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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jennifer and Sam will visit this week

Darla and I were talking about when we would make another Vegas trip and decided to ask Jennifer if she and Sam wanted to fly out and visit for a week or so and we would pay their airfare. Jennifer jumped on the idea and they fly in on Wednesday afternoon and will be here until Monday. We are planning a trip up to Lake Tahoe over the weekend. Luke found out that they are coming and wants to do a sleepover, so will be here Thursday night. He asked his Mom if he could call Sam and discuss it over the phone. Cute.

The pictures above are from our dinner out Saturday night at a new restaurant in Roseville called ASR. They are a new trendy restaurant and "Ultra Lounge" where they are a restaurant until 10:00 PM and then reopen at 10:30 as a nightclub with live music. Darla had a Groupon and I had played golf on Saturday and wanted to do a dinner out. I had a flanken steak, which is the tender meet near the rib eye. It was prepared with a cilantro salsa over it and served over scalloped potatoes and was incredible. Darla had a mushroom ravioli and we shared a dish of mac and cheese as an appetizer. Excellent. I had iced tea and Darla had a blackberry margarita that was outstanding. It was a good night out. The bill came and it was $72. We had a Groupon for $40 that Darla had bought and brought it up on her phone and I immediately saw the Sunday through Thursday limitation. Oh well, it is a great restaurant and we will eat there again. One of the best things about Groupon is trying new places without worrying about wasting your money. I think the $40 Groupon was $20.

The picture of Darla's boganvillas I really liked. It shows off the stamped concrete and we even got a comment on the shed when Darla posted it on Facebook. They asked if that was a small cottage in our backyard. Well, sort of. We had the shed repainted when the house was painted and it matches the house.

Steve and I did take a road trip to Santa Clara on Wednesday to compete in the Senior 4 ball event and qualifier. We left the house at 6:30 for our 10:30 tee time and the Bay area traffic is so ridiculous that we arrived at 9:30. We wanted to eat some breakfast and also hit balls, but opted for nourishment over practice. Steve was able to hit about six balls on the range after our omelets came out. I chose to hit the practice green instead to get a feel for the greens. I was horrible the first three holes, spraying my drives and Steve kept us in the match with three straight pars that were net birdies. I finally woke up and had four pars over the next six holes and we made the turn at 5 under par. The back nine we ham and egged it pretty good, never having a net bogey and finishing 10 under par for a 62. We were in third when we came in and sat and watched as the scores were posted. We stayed in third for the next 90 minutes, dropped to 4th and then the last four groups out had two 61s and a 60 and we ended up 7th out of 40 teams. Unfortunately, the next round in Poppy Hills only had five qualifiers from our site. We are the second alternate. There were 8 sites around Northern California that hosted qualifiers and it turns out that a 62 would have qualified at all the other 7 sites. Our luck. Santa Clara Golf and Tennis Club is located right across the street from Levis Stadium, the new home of the Santa Clara 49ers. Steve asked if I wanted to go over and take the tour of the stadium while we waited and I told him he'd have to pay the $25 fee as I could give a hoot about the 49ers and don't want to pay to see all the hype abut the 5 Super Bowls they won back when David and Daniel were babies.

We were pretty depressed when we got knocked out, but happy with the way that we played. I shot 84 and Steve shot 87. We decided not to get stuck in rush hour traffic and headed over to Sunnyvale and an Asian restaurant Steve likes called Tao Tao. It was very good, but they add shrimp to their fried rice. It sort of ruins it for leftovers, but was excellent when we had it for dinner. I actually brought the leftovers to work and picked out the shrimp before heating it up.

The Club Championship was this weekend and I actually warmed up for it by shooting a 40 on Thursday night in league. Saturday I played a newer member of the club and he was good. I had to give him four strokes and knew it would be a tough day early on as I was one under after six holes and only had a one hole advantage. I finally closed him out on 17, when he got into a sand trap and it took him three to get on the green.

Today, I played a 17 handicap. I get 15, so had to give him two strokes. I was awful on the front nine and shot 49 to his 47 and he had a 2 hole lead after nine. I got him back to All Square after 11 and we stayed there until 17. I had a chance to go one up as I was on the green in two, but three putted from 12 feet, pulling a Dustin Johnson. We both had 5. He had a stroke on 18 and I was 12 feet in three and he was off the green in three. He almost chipped in and took five. My only hope was to knock in the putt and go extra holes, but left the putt six inches short and it was over. I certainly wanted to win, but now we can make a trip next weekend with Sam and Jennifer as the final round is on Saturday.

