Jennifer is 35?

 

A good weekend is in the books. My daughter, whom I still think of as in the first picture, which is from her 12th birthday, turned 35 this weekend. To put that into perspective, Darla was 32 when we got married in 1996. Jen did not have Sam over the weekend and we had planned to call them on Friday night. Instead, McKenny, being the ultimate boyfriend, took her out on the town on Friday night and we missed talking to her. The second picture is from their night out. We were busy Saturday, Darla had a garage sale and I went anywhere, but here. Actually, we had our golf invitational at the club and although I didn't tee off until 10:15, I was at the course at 7:45 to help them set up. I got home, showered and we were off to meet Bob and Debbie for dinner in Lincoln. We got home about 9 and I decided to call today.  Jennifer called us about 9:30 last night and said, "Uh, Hi. I kind of expected to hear from you guys this weekend." I explained the circumstances and she laughed and said, "OK, that makes sense." The card and gift did make it on time, so it's not like we forgot. McKenny had flown out to the Bay Area for a DJ gig tonight and a job interview tomorrow and I think Jen was a little lonely. I would have called if I knew she was alone.

 

I think I mentioned last week that the firm that they were working for closed their construction division and laid off both Jennifer and McKenny. It was a job that one of McKenny's good friends had given them and they were both working for low salaries as McKenny was supposed to have an ownership stake in the firm after they started to make profits. There was only a handshake deal and those often go south. They are both looking for work, but the job that McKenny is looking at will pay more than both of them were making at the other job.

 

Jennifer is painting and McKenny is DJ-ing and selling some of his huge record collection to get by. McKenny will support Jennifer staying home until she can find the right job if he gets this position. He's a good man. Jennifer said that they have both been stressed throughout this process and that they are stronger than ever as a couple and that is huge.

 

The reason we had dinner with Bob and Debbie was that Bob and I played together in the Invitational. I hadn't seen Bob for all of the Summer and decided to invite him to our Invitational. The Invitational is a fun event and we have several "fun" holes. On the first par 3, we had dice on the tee and each team had to roll them and you could either get a plus one if you rolled 10-12, play it even if you rolled 6-9 and you got minus one on the hole if you rolled 2-5. On the next par 3, we had three pins on the green and there was a chart at the green that showed what pin each team was playing to. On number 8, a short par 4, they had both left and right handed clubs on the tee and you had to tee off with whatever club wasn't your normal side of the ball. Finally, on the third par three there were dice and each player had to roll and what you rolled determined what club you had to use to tee off and play with throughout the entire hole.

 

Bob is a 21 and I get 15, so our combined team handicap for the two man scramble was 18. Bob was really playing well and we used his drive on 5 of our first 6 holes. We shot a 12 under 24 on the front nine helped by a five that we rolled on number three for a minus one on our three, that when combined with our stroke on the hole gave us a net hole in one. We also ended up with a ball 18 feet from the red pin and our team had red. We also had a par on the number 8 hole that started with each of us with left handed drives that went about 50 yards. Some of the guys used the left handed driver and turned it upside down and hit it right handed anyhow. We struggled a bit on the back, but never had worse than a bogey and I got stuck with a 4 iron on the 125 yard par three and pured it to about twelve feet. Bob was putting with his 9 iron and I putted the ball to about two feet and missed the putt with the 4 iron. Bob calmly knocked it in with his 9 iron. We ended up with a 6 under 30 on the back for a 54 and took first low net in the tournament that featured 33 teams. Bob had never won a tournament before and was thrilled. I picked a good partner and we had a great time.

 

Dinner was nice at Casa Ramos in Lincoln. It is a nice Mexican food restaurant and the six restaurants in the chain are owned by Manuel Ramos, who owns a residence at the Grand Luxxe in Nuevo Vallarta and Neil and I played golf with him a few years ago. He usually heads to Mexico for about 6 weeks at a time two or three times a year. Dinner was awesome and it was fun to get together with them again. I told Bob he needs to get involved with the group and play in some of the tournaments. He is a member and has been for years, but a retired guy that doesn't play much golf on the weekends.

 

My boss will be in tomorrow and will be meeting individually with the staff to get a feel for how things are going in the office. The HR audit that is coming up has him a little spooked and he doesn't want any surprises coming out of that audit. The company is really moving toward working with  "best practices" and having the branches do things more uniformly. I'm concerned, but our numbers are down and we've lost four employees so far this year. It is what it is.

