My Good Friend, Neil, turns 70!

 

I am kicked out of the house while Darla does a retirement party. It is for her retirement jewelry, but could be for her social work career as well. she will have her going away party at Fat's restaurant on Tuesday. I think the whole thing has been bittersweet for Darla, but she is better for it and it is good to have her back after she went missing for a couple of months. Another sign of her resurgence: We will host a Labor Day swim party next Monday.

 

We were supposed to be leaving for Tahoe right after her event, but the Rim fire near Yosemite has grown so large, that the smoke has blown up to and surrounding the Tahoe basin. Neil has COPD and asked to put the trip off for health reasons. We had to use that excuse with the Montbleu resort as they required a 48 hour cancellation and were going to charge us for tonight's stay. I also canceled golf at Grey's crossing up in Truckee. I will still take Monday off and we will play golf in Napa instead at the Eagle Vines facility that we like so much. it is a Johnny Miller designed course that winds through the vineyards and has no housing anywhere around it. The ambiance is really special as you work your way around the course surrounded by natures bounty. The only thing that could possible make it better would be that orchestra that was in the Cowichan video that Dad sent. of course, they would have to refrain from playing when we were hitting the ball.

It's been a busy weekend already with dinner out Friday night with Neil and Lilli on Friday night. Neil found out that it was our anniversary and INSISTED on taking us out to dinner. We went to Guy Fieri's restaurant, Johnny Garlics in Rocklin. It was a first for me and I enjoyed a bison tri tip for dinner. We met early and Darla and I bought drinks at the bar. We had a nice visit and even ran into some friends from the golf club at the bar. We will meet Neil and Lilli and Tim and Sue for dinner tonight at BJs. Neil wanted to eat there for some reason. Tim was supposed to come with us to Tahoe, but Sue is a teacher and school has started, so she wasn't going to join us. We had plans to have dinner at the Italian restaurant that we ate at with Dad and Shirley last year on their visit to Tahoe.

Last night we had dinner with Jeff and Linda, married agents that I have worked with for years. In fact, Jeff and I worked together at my first insurance job. I was a package and property underwriter and he was a casualty underwriter. We had a 3 hour dinner at the Sutter Street Steakhouse in downtown Folsom, near the American River. It was a great visit. Both Linda and Darla are diabetics and had quite a conversation about medications and different protocols for keeping the side affects of diabetes under control. Jeff and Linda are one of my best agents and it's nice that Darla and I enjoy their company so much.

I finally broke 80 in a weekday tournament on Tuesday. I decided to take the morning off and play in one of the four weekday tournaments that we play every year. I asked Neil to get me into the first tee time. It is always good to start your round 3-5-3-3-3. I was 2 under after five holes and cooled off for a 39+39=78. I beat Boyd, which is a rarity, as he shot a 79. There were a lot of good scores and my net 66 was only good for a tie for second low net as someone in the field shot a net 65. I left right away, grabbed a quick shower and a bite to eat before heading back to the office.

Saturday was the Rose Cup qualifier. I played in it, but the actual Rose Cup is October 5th and 6th, the same weekend as our annual golf league trip to Monterey. I shot a 41+43=84 and tied for fifth (the top 4 players in my flight made the cut). Darren, my friend who works with Sealy, broke 90 for the first time in a long time last week when we played at Woodcreek. He shot 85 last weekend and followed that up with another nice 85 and with his 20 handicap, shot a net 65 and was the 3rd qualifier in our flight. I would not have played in the Rose Cup if I had qualified anyhow. I really enjoy our Monterey trip each year and we are playing two great courses this year, Pasadero and Quail Lodge and I wouldn't miss it. We are staying in Pacific Grove again, this time at the Lighthouse Lodge.

Our twilight league golf league is running down to the end of the year. it has been a throwaway year for us as Steve has missed most of the year with both injuries and vacations. His Dad passed away this year and left him some money and he has been working hard to spend it all in the first year/ They have been to Mexico once and Hawaii twice in the past 6 months. Lately, he has been suffering from some foot injuries. Steve is also a diabetic and has neuropathy, the same ailment that Darla suffered earlier this Summer. I will have to miss the last night of the season as we have tickets to Sammy Hagar in concert at the Thunder Valley outdoor amphitheater. I will play one more Thursday night this week before winding it down for the year.