My finger continues to swell and cause me some difficulty, but I will take two weeks off from golf and hopefully it will heal up. It is pretty gnarly looking right now.

Harvey is back from his safari in Africa and put me on notice that I am on the Home Office radar. The five employees that I've lost to competition are now somehow my fault. It's amazing that a 30 year old being paid $60K would leave for a company offering him $110K. I guess if I had a stronger relationship with these millenials, they wouldn't have left for an 83% increase in pay. Yeah right.

Jennifer's company is going through some changes and they just terminated their construction division. McKenny was in Virginia this week and terminated their 1099 employees and shut down the unit. It is a startup and always a bit iffy as to whether it will be a go long term. Jennifer said that Ericcson is opening up three positions in Las Vegas for wireless managers and Jennifer is going to apply. It would be nice to have the two of them not be both dependent on the same small firm for their livelihood. Jennifer even thinks that she could possibly take the job with Ericcson and continue to work nights for their company. We'll see how that goes for her.

The Blog will likely be a few days late next week as we will be with Sam and Jennifer and likely out of town. I will return with plenty of stories and pictures. It will be a fun week ahead. Be well. Ciao.

Where's Darla?

This will be the last of the Almanor pictures. All great things must come to an end. It was a blast and we enjoyed seeing everyone and we'll do it again next year.

 

Darla has been gone all day on a Silpada event on a houseboat in Lake Oroville. She told e she'd be home about 6 PM. I talked to her at 6:30 and she was waiting for a tender to come and get them off the houseboat and bring them back to the dock. She told me to go ahead and grab dinner. She went with her friend, Denise, and it was an all ladies event. She texted me about 8:15 and said that they were stopping at Red Robin for dinner. What's the matter with fast food? I thought she'd be anxious to get home ad see her stud husband. I guessed wrong. Should I be worried?

 

I have been struggling with this finger all week. I played golf on Thursday night in league and thought that the finger wouldn't cause me any problems. The middle finger of the left hand doesn't touch the shaft of the club in a golf swing. What I didn't realize is that when I strike the ball, that finger tends to make contact with my right wrist and Thursday night I broke open the nail bed and it got bleeding again. I shot lousy.

 

I've been in the market for a new driver for awhile. The spring like effect on the face tends to diminish over time and you slowly start losing distance. I've been looking at the new Fly Z plus Cobra drivers as both Boyd and Andy hit those and hit them long. One of the guys in the shop has all of his clothes and cubs supplied by Puma/Cobra and he is usually dressed like Ricky Fowler. He told me that the price on the Fly Z would drop on July 15. It did, but dropped from $425 to $329. The Titlist 915 D driver dropped from $499 to $299 and I bought a D2 on Thursday night with the book money I have in the shop. I didn't play with it Thursday night and wanted to get out this weekend and give it a run.

 

The scratch qualifier for the Club Championship was today and I asked Gary to put me in if there was an open slot. I had no intention of trying to qualify, but wanted to play with the guys and give the Titleist a run. It was a nice day today, but I struggled with approach shots and putting and shot 46+46=92 for a net 74. There were no handicaps in play today as it is the scratch qualifier and I moved back to the blue tees for the fist time in a year. There were 14 of us and the seven qualifiers shot 71, 73, 75, 76, 76, 78 and 78. I hit the driver long, but was both left and right and need to tweak the setting on the head. I hit a bucket of balls after the round today and was straightening out the drives.  

 

I had some fun in the office this week with a couple of personnel issues. My people are my most important pat of my work life and at times, my biggest headache. You know my struggles with the younger crowd and how they want everything handed to them and they want it now. This had more to do with some behavioral issues and some conflict on one of the teams. it all worked out in the end, but it was a tough week and there were some feathers ruffled. This coming off Monday, when we closed early and I took the whole gang out bowling as a team building event. It went over fabulously and everyone had a great time.

 

It will be a short staff this week with my assistant in Lake Tahoe until mid week, Pete in Virginia to see his daughter on her return from Bosnia (she is in the Navy and flies in a helicopter unit). I will be playing in a golf tournament in Santa Clara on Wednesday. It is the Senior 4 ball qualifier that Steve and I made it into earlier this year. The temperatures are supposed to head up into the 110 degree range by mid week and the weather in the Bay area is much milder, although they are slated for the lower 90's on Wednesday. it will be nice to get out of the heat. Steve picked the course as he knows it well from his days in San Jose.

 

Friday night we were invited over to Charlie and Frieda's for dinner and games. The games never happened, as dinner was served at 7:30 and I was beat by about 9:30 when we finished our dessert. We called it an evening at that point. We did get to swim and their pool with solar is actually warmer than ours. Our pool is at 85 degrees and going up this week with the heat headed our way.