 

This is a little short, but Darla is done with her phone calls and we want to sit down and enjoy our Sunday night together. I hope all things are well with each of you. We have a series on marriage going on at church and one of the keys to a good marriage is each partner needs to be selfless and make their wants and needs a priority for them. As the pastor said, "Selfishness is a marriage killer and selflessness is the key to a Killer Marriage." On that note, Ciao.

 

 

 

 

School Starts for Sammy

 

First day of second grade today for the Sam meister. She looked cute as can be and Jennifer said that  she was really excited for school today. I think this afternoon was also her first day of soccer practice. Still pretty hot in Vegas, hopefully her coach uses some common sense when they are out practicing and keeps the girls hydrated and healthy.

 

I'm sorry that the blog is late. I had to do some handicapping last night for our invitational tournament. It includes a number of players that are not members and I spent a good part of the night on the phone trying to figure out if some of the players have handicaps. One player, Jim Ryan, had twenty players on the NCGA site with the same name. I finally got it done and was going to work on the blog, but decided to call Dad and Shirley instead. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

 

I played poker on Friday night and then golf early Saturday morning at Whitney Oaks. Whitney is a course in Rocklin that is very nice and was purchased about three years ago by the local Indian Casino and they have poured some money into it and it is country club quality. The normal green fee on the weekend is $60, but they aerated the greens on Monday and I was able to get a $35 green fee with cart.

 

I was concerned about getting up after poker, but it turns out that we had 9 players at the event and had to have one player rotate out. I played until about ten and when it was my turn to rotate out, I headed home. Darla had gone to a Christian event with Julie at a local church and they had a singer from American Idol who is now a Christian artist ( Danny Gokey) and a comedian. She wasn't home yet and I sent her a text asking what bar she was visiting. Anyone that knows Darla, knows that is a joke. We watched a movie and I was to bed by midnight.

 

Saturday was nice and cool early. I drove over and picked up Boyd at 6:40 for our 7:40 tee time. The course was tough and putting was different with the aeration holes and sand. It wasn't necessarily harder as the greens would hold and you could hit the ball hard. The Whitney greens are usually like lightning. I shot 43+45=88, Boyd shot 82, but Paul struggled to a 93. Bryan had been out at a concert Friday night and his alarm went off, was turned off and he woke up about 9. We played as a threesome. Oops.

 

We left right afterward and I left my cell phone in the cart , not realizing it until I got to Boyd's house. I hightailed it back to the course and the cart guys missed the phone in the cubby in front of the driver and they had put the cart back out in the queue. Luckily it hadn't been rented and I got the phone back. Unfortunately, for some reason, the SIM card was inoperable.

 

We had dinner that night with some friends from church in Lincoln at a favorite Italian restaurant (gnocchi!). We were at the restaurant for about 2 and a half hours as Vance can almost keep up with  Darla in the conversation department. Vance has been on staff at church up until the change of ownership and had a lot to tell us. It was a fun night.

 

Sunday we were off to church and then an early lunch to celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary. I went to AT&T and had them install a new SIM card. The employee said that like batteries, the SIM cards tend to lose power over time. There was no charge to replace it. I did go out today and bought a new battery for my cell phone as it has been losing charge so fast. I had it at 100% this morning and it was down to 28% by 10 AM. Batteries Plus replaces them for $50 if you ever need  new iphone battery.

 

From there we headed over to ASR, a restaurant in Roseville. They had brunch being served and I had a nice Ham and Cheese omelet and Darla opted for a pesto chicken sandwich for lunch.

 

We relaxed after lunch back at the house and both had a nice nap. We're tired after 19 years. I ended up on the pool after doing a little cleaning outside.

 

Work continues to move along inexorably. I had to fire a guy this last week for cause and I'm looking for another employee. Harvey told me today that there is an HR audit that will be done at my office in September. They are also auditing our San Diego office and San Francisco offices. I know they are concerned about turnover and I'm looking forward to addressing that with the HR associate. It's not like I've lost employees to multiple competitors and they have an issue with my office. The fact is that a competitor decided that I had great employees and came in and bought them. That, if anything, should be a compliment for my abilities in grooming young insurance professionals.

 

Darla is home after her visits today with the families that are in foster care. They visit with the natural mothers in this case. She is fixing fried chicken and only because we are out of propane for the barbecue. It smells delicious and reminds me of my childhood. That's it. I need to move on before I drool all over the keyboard. I hope you are all well. Ciao.