Darla had the honor of Speaking at a Sacramento event for her Silpada business on Wednesday night in downtown Sacramento. Her bosses there wanted her to talk about recruiting and how she has been able to build a team of successful sales people. She used it as an opportunity to tell her story, including her recent decision to make Silpada her fulltime career.

Two weeks ago I had my monthly meeting with the golf club and worked late that night. I left about 6:20 PM for the meeting and when I got to my car it was DEAD. I couldn't get ahold of Darla to have her bring the jumper cables, so called AAA and they took almost an hour and 30 minutes to get there. luckily, they sent the battery truck and, believe it or not, it was the original battery in my 2006 Chrysler 300. The battery in that car is placed beneath the trunk compartment. I really think that having the car battery out of the heat of the engine compartment really helped with the life of the battery. I had him replace it right there and then. It was, strangely, the fourth battery this Summer that my office has had die in our parking lot.

Well, that s it for this week. I will be back at the keyboard in a week's time. Have a great week. Jennifer is in Vegas this weekend and Samantha starts kindergarten tomorrow. Be well. Ciao.

 



Samantha and Jennifer in Roseville

 

 

 

It was a great week with Samantha and Jennifer. The only problem was with the YMCA camp that Jennifer had signed Sam up with. The communication was terrible between them and Jennifer. They told her to provide a lunch, but the first day at 10 AM all of the kids had a snack that they brought and poor Samantha had a bag of tortilla chips that one of the counselors dragged out for her. She felt bad that she didn't have a snack and Jen was pissed that they hadn't communicated with her to provide a morning and afternoon snack.

 

We met Jennifer at the facility (a Catholic church) at noon and took her and Sam to lunch at a deli. After lunch, Jennifer went back to work and Darla and I took Sam to the mall to do some school shopping. We bought her a couple of outfits with leggings and tops and tried to get her some new tennis shoes. She wanted some shoes that were "ballerina" shoes and have a built in round spinner on the bottom of the sole at the toes. They are made so the little girls can stand and twirl. Unfortunately, they didn't have any in her size. From there we headed back to downtown Pleasanton and the Organic Ice cream shop. I kept kidding Samantha that she could have any flavor except chocolate and she loves chocolate. When we got to the shop, alas they were out of chocolate, so she made do with a cinnamon flavored ice cream. We took her back to the apartment and then to the pool. Jennifer got home about 4:30 and we took her to the park next door. Jennifer and McKenny treated us to dinner at a little oriental restaurant across the street from their apartment. From there we drove home.

 

On Tuesday, Jennifer packed two snacks, a lunch and when she showed up with Samantha, she was very concerned that they just had her sign in and no one paid any attention to Samantha, getting her into a group or settled in. It bothered Jend when she picked Sam up and found out that they had gone to the pool that afternoon and Sam had to sit by herself in the shade because she didn't have a swimsuit, Jennifer demanded her money back and pulled Sam out of the program. She was ticked off and sad for Samantha. The program was run by a bunch of high school kids with one administrator and Jennifer was very uncomfortable having her precious daughter in a poorly run program. She worked from home the rest of the week and Sam got to stay with her, which of course Samantha loved.

 

She took Samantha to ice skating Tuesday night as Sam has replaced her karate with ice skating. She missed her lesson last week in Las Vegas and so Jen took her to the rink in Dublin. She also took Thursday off and they went to the museum in San Francisco and had lunch there.

 

Friday night they drove up to Roseville. Initially McKenny was coming with them, but he checked his calendar midweek and had a record swap that he had committed to and had to stay home Saturday. I was already committed to a golf game with Boyd and Darren and was home a little after 11 Saturday. They were up about 8 and Darla and David took them to breakfast in Roseville at The Pacific Street Café, a train theme restaurant that has a full scale railroad that runs through the restaurant. Sam loved it and played with all of the toys, including a Mr. Potato head. They were all in the pool when I got home and I was hot and sticky after shooting 82 at Woodcreek.

 

I fixed some hot dogs on the bbq, but they were all full from breakfast ( I had a half a breakfast sandwich at the turn). I fixed my food and was heading back outside and somehow didn't realize the screen door was closed and ended up with hot dogs, relish, mustard and ketchup all over myself. They all had quite a laugh, but it is rude to the elderly to make fun of them.