 

 

I saw on the weather channel that Dallas was supposed to have its first 100 degree day of the year this week. It must be nice, we've had at least  a dozen days over 100 and the next week is forecast for another 6 out of the 7 days. Tomorrow is slated to be 97 degrees. Darla and I will go to church in the morning, have breakfast out and then relax in our pool. That will be the plan most of this next week, but she has a Silpada dinner meeting on Tuesday and I'll be in Santa Clara on Wednesday, hopefully home late afternoon and then I have twilight golf in the 108 degree weather on Thursday.

 

I didn't play in the twilight league this year, but Ron Floyd's partner quit mid year and I decided to help him out given that he is one of my agents. The league lasts only another four weeks and then we'll have a pizza party. Our team is in 5th place out of 14 teams.

 

The numbers at work continue to be down and I continue to get pressure from HO. You can't lose the 6th highest producing underwriter in the company and expect to replace him right away. My goal is to get back to where we were last year and approach our budgeted numbers in November and December. My two new underwriters are doing well, but they are brand new. It will take time and I don't feel like corporate has any grace for the situation that I'm in. It is a bottom line business.

 

Well, Darla finally showed up and she is staying and not moving out, so I guess she isn't changing teams. :-). I hope you all have a GREAT week and I'll be back at the keyboard on Sunday next. Ciao.



Midweek Update

I wanted to add a few more pictures from Almanor and bring you all up to date on things that happened over the weekend. I love the picture of Jen on the jet ski getting some air and of Sam, David and Luke on the kayak on the lake. The last picture is Darla's boganvillas in the back yard. Her babies.

 

Darla went to and enjoyed her annual conference in Kansas City. I dread the humidity in the south and Midwest and feel like I'm trapped in a room where someone just washed a dog while I'm toiling in the humidity. I can't imagine that that type of oppressive air adds to longevity. I digress. Darla traveled with one of her reps that has rheumatoid arthritis. Unfortunately, she also struggles with the internet and computers and when she made her flight, she took a flight out of Sacramento that went to Dallas and Darla flew a half hour earlier on a flight to Denver. They were to meet up in Kansas City and Darla was to arrive about 90 minutes before her rep. Darla is a dealer and when they offered anyone $500 to take a bump on the flight, Darla bit. She called me and asked what to do with her rep. I told her to tell her you got bumped. Now Darla was coming in 90 minutes AFTER her rep. It all worked out as her rep's plane was delayed two hours and they showed up within 30 minutes of each other. As Darla said, it was meant to be. Now we have $550 in credit with Southwest for our next trip to Vegas.

 

I took Darla and her rep to the airport at 4:30 AM and headed back to get another 90 minutes of sleep. I worked that day and then had to pick up one of the Managers from HO for a visit to my office. I picked her up at the airport at 6:30 and we drove over to the Morton's Steakhouse in Sac for dinner with Pete. We ate like bandits and I started to put the weight on that I lost on vacation. How sedentary is your life when you lose five pounds on vacation?

Thursday morning, I picked her up at her hotel in Roseville and we met Pete and one of his agent's for breakfast. I was back to the office for a half day and then off to Walnut Creek for the second round of Deposition Prep with our lawyers. Darla and I had stayed at the Holiday Inn Express on our last trip to WC, but the same room this time was $188. I decided instead to roll the dice on an Expedia "Hot Rate" listing for a 4 diamond hotel within 20 miles of Walnut Creek for $144. I ended up with the Lafayette Park Hotel, an absolutely grand old hotel in Pleasant Hill, 5 minutes west of Walnut Creek. It is an old English style hotel with marble staircases, wood walls, large overstuffed beds and furniture as well as wainscoting and rich crown molding and heavy carpets throughout the property. They also had five different courtyards built into the hotel design. It was absolutely decadent and I loved it. I got there early enough to relax by the pool and enjoy the charm of the spa and wait service on site. I have a few pictures above of the grounds.

 

The deposition on Friday was about three hours and the lawyer really grilled me. I think I kind of egged him on, because most of my answers early on were, "I'm not a claims person, nor a coverage expert." At one point he asked me that with a premium of over $9,000, wouldn't the insured expect to get some premises coverage at the apartment complex? I told him that our insured was by definition a named insured under the apartment complexes' insurance policy (and the lawyer's client), so it was more in his interest to be insured under that coverage form. He seemed to think that was an "A-HA!" moment as he jumped in and said then what was the property manager's insurance going to pay for? My answer was "the frivolous lawsuit that we are defending at the moment". He was not pleased! I think he kept me there about an extra hour just to make me pay for being a smart ass. It was a good experience and I got good feedback on my testimony by our lawyers.