Memories of the Sam and Jen Show

 

 

Great memories. Sam is now in San Diego with her Dad on a final vacation before school starts for her on August 24th. Jennifer's Mom will be in Vegas later this week to spend the last of Sam's Summer with her. We had a blast with them while they were here and cherish all of the memories that we made.

 

If you look closely at the sign next to Sam on the fifth picture down, you'll notice that the sign reads: "Unattended children will be given espresso and a free kitten." That was a sign at High Hand Nursery. Fun times.

Work continues to confound me. There isn't a great deal of patience being shown to me in allowing me time to get the office back on track. I plan to have a conference with my boss tomorrow to ask for some grace. I have a plan and I also have some young, inexperienced Underwriters on the front lines and I'm extremely happy with" slow and steady". We are close this month to equaling our numbers from August of 2014, which is a win for us. I'll get this turned around, I just need support and time.

I didn't play golf yesterday which is rare for me. I went out to Darla's Car Show event with her and helped her set up and then went out and got some pool supplies and nursery items for the house. I planted a new palm in the backyard above the pool and also cleaned the pool backsplash and tile of calcium buildup. I then resealed the backspash with Thompson's Water Seal and did the chemicals in the pool. I tried to get the mower going and failed. I had a Toro Mower for 16 years and finally replaced it with another Toro in March. The front lawn is dormant and hasn't been mowed in weeks. I tried to start the mower last weekend and couldn't and ended up trimming some of the lawn with my weed whacker and decided to work on the mower after Jennifer and Sam were back home.

Darla came home about three thirty and we planned to go to church. I told her we were returning the mower to Home Depot. We loaded it up and enjoyed church and then went over to the Home Depot. They told me that the mower needed to be sent back to Toro to be repaired. I wasn't pleased and they called a Manager in the Garden Center and he came over, saw how new and clean  the mower was, checked the air filter and smelled gas. He told me the carburetor was shot and agreed to replace the mower, so we brought a new one home with us.

Today, it was 106 degrees and one of my agents decided it was a good day to play golf. He was bringing one of his buddies who owns another agency that I work with. I had to go, but it was brutal HOT today. I think I drank about two gallons of water out on the course. I shot 43 on the front, but struggled to a 46 on the back and was toast by the time we were finished. Ron himself shot 41+50=91, so that's what he gets for a 10:30 tee time on a day that hits 106 degrees.

We had a lot of laughs on the course today and none more than when the group in front of us left a club on the green. Paul and I drove up to the green they were playing on the next hole. They were all big guys and the largest of them walked up with a quizzical look on his face. I said, "Hey, we've got a bone to pick with you guys!"He put his hands out and said, "Dude, it's too hot to fight." They had a good laugh when we pulled out their club and handed it over, We hadn't had any problems with them, but you always wonder when someone pulls up in a cart and wants to talk.

Darla was waiting for me when I got home and we dunked into the pool and the heat of the day seemed to melt away. I cooked chicken kabobs for dinner on the barbecue and she is making some Silpada calls to clients right now and I'm working on the blog. I finally got her pictures uploaded from her cell to the computer and she didn't have any pictures of Daniel and Becky from breakfast last Saturday and that surprised me. The top picture of Benihana is one that the restaurant takes themselves and I downloaded it from their website.

It is supposed to be HOT the next four days with temps ranging from 109 degrees to 100 degrees on Thursday. It IS the Dog Days of Summer. Thursday is the final night of Twilight league play and we will have our Pizza Night that night at the pizza parlor up the street from our house.

It should be an interesting week of work this week as I have several companies coming in to visit and Pete is out from Wednesday on in Mexico for a four day vacation. I'm continuing to work on the teams in the office and massaging the team players. It is kind of more a science than an art as I work with personalities and individuals.

I brought an idea up to Darla today that I'm toying with and that is eventually selling both our house and the rental and downsizing to a smaller house that we can pay cash for. That is more the idea as I get close to retirement age. Darla and I can both take up to a $500,000 exception on a principal home that we sell and pay no taxes. I would have to take the proceeds from the rental and buy a house that we want to retire in, but rent it for two years and then move into it to avoid taxes on the capital gains from the rental. Funny how hose thoughts begin to seep in as you get closer to retirement age. I'm currently reading a book "Get What's Yours: The Secret to Maxing out Your Social Security." Pretty dry, but it gets into "file and suspend" ideas that will increase the amount that we can make and perhaps even bring in social security payments under a spousal benefit prior to 70.