 

Sam soon tired of the pool and spa and wanted to take a picnic lunch to the park across the street, so we brought drinks, sandwiches and chips to the park and ate in the shade of the trees. Sam played on the playground equipment and then wanted to play "Duck, Duck, Goose." I had never heard of the game and Darla and Jennifer were amazed that I didn't know it. I guess it is one of the first games that toddlers learn. And everyone sits down and the "Goose" walks around tapping each person and saying "Duck'. When they say "Goose" you have to get up and chase them back around to your spot. If you tag them before they get back to your spot you get to sit back down, if not  then you are the Goose. This is not a game played in Canada. I think it would be "Beaver, Beaver, Moose" in Canada.

 

From there we headed back to the house and played Wii bowling, golf and tennis and Sam had a ball. She would do a little dance whenever she won a game and it was so cute. She also wanted to play pool and we moved all of Darla's Silpada samples off of the pool table and David, Jennifer, Sam and I played pool. We ended up back in the pool. I slept for awhile and the girls went through Darla's jewelry and Jennifer loaded up on retirement jewelry. Sam came out and woke me up by jumping on to my chaise lounge in the pool while I was fast asleep and scaring me half to death. We played for a while longer and then I cooked a tri tip for dinner and we had corn on the cob and fruit salad. Darla got Sam to take some pictures by taking pictures of Jennifer and David. That's the picture of her with crossed eyes with her Mom.

 

They left about 7 PM and John was at Jennifer's house this morning at six for the ride back to Vegas. Jennifer had an easier time saying goodbye knowing that She will be back in Vegas next weekend to get Sam set up for school and back permanently once her new job starts. It was hard to say goodbye and Sam always asks to stay with Jennifer, but easier because that will all soon be part of the past. Darla thinks that Sam will always remember this and she has trouble saying goodbye to us as well. Saturday night when it was time to say goodbye, she just clung to her Mom. We finally got our kisses when she was in her car seat and ready to go. I'm now thinking that we will make the trip to Vegas after all. Life is short.

 

Darla officially quit her job on Thursday and I'm a wreck trying to figure out how to replace $5000 a month in income. It will come from her jewelry business, but that will take her time to take it to the next level. in the meantime, the belt is tightening. Darla and I talked the other night about areas where we can cut back and I said, you could do without a nail treatment each month and massages each month and eating out so much. She stopped and said, "Hey, all of the cuts are coming from me." I said, "Well, I'm not making any changes in my work." She wasn't amused.

 

Well, that was short and sweet, but Darla is working on grilled sausages on the barbecue and I don't want her to muck them up. We are off to Tahoe next weekend with Neil and Lilly for Neil's 70th birthday and I will try to get a blog entry in on Saturday. Saturday is the Rose Cup qualifier at Diamond Oaks and I would love to get back on that team. I hope you are all well and living in the shadow of our Lord and Savior. Ciao.

Samantha in Pleasanton

 

 

Sitting in the hotel in Pleasanton after a nice dinner out to Gay 90's, a restaurant in downtown Pleasanton. John is in the Bay Area for a job this week and dropped Sam off today with Jennifer. We checked into the Pleasanton Marriott about 2:00 PM today. John dropped Sam off about 2 as well and we waited until tonight to get together with them to give Sam some time with her Mom before we crashed the scene. McKenny, Samantha and Jennifer walked to downtown Pleasanton, a walk of about a mile and we met them down there. We did a little window shopping (see the picture of Jennifer with the eagle head on) and then headed over to the restaurant for dinner. Samantha had spaghetti and we all shared a pizza made of chicken, pesto sauce, artichokes, garlic and feta cheese. It was actually pretty good and I'm more of a marinara and pepperoni guy.

 

Samantha has picked up an irritating habit of not wanting to be photographed. It actually goes with her desire not to comb her hair, but Darla had to negotiate every picture that we got tonight. We are picking her up tomorrow at noon from her YMCA camp. It is her first day of a week long camp and Jennifer thought it would be smart to have her meet her fellow campers before we picked her up.