 

Saturday, I was up early and Paul, John, Russ and I piled in the Explorer for a trip up to Marysville and our away event at Plumas Lakes. It is an old style golf course with shorter holes, but narrow, tree lined fairways. We had 34 players and the average score net was about 8 over par. I shot a 46+42=88 for a net 70 and took second low net. I won $48 in skins after picking up $30 from the prior tournament that was in an envelope waiting for me. Adding in the $35 for the tournament innings as well, it was a good day for me.

 

I got home a little after 5 and relaxed in the pool on a hot night. Darla called and told me that her flight that was supposed to arrive at 11:00 PM had been delayed three hours because the plane coming in from LA had been hit by lightning and taken out of service. They had to wait for that plane to arrive in KC and then take it to Vegas and on to Sac. The new arrival was 2:05 AM. I got a call from the husband of Darla's rep and he asked if I could bring her home rather than back to our place. He has MS and doesn't do well in the dark. OK.

 

I was getting up from my chair by the patio table next to the pool and used the armrest to push myself up. My left hand was gripped around the plastic armrest when it broke in two and the full weight of my body crushed my fingers between the plastic grip and the two metal tubes forming the arm of the chair. I was able to quickly sit back down, but the blood began running and my finger throbbed. I ran into the master bathroom and grabbed a towel to use as a compress and held it over my head. They say five minutes is a good time to get the bleeding to stop, but every time I looked, it was still spurting. I was afraid that I'd have to go to the Emergency room and that was the last place I wanted to be on a Saturday night. I finally got it to stop bleeding and inspected the wreckage. I have a large hematoma under my nail. The nail bed has torn loose and the length of my first knuckle was ripped open. I called a Physician's assistant with our Medical provider and she told me how to dress the wound and clean it. I kept it in gauze and bandages and decided to see how it looked Sunday.

 

I picked Darla up at the airport, we transported the package to Citrus Heights, dropping her at her door and then got home about 3:30AM. I fell into a deep sleep. Sunday morning I was up by nine and checked the damage. It looked better and had stopped weeping (so had I by then). I re wrapped it and Darla and I spent a lazy day watching golf and relaxing by the pool.

 

I will leave this again until Sunday and bring you up to date on what is my crazy life at that time. Be well. Ciao.

Almanor 2015

 

 

I am back at the keyboard after a glorious week away in Almanor. It has been a busy week since I got back with Darla off to Kansas City and her annual conference with her jewelry business. I had a visit from a Home Office Manager and went to Walnut Creek for the claim deposition that I've been preparing for over the past month. I was off to a golf tournament in Marysville today and Darla's return flight from Kansas City has been delayed from 11:30 to 2:30 tomorrow morning because the plane they were going to use out of Los Angeles to KC was hit by lightning and taken out of service. The planes in LA were grounded for 6 hours while the weather past.

 

Almanor was a different vacation this year as the weather was pretty iffy all week. We arrived on Tuesday and you could see the clouds building as we approached Chester and the Lake. Jennifer called and they were driving through Reno and the weather there was heavy rain and wind. They were delayed about 90 minutes as the rain was driven so hard that the road speeds were down to about 35 MPH.

 

It was dark in Almanor when we arrived, but so far no rain. Well, that didn't last as the cell landed right over us as we finished unpacking and wind came up, a little rain and then some heavy hail. I could hear the hail hitting the Plexiglas bubble in the second bathroom. I ran to the back bedroom to look at the car and saw Darla running like a crazy woman through the pelting hail and throwing a beach towel over the front end of the car. I opened the window and yelled that. "You're crazy!!". She just wanted to protect the car and the hail was about the size of ping pong balls.

 

McKenny and Jennifer got there about 4:30 and we ran out in the rain and helped them with Sam as McKenny carried Maceo, the dog, into the cabin. We visited for awhile and the weather finally died down so we could get them unpacked. We had a great visit, enjoyed dinner and played some games that night.

 

We woke up the next morning to sunshine. We had breakfast and took the jet ski down and put it in into the water. Jen tied it up to the slip while I ran the trailer back up to the cabin to store it. We ran the ski a bit, but the weather was turning again by shortly after noon and we had rain by 2 PM.

