Kite festival

The Boardwalk in Santa Cruz opened on a sunny Saturday and hosted an awesome kite festival on the beach. Click on any picture to enlarge it.

Santa Cruz 2008

Cruising the waters of Santa Cruz on Wednesday afternoon... Click the arrow to start the video.

Rancho Bernardo Winery

We spent a few afternoon hours on Sunday at the winery just down the road from Grandma Lita's home listening to some live latin jazz and sampling the local wines. We also got a chance to see Emily and meet Robbie for the first time. Then we went back to Grandma's house and had a tasty barbeque in her newly refurnished back yard. Click the arrow to see some moments at the winery.

French Laundry Dinner Party

Dean and Mary treated us to an authentic reproduction of a five course dinner from the pages of the famous French Laundry restaurant. They cooked all day. We started with linguini and clams, moved to a fig and fennel salad, then corn chowder and red pepper soup, and followed by a delicious sauteed sea bass with parsnip puree and saffron sauce. Dessert was homemade ice cream in chocolate bowls. Jack and Dean treated us to matching wines throughout the feast. By the end of dinner, the four naughty wenches gathered for a final photo shoot before declaring the evening a rousing success.

Wild turkeys

I think the sight of me at 6:30 AM was too frightening for these breakfasting turkeys who left our front yard once they spied me.

Incline Village

A little north of Kings Beach, on the Nevada side, is the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Incline Village. Their Lone Eagle Grill is right on the beach and overlooks a floating pier with a bar. Cindy is using the binoculars to see the snow capped peaks across Lake Tahoe. Click it.

Tahoe City

This is the quiet harbor inTahoe City, a few minutes south of Kings Beach. Click to see Cindy playing with her new jewelry at about the 38 second mark.

80th birthday bash

We flew down to Orange County via John Wayne Airport on Friday and stayed at the Sheraton Park Hotel next to Disneyland for two nights. On Saturday, we caught the new Indiana Jones flick and did some clothes shopping. Later that afternoon, we drove over to my Dad's house to celebrate his 80th birthday along with about 50 friends and relatives. My Mom's 80th is coming up in October. We head up to Lake Tahoe on the 14th (the day before Father's Day) for a week's R & R at the Guests' condo and then we have 3 family birthdays in the next 30 days. My Mom may drive up on the 20th to visit us on her way to Seattle. Abby is recuperating nicely after being mauled by a large dog and should have her oversized cone off in the next few days. This weekend's plans are still being mulled...Richard's 55th birthday party?...Garrett & Amy's baby shower?...Dean's play at the Woodland Opera House?...stay tuned.

Bodega Bay chillin'

Thanks to the Gollihur family for allowing us to stay in their Bodega Bay house over Memorial weekend. The weather was crisp and refreshing. We spent Saturday afternoon on the back deck listening to Sinatra/Bennett/Tyrell/Buble, charting the flight patterns of the many hawks overhead, and critiquing the golfers' swings on the 11th-hole tee box directly in front of us.

Bodega Bay Memorial Weekend

We stayed two nights on the North Coast over the Memorial Day Weekend. We ate at The Tides on Saturday night, and had a seafood feast at the Bodega Bay house on Sunday evening. The nights were cool so we fired up the fireplace both nights. On Saturday, we did a northerly road trip to Duncans Mills, Jenner, and Fort Ross. the only Russian settlement in the U.S, (1812 to 1842), and where the first windmill in California history was built. Hwy 1 was "Lombard St" curvy above Bodega Bay. We're back now, but will be flying down to Orange for Roy's 80th birthday on Friday.

This just in...

Lucky girl. Now she can support her Mom and Dad.

Spring News

Spring has sprung. Our new pop-up sprinklers in the front yard are working great and the lawn is now lush. One of our four crepe myrtles in the backyard, that we thought the frost claimed, is now blooming. All the outside plants, including the new patio 6-foot banana plant, are really busting out. A few weeks ago we enjoyed Dean in LION IN WINTER in Roseville, he is getting ready to do STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE in about a week. We also spent a weekend in San Francisco at the St Francis, enjoyed an excellent dinner at Le Colonial, and a not-so-excellent play called SHOPPING!! THE MUSICAL. Last weekend we celebrated cinco de mayo on tres de mayo in Dean's backyard (see party animal Cindy above), and this weekend Lindsay, her new friend Cory, and Ryan came over for a Sunday Mom's Day cocktail party in the backyard. Cory and Alex did the heavy lifting for Cindy's new cement bench. We are winging down to Orange on the 30th to celebrate my Dad's 80th birthday. The heat will introduce itself this week and Spring will give way to Summer. We're still trying to plan a vacation between now and Santa Cruz in September.

Dad and Kathleen visited us last weekend on their way back from Tahoe. They look better than us!!! We munched on smoked salmon on a really windy Saturday afternoon, and showed them the new patio and hot tub that weren't here when last they visited. While they were here, Riley visited Abby while Ryan was snow camping. We had to put in a new side gate to counter Abby's new escape-the-backyard antics; so far it is working great.