 

The pictures above are of Sam with Jennifer's neighbor's rabbit, who they take for a walk on a leash. A little weird. Sam saw the rabbit and ran upstairs to get her stuffed animal. The neighbors are from New York and apparently see nothing odd about having a rabbit on a leash. The other pictures are from our visit last night. We finally got Sam to pose for a few pictures by bribing her with ice cream. There is a shop in Pleasanton that sells organic ice cream in organic cones. Even Darla could eat the ice cream without guilt and it had little to no impact on her blood sugar level.

 

We will take Samantha out shopping for a school outfit. She starts Kindergarten on August 26th. Jennifer should be moved back to Las Vegas by the first of September. She has the job offer, acceptance and has passed the background check and drug tests. She is just waiting for a start date.

 

My crew at work will have their annual barbecue on Saturday. I am buying the hot dogs and hamburgers, but will not join them this year. Jennifer, Samantha and McKenny are coming up to Roseville on Saturday and we will hang out in our pool an then have a nice tri tip barbecue dinner. I could have had them come along to the swim club and hang out, but it isn't really fair to them to have my attention on the staff. I know the gang will have a better time without me. They will be able to relax more and not worry about the boss looking over them. 

 

I have one of our carriers from Arizona coming in on Thursday this week and they will spend the entire day in my office rolling out a new product. Actually it is an enhancement to an existing artisan contractor program. About 60% of what I write in my office is artisan contractor business, so hopefully this will be a big addition to our business. The Assistant Branch Manager from San Francisco will come over and spend the day in my office as well. He is in the top three of underwriters in the country in production and it will be nice to have him here to hopefully rub off on the staff. The following week I will host our monthly budget lunch and we are having one of the local food truck companies come out and feed the staff. One of my underwriters is a big foodie and he suggested Drewski' s for our lunch.

 

My boss is in Denver this week at an owner's meeting for one of our carriers. This is the meeting where our CEO gets his contingency check and it is usually over ten million dollars. He will be in a good mood this week. I kind of wish he was coming out to see us afterward.

 

Believe it or not, I took a week off from golf this weekend and Darla and I worked on the raised flowerbed above the pool. We have African daisies in the bed surrounding the sego palms. They are a riot of purple in Spring, but the harsh Summer temperatures brown out the leaves and vines and it always ends up looking dead in Summer. I finally convinced Darla to take out the African daisies and we brought in 24 cubic feet of topsoil and tore out all of the daisies and put in some drought tolerant butterfly plants that bloom purple all summer. It was an expensive change, but one that I thought we needed to do. Darla loves the plants in Spring, but these plants will look nice ten months out of the year and the African daisies look nice for about two months. We will plant some African daisies in the flowerbeds along the front of the house that get a lot more shade. We transplanted a few of the daisies to the front, but I don't think they will make it. We'll see.

 

Monday Morning

 

Darla and I were up at 8:30 this morning, showered and went down to enjoy the breakfast buffet that was included with our stay. We are staying at the Pleasanton Marriott on Silpada's dime. Darla won two nights at a Marriott with breakfast and this is one of the nights that we are using. We will head over at noon, meet Jennifer and get Sam and her car seat. We will have lunch and then do a bit of shopping before heading back to the apartment and an afternoon by the pool. I am looking forward to a fun day with my granddaughter.

 

Dad and Shirley will be in Vegas in late September and invited us to join them. I'd like to go, but with Darla's situation with work, we may have to pass. She will meet with her boss this week and has every intention of giving her notice. It will allow her to concentrate on her Silpada and I know that she will be very successful with that. She was pretty successful part time, she will be the bomb fulltime. The problem with that is that the benefits will shift to me and our income on my check will go down. We will lose her salary  and that will eventually be supplanted by Silpada and her social work gig in Sacramento. The issue is the short term and the fact that our bills won't stop. We'll see if we can get away. Right now, we have trips to Tahoe for Neil's birthday the end of this month and a trip to Monterey in October for our annual golf trip and our week vacation in Nuevo Vallarta in December. The issue besides benefits is her retirement that was being partly funded by her firm. All of that will come to a halt as well. It will be a big adjustment, but as Darla says, "perhaps if I quit my job, I'll actually be there to enjoy your retirement with you".

 

Well, that is it for this week. we will try to sneak a comb through Samantha's hair and the camera out to take a few pictures before we head back home tonight. I hope you all have a great week. Ciao.