 

McKenny had received a phone call about a new contract that his firm was signing and he found out he had to be in Washington DC on Monday. Their plan was to stay until Tuesday, but they had to leave on Sunday so he could get on the plane Monday morning. Sam was not understanding of the change in plans. The boys and Becky were supposed to arrive Wednesday night and that got changed as David had extra work and had to be there all day on Wednesday. Sam had a little event on Wednesday night because of the two disappointments. She carried on and Jennifer really handled her well. I was very impressed with the way Jennifer stood her ground with Sam and settled the situation down.

 

The next day the weather was overcast and iffy and Jennifer and McKenny decided to go into town and do some shopping. Darla and I stayed with Sam and the dog and played cards and games. Sam got bored about mid morning and said to me that she wanted to "build" something. I took her out into the woods and we started gathering wood and built a teepee. Sam gathered moss and made a carpet for the floor and used pine cones to frame the carpeting. It was very creative.  

 

 

 

 

The boys and Becky arrived in the afternoon and it was a grand homecoming as Sam was really excited to see the kids. The weather turned sour again and we sat and played games and visited and made a huge dinner.

 

Friday Jen took the ski out in the morning and then Darla and I went out in the afternoon and ran the ski. The reeds in the water were really high and the water intake would get clogged. We had to get in the water and pull the reeds out of the intake to get the ski going again. The water was really shallow around the docks and in spots near the shore. We had to take the ski out about a half mile to get into deeper water.

 

Saturday Don put his boat in the water and David, Darla, Sam and Don's family took the boat over to get gas and then found a nice spot to pull the kids on the blow up raft behind. Sam was a little concerned about leaving Mom behind, but wanted to be with Luke. At one point she turned to Darla and said, "I didn't know this would be so much fun." When she was on the raft with David she told him, "This is the BEST day of my life!" Pretty dramatic, but pretty funny.

 

Saturday Darla's brother came into town and Earl and Frances, Darla's parent's took us all out to pizza on the peninsula, which is a tradition. They were celebrating their 55th wedding anniversary. We all had a great time and Sam and Luke played the whole time, coloring on the paper covering on the table and playing with Becky.

 

We went back to Don and Alicia's to visit and Earl took the opportunity with his whole family there to share his faith. He said that he and Frances were getting older and there was no guarantee that they would be with us much longer and it was important to him to make sure that we all knew Jesus Christ as our personal savior and that we turn our lives over to Him and assure our futures in Heaven. I was touched by his sincerity and by his courage and faith in sharing his inner hopes and prayers for his family. He told each of us that he prays for our salvation every day. It was powerful stuff.

 

We left about ten thirty as Jen and McKenny had to take off early that next morning. I went to bed about 11 and was pretty emotional saying goodbye to them. I'm very proud of how Jennifer is conducting her life. She is a very good Mom and McKenny and Jennifer are really good together. They work things out together and always discuss everything together. I was very impressed with McKenny's work ethic as he was on the phone every day preparing for their new venture, hiring workers and setting up appointments. They were up at 4 AM and I heard them as they were leaving. I got up to pee and said goodbye to Jen again as she was getting Sam into the car.

 

The boys left on Sunday afternoon as Daniel and Becky had an 8 PM flight. Darla and I had lunch in town with Don and Alicia and Steve and Kirsten. We went out on the water that afternoon and then had dinner at Don and Alicia's with Steve and Kirsten, Earl and Frances and Darla's aunt Tracy and uncles Stan and Junior.

 

Darla and I were up early on Monday and it was a glorious day and we ran the ski hard. Don and Alicia came out and Darla rode the ski out to deeper water and we tied the ski up to the boat and just floated for a few hours in the 80 degree heat. Darla and I called over to see how much cleaning we had to do at the cabin. The old owners gave us a small book that required cleaning the floors, the bathrooms, the kitchen and the deck. The new owners wanted us to wipe out the refrigerator. That's it. In fact they sent someone over to the cabin when we were packing up to make sure we weren't cleaning. I like the new owners.

 

We had dinner over at the Plumas Pines resort on the way out of town and the gang that was left joined us for dinner. It was a great visit.

 

The drive down the mountain was a little hairy in the dark. At one point we saw a deer on the side of the road and it freaked me out. He could have darted in front of the car and jet ski. I was pretty tense driving down the mountain and it turned out I was right to be as we came across two more deer that were jogging along the side of the road. As much as I thought I was prepared, I still swerved and luckily we kept the truck and ski from fishtailing, although it freaked me out pretty good.

 

I will leave it here and perhaps add more about the rest of my week later. We were able to relax at home on Tuesday and take it easy before Darla left for KC on Wednesday. I hope you are all good and I'll touch base again in the next day or two. Ciao.