in the Lord and remember that all of the good in your life comes from Him. Ciao.

o