Wrens!

Pearl I almost ate...

It was tiny..

JB SF Trip

I GOT BIT BY A SEAL!!! But I am okay.

I went to Cali by myself for some visiting and a protein engineering conf in San Fran. Here I am in Bodega Bay.. We had a great time camping there! The 40 mph winds were the only drawback, everything else was perfect. The next day we ate about a gazillion oysters from Tomales Bay (below).

They were shuck-your-own oysters... we had a hard time until Dipa finally told us the correct way to do it, then it was all down hill from there. I even got a tiny pearl in one!

The worst thing about the trip was the 7 hr delay by United... I have decided to make a conscious effort to NEVER FLY UNITED AGAIN!!!

But I digress... Here are my San Francisco pics...

Pier 39.. most of the Sea Lions are gone

Here is Lombard Street aka Crooked Street..

obligatory trolley...

Some bridge we crossed...

Here I am at Ghirardelli Square.. I bought some chocolates for my beautiful wife and took a pic of Alcatraz and you can see a boat down the Hyde Street pier (the air it stunk of fish and beer).

Grace Cathedral ... All wrapped in bones of setting sun, all dust and stone and moribund... I paid twenty five cents to light a little white candle...

After that, I got a little hungry, so I went to get a hot dog.

It was utterly beautiful inside... spectacular... I wanted to walk the maze, but had to get back to the conference...

Any Californians (past or present) know what flower this is? it is also beautiful..

SF was great, but after 6 days I was excited to get back to the fam. It seems like Evie changed noticeably in the 6 days I was gone, I really can tell she is putting sentences together now, and asking questions, and being just plain smart... No more Father's Days away from the family for me!

I would like the thank the California crew of friends for a wonderful weekend also, I feel very blessed indeed to have such great friends and a wonderful family to come home too.

This weekend Jack was out of town. Tommi and Frank had us over for a splash party.
Evie basically just wanted to drink from the water spray....but she was having fun doing it.

Hi! I'm cute and love water ;)

HOA, I'm not laughing any more.

OK, now I'm just getting annoyed.

BTW - Our landlord had the tree limb removed within 24 hours of it falling.

Now I get a letter in the mail - "renter's copy" - original sent to my landlord. They're complaining that we're putting white trash bags out on the curb on trash day. Not regulation!

Yeah, white trash bags, what a crime. A few months ago I was on the phone with them about something else and mentioned that any of the bags being left out were being picked apart by crows and, "is there anything that can be changed about that?" They said they would look into it. So do they think it's really ME putting them out there?

RETARDS!

This is losing funniness value because our security deposit is $2900.00 and I WANT IT BACK. The last thing we need is our landlord thinking we're a bunch of slobs who aren't taking care of his place.

If a tree fell in my yard....would I care?

Oh, really?, you want that removed? Come on, it adds so much character. These HOA's and their crazy rules...."no trees on the sidewalks"...blah blah blah


So, this tree fell YESTERDAY and we arrived home around 5:30 to find it. We called our landlord and he's sending someone out this afternoon to remove it. But in the mean time, in case we were planning to dawdle, the HOA was sure to put a violation notice on our door to let us know that trees are NOT allowed on the sidewalk!

This is NOT a "friendly reminder" this time, boy-O...and if we catch you keeping trees on the sidewalk again you're in BIG trouble! You have 7 days to comply.

ha ha hah ah ah ahah aha! Love it

present preview...

Someone will be getting this present soon!!! Just hope and pray its you!! 10 dollars in a bin at wal mart... hah, ripped them off, I would have paid a hundred!

New River Cabin Trip

We headed down to ole Virginia this weekend to meet up with L and D at a nice little cottage near the half way point between our respective cities. It was a lot of Fun, we brought our dogs and babies... both had fun swimming in the cool clear water..
Here she is lil sycamore cottage...

We caught some fish.. here is Evie with her first Fish kiss.

There was lots of wildlife too! like geese, and an Eastern Dobsonfly (below)

Evie and Demian loved the hula hoop, although only Roxanne mastered the technique.

Here we are porch sittin.. a popular activity..

Noodle Fencing was another popular activity.

Evie and Miles rekindled their friendship.

We caught a few fish as I mentioned earlier, this was the biggest I caught.

The country side was very pretty.

Our poor party pool leaked, but we just swam in the river.

Check out the crawdad below our stairs

Indoor scenes...

We took a trip to "the falls of Dismal" or Dismal Falls.... Dismal indeed..

I jumped off and hurt my butt in the 6 feet deep water... ouch

It was a long drive, but a nice afternoon activity.

We bought an Amish pie. Not as good as you would expect... although we should have known the Amish might not be that good at making coconut pie.

Lots of eating fun was had.

Here we are!!

It was smooth sailing on the way home...

until we waited an hour in traffic for this to clear! we were soooo close to home too... darn

Chirpy II update...

2 days after Chirpy's collosal meat feast, I found him near death in his cage. I released him from the back porch, and I'd like to think he is doing well out in the wild... I'd like to think that. yes I would...