Well, that's it for this week. I hope you are all doing well. Dad and Shirley, we will give you a call sometime this week. Sunday ends up being our wind down day and it's not a great night to make calls. At least for me. Ciao.



Samantha and Jennifer in the House

 

 

 

 It is Monday night. I have dropped Jennifer and Sam at the airport and they should be in the air by now winging their way back to Las Vegas. We had a great trip marred only by a couple of occasional issues with Samantha and her respect for her Mom's authority. Jen talked to John about and it and his response was that she'd been out of school too long. Sam is quite a Momma's girl. which doesn't seem to go with the fighting authority piece, but Sam has always been extremely strong willed. It was overall a minor problem with our trip, but a bigger problem for Jennifer (and John) going forward. She is a young lady that needs strong discipline because she tests boundaries consistently . Jennifer does a good job overall.  Jennifer knows that Sam plays her and is working hard to stand strong. I'm proud of her.

 

They came in on Wednesday afternoon and I left early from work to pick up Darla and head to the airport. They were both in a great mood and we had a fun night, grabbing a late lunch/early dinner at El Azteca, the little Mexican food shop up the street from our house.

 

Thursday, Lucas came over to play with Sam and they spent most of the day together. I went to work and Jennifer was on the computer most of the day. I got home at regular time and Jennifer and Sam were already off to Folsom and dinner with her ex Step dad, Bill, who Jennifer considers a father figure and Samantha calls him Grampa Bill. 

 

Friday I took the day off and we went to Benihana for lunch. When we asked Sam what she wanted to do during her visit, one thing was "Go to Benihana's". We had a ball watching the food being prepared and Sam enjoying the show. We got home mid afternoon and went in the pool followed by a trip to the park where Sam could play at the play area. Friday afternoon, we had Lucas and Alicia over for swimming and a barbecue and Darla's parents and David joined us to make it a party. I cooked two tri tips on the barbecue and everyone brought salads, fruit and desserts. David brought an appetite as I remember. Sam and Lucas had a ball together and it went to the next level when David got there. He was taking the kids and having them dive off his shoulders. The adults were visiting and we would look up when one of the kids would say, "Watch this!", which was often by the way. At one point Jennifer climbed up on David's shoulders and jumped off. I wasn't quick enough with the camera, but the were being siblings.

 

The kids played so much they drained about four inches of water out of the pool (don't they know we are in a drought?) and another two inches out of the spa. They were going from the pool to the spa to the pool to the spa over and over.

 

David stayed late that night and we watched a movie with Sam (Big Hero 6) and then an inane Will Ferrell movie called "Get Hard."

 

Saturday, Daniel and Becky came into town for, what else, a wedding and they joined Jennifer, Sam , Darla and I at the Original Pancake House in Roseville for a late breakfast. I had gone into the office Saturday morning to forward a report to home office that they were missing and to pick up my Oakley sunglasses that I left on my desk. I then went to get a haircut and by the time I got home we were packing up to go to breakfast. We had a nice visit wit Dan and Becky (Darla has the pictures on her phone) and Sam enjoyed seeing both of them. From there we drove out to Loomis and the High Hand Orchard. High Hand was a large packing shed back in the early 1900's and had undergone several changes since then, being warehousing for awhile before a couple of Loomis landowners bought the acreage 30 years ago and remade the buildings into retail spaces for craftsmen and opening a large nursery and restaurant on site. They have a lot of the old High Hand signs and crates and packing boxes displayed. We crawled around the nursery for awhile and shopped a bit in the stores. Jennifer bought a little fairy plant stick that is metal and goes into the soil around your plant. It is decorative. I bought Darla a hanging plant basket for the backyard made of a peat ball with plants embedded into the soil. We'll see how it does out in her growing plant nursery in our backyard.

 

From there I had promised to take Sam to have a milk shake at Taylors, a Frosty-style restaurant in Loomis that boasts over 250 different flavors of milk shakes. Sam had an Oreo shake and I settled for a mint chip shake as I was sharing with Darla. I wanted the Carmel Raspberry banana shake, but she won. Happy wife... 

 

Saturday night we relaxed at home and had leftovers. Sam had mac and cheese and some leftover tri tip. Darla and I both had tri tip (mine in a burrito) and Jennifer had some Chili Rellenos and a tamale that Darla picked up for Jennifer at the Farmer's Market on Wednesday. We all went to bed early knowing that we would be up early Sunday for our trip to Lake Tahoe.