 

 

 

 

 

Club Championship

 

It was Club Championship weekend at the club. I decided to play on Saturday in the Scratch Flight qualifier in order to get an extra round in. I've been playing well and didn't figure that I would embarrass myself. There were 16 players going for 7 spots and most of them are three, four and five handicappers. My 11 looks huge next to them. I ended up shooting 41+41=82 and then waited to see the scores. We were the second foursome out and I was fourth after the first 8, but there were some good golfers still out on the course. It was a confluence of circumstances that found me at the end of the day as the number 8 qualifier. The Club Champion gets the number one seed so my spot ended up being against the reigning Champion. Two of the best golfers in our club were hurt and couldn't play. Three of the other low handicappers struggled in the qualifier and shot 83, 84 and 85. I was shocked to be honest as my intention was to get a round in and then go back to my flight and play with my 11 strokes. The scratch flight has to play even up with no strokes.

Today I was in the last group and got an opportunity to play against the current Club Champion and in the same foursome as another prior Club Champ. It is rarefied air and I surprised Boyd and several other of the guys in the club as they saw my name in the Championship flight. I was pretty nervous and even had one of the guys say, "Ken, you can hit, you can't reach them." Obviously a shot at my handicap. I stepped up and blew the ball ten yards passed him. I should have won the first hole (the Club Championship is Match Play), but felt the pressure and missed a four foot putt to tie with a bogey. I was actually up one hole a couple of times and he went ahead on the eighth hole for the first time and was 1 up after nine holes. I quickly took that back to even on 10 and we were back and forth thru 14. He won 15 and 16 to go two up with two to play and when we tied 17, it was over and I lost 2 and 1. I was proud to take him to 17 holes before he won and I certainly had chances to win and next time will work harder to play the course instead of the man. I shot 83 and Angel shot 80. I'm out for the Club Championship but it was a great experience and I'll have a go at the Scratch flight again next year.

Darla has come to the end of  her medical leave and although she is doing much better, she really wasn't ready to go back to work yet. She met with her doctor on Friday and he gave her another week. I have seen some nice changes in her this past week. She is much feistier than she has been and seems so much more focused. The best sign I have seen is that she bought paint for the Master bathroom this weekend and was working on painting the bathroom when I got home today!

The pictures above are from Darla and David's trip to Folsom lake with Don and Alicia. It was the final weekend that boats could be moored in the slips at Brown's Ravine and David was able to help Don pull the boat out.

Daniel and Becky were in town this weekend for another wedding. All of Becky's friends seem to be getting married this Summer. They left this morning for a week camping with her family up in the Redding area.  They came over last night to visit with us, showing up at 10:30 and Darla and I finally went to bed at 12:30. Daniel had a friend come over and the three of them visited until about 2 in the morning, finally locking up and heading back to his dad's.

Work continues at the same pace that it has been going. We were once again behind on our budget going in to the final week and JUST made it with $325,096 in earned income off of our budget of $325,000, making it 7 straight months of beating our budget this year. We were up 18% over 2012. The company as a whole had our biggest month ever and several of our offices were up 30 percent or more. Our Dallas office went up from $780,000 to over $900,000. San Francisco also grew big as well as most of the California offices. Our lunch this month may end up being at a park and have a food truck come out and serve us.

Samantha will be in the Bay Area this next weekend as John has a week long job in the area and Jennifer will take her. She has her signed up for a day camp at the local YMCA. Darla and I have a two day certificate from Silpada for a stay at a Marriott hotel and we plan to go and stay in Livermore over the weekend and see Jennifer and Samantha. We will stay over Monday and spend the day with Samantha.

Darla is due to go back to work on Tuesday August 13th and will meet with her boss to talk about some of the issues that have been causing her stress and making her job less than fun lately. We have talked about the possibility of her going fulltime with Silpada and that is certainly still on the table.

Well, I have been working on this and watching the Dallas Cowboys in the Hall of Fame game at the same time. None of the stars played because of the fact that they will play five preseason games. It was well played and it was fun to see some of the new wrinkles in both the offense and defense.

That is it for this week and the blog may be late next week. It depends on whether we see Samantha late on Sunday night. I will likely bring the laptop with me, so I may be able to get a blog update in. I hope your week is GREAT. Ciao.