Darla is off to Paradise to visit her Mom who is recuperating from a knee replacement surgery. She went with her sister and took Samson along to meet them. It was just the girls as she is still not 100% and we didn't want to overwhelm her. Don stayed home with Luke as Luke's energy and boisterousness wouldn't have been great for Francis, regardless of how much she would have liked to see her grandson. We will all get up there when she is feeling better. I'm sitting watching the NFL Kickoff weekend. The Cowboys play at 5:30 and I thought I'd get on the blog early and get it done. I may add some pictures from Darla's trip today later.

 

Our weather is finally cooling off and although we did hit 96 degrees today, it was cool last night and this morning when I mowed the lawn at 8 o'clock. Darla and I went to Rubino's restaurant in Rocklin again. I bought a $30 Groupon for $10.50 on a Groupon 30% off flash sale. In fact I bought two of them. Darla had the pesto cream gnocchi and I had the tomato cream sauce (marinara and alfredo sauce mixed together). We went to 5:15 church last night and it was our Grand Reopening weekend. We officially became part of Bayside church on a vote earlier this Summer. They had the larges cake ever made in Roseville and were going to cut it and were also giving away chicken street tacos. We debated staying, but it was packed and we had the Groupon ready to go. The bottom picture is from Rubino's.

 

I went to my Bowen session on Thursday and was happy to be there as my back has been really acting up lately and I just got a new medication renewal on my cyclobenzaprine(Flexiril). It is the only medication that helps as it is a muscle relaxer. Jane set me up to go back in within two weeks (I normally go in every other month). Apparently my back was really stiff and she had trouble loosening me up. I figured that she knows best and she does. I played golf Saturday and the course at Cherry Island had a $35 deal with cart, golf and a beverage. They aerated the greens on Monday and are offering a deal. My back tightened up so much that I had trouble turning my hips on the swing. I would have left after 9 holes if we were walking, however I stayed for the whole 18 which included our cart running out of juice on the 12th hole. I had to carry my bag up to the green on that hole and it hurt. They sent out a replacement cart and we carried on. I was terrible, but did manage to play well enough to break even on my bets. I shot a 52+48=100. I played with Rico and he shot a wonderful 73 in the face of sanded and plugged greens. Ron shot 81 and Paul had an 88. I was happy to be out with the guys and getting some fresh air. I will play three games of golf this week, two of them work related. My back feels better today so we'll see how it goes. I will play with Ron from Placer on Tuesday in our last Day on the Oaks weekday tournament as a marketing event. I also will play Friday at a private course up in Placerville with Michael from Home Office and our new trainee in Personal Lines. We will be hosted by Jeff, who owns an agency up in Placerville and who I have played golf with a number of times. Then Sunday is the Rose Cup qualifier and, who knows, maybe I'll play well and qualify. We are the defending champions this year.

 

Michael is coming into town to see some agents, but mostly for our Continuing Education event on Thursday afternoon. We do these events about three times a year and this one is geared toward Personal Lines (homeowners, High Valued homeowners,  rentals, auto, etc.). I will not be able to attend the event this year as I have the annual meeting for the agent's association that I serve on the board. This is the group that sent us to Washington, DC last year and Maine this year. The meeting will run from 11 AM to about 2:30 and our CE event will run from 1-4. I'll be back in time for the Q&A session and the Agency Appreciation cocktail party from 5-7. We will have our booze sponsored by ServPro who is a claims remediation company and they love handling this for us every time. We have two other companies that have asked to take over the bar, but we are sticking with our long term partner until they decide not to do it. They are not technically a customer of ours, but the retail agents are both of our customers so they love to be there. We are doing a football theme this time (we did baseball last time).  We will have nachos, potato skins and sliders as appetizers. We'll also have the Thursday night game on in the boardroom.

 

The other pictures are of Jennifer, McKenny and his family along with Eva, one of Sam's friends. They are headed off to Sam's first soccer game. Sam had a tough week. She had tried out for choir and didn't make it and then she ran for the 4th grade spot on the school council and also wasn't elected. She wore a tee shirt that said "Vote for SAM" on Wednesday and Thursday. She was crying on Friday and called her Mom from the bus. Jennifer called me and asked for my advice. I told her to tell her how special she is and that in life you don't always get what you want. God sometimes has other plans for you. My advice was basically "this will soon pass". It turns out that a bunch of her classmates were in the same boat. I added a picture from Luke on the pool with Samson last week and one of him playing with his toys. I tied one of his toys to his harness.

 

Darla made it home and we are getting close to football time. She did not take any pictures today, so none to add. Samson did really well on the trip, relaxing in the car and no accidents in their house. He is doing really well on his house training and ...knock on wood... he hasn't had an accident since last week. We got serious last week and kept him on a leash in the house so we could keep an eye on him. We'd take him out every hour or so and praise him and give him a treat when he went in the designated spot. He now goes out and pees and sits for his treat. We have bells on the sliders and he rings the bell when he needs to go. We will slowly wean him off the leash and hopefully he will ring the bell when he needs to go out.

 

So, short and sweet this week. I'm ready for some FOOTBALL. I have a blt sitting next to me and some iced tea and Lays potato chips to eat first. Have a good week.  Ciao.