 

I had managed to book us a suite at the Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel which used to be the Embassy Suites and is located right next to Harrah's. Dad and Shirley, this is right next to the Marriott Grand Vacations that you stayed in. The resort is 8 stories and built in a courtyard style with a large atrium in the middle of the rooms which are all built on the outside of the resort in a square. The atrium has a large area for both afternoon cocktails (Happy Hour) and the included breakfast buffet. They also have a large koi pond with both fish and turtles and an indoor swimming pool.

 

We drove up leaving about 9:30 and driving up Interstate 80 to Truckee and taking Highway 89 to Tahoe City and then around the west side of Lake Tahoe. We were going to stop at Inspiration Point overlooking Emerald Bay, but the traffic was packed with people coming and going and it took us the better part of an hour to make the 23 mile trip around the lake. We stopped in South Lake Tahoe on the California side and had lunch at a nice Sub shop. It was about 12:30 when I called the hotel to see if we could get in. There were no rooms ready yet, but they took my cell number and would call when it was ready. We walked a couple of blocks down Lake Tahoe Boulevard (Hwy 50) to a little Frosty ice cream shop and had a couple of cones and Sam had another Oreo milk shake. The girl is going through a growth spurt and can eat! We got the call that our room was ready so headed over to the resort and got checked in.

 

We went down with Sam and swam in the indoor pool. I sat out on the pool balcony for awhile and soaked up the 78 degree air. It was awesome. We went up, took showers and dressed for the 4:30 happy hour. They had mixed drinks, beer, wine, margaritas and daiquiris for $2 and sodas and juices for free. We all got our drinks (Sam got a Shirley Temple) and filled up on pretzels and popcorn. We were there for a little over an hour and then headed up to the room to get some warmer clothes on for the evening. We decided to walk to dinner and had nothing in particular in mind. We checked into a pizza joint called Base Camp that was in the middle of the Heavenly Valley shopping complex next to the Marriott resort. It was an hour wait, so we shopped for a bit and Sam collected flowers. I took a break at one point and was relaxing near Highway 50. An Oriental gal, or is it Asian, I always forget?...anyhow, she ran to make the crossing light and left the sidewalk with 7 seconds left on the light. She got halfway across and dropped a wad of currency. She turned to pick it up, but the wind whipped it up and carried it all over the road. I couldn't see how much money she dropped, but I did see a $20 bill and a $5 bill dancing in the air. The cars then commenced to further whip the bills into a frenzy. She looked back waved her hands and walked on. When the light changed, a good Samaritan ran out and scooped up as much money as he could find and was in hot pursuit of the young lady to return her $$. I don't know if he caught up to her, but it was quite a sight. 

 

Our table was ready in 30 minutes and we sat in the restaurant. Sam had her issues that night and Jennifer ended up taking her out of the restaurant and back to the room. To complicate things, the restaurant baked the wrong pizza for Darla and I and they gave that to us free and baked our combination pizza after that. The waiter felt bad and "comped" us our drinks. The bill was $38 for three medium pizza, three lemonades and iced teas and Jennifer's IPA beer. We brought a full medium pizza home with us.

 

Jennifer was pretty stressed out when we got back to the hotel and I told her and Darla to go down to the casinos and I'd stay with Sam. I had a heart to heart with her about how she treats her Mom and how much it hurts Jennifer's feelings. She was crying and said she wanted her Mom. I calmed her down, we got her a drink, she brushed her teeth and she was asleep in ten minutes.

 

Today we were up early, had our breakfast at the hotel and on the road by 9:30.  I took everyone over to the beach so Sam and Jennifer could see the lake and Sam could build a small sand castle. From there we stopped at the overlook on Highway 89 (pictures above) that was devoid of a crowd that early in the morning. I gassed up in Truckee and we were home by one o'clock. Darla and I played with Sam in the pool  (and the spa) while Jennifer packed up, downloaded some of our photos onto her computer and then had a conference call with her work.

 

And we are to date at the moment. Darla is off on a supervised visit with a foster Mom and the real Mom right now. She has a couple of cases that she supervises a week and that keeps her in seed money. Well, that is our week in a nutshell. I hope you are all doing well and everything is progressing for Dad and Shirley with their medical and dental issues. We continue to pray for you both. Ciao.