Merry Christmas!!

Ho, ho, ho. On Wednesday, Dec. 23, out on the driveway there arose such a clatter. I sprang from my chair to see what was the matter. When what to my wondering eyes did appear. But a red 4-wheeled sleigh without the reindeer! With a little old driver with a humongous smile, I knew it was Mark ready to put on the miles!!!
Yes, Mark has been a good boy all this year. He has been looking for a bigger truck to pull his boat for quite some time and happened to find this one just in time for Christmas.

Christmas hasn't changed much at our house. Our kids still love to get up early and open presents. Becki is showing off her gift that Dan made ALL BY HIM SELF! Very, very clever, I must say.

Becki's husband, Ben, patiently waited until it was his turn to open his present.

Dan wanted to "see" how his present worked! Hahahaha! We all had a wonderful Christmas morning. Everyone must have been nice this year.

As for who has been naughty, well, who else....

Yep, Cohen. We couldn't put any presents under the tree until Christmas eve. They were just too tempting for him. My, he couldn't hardly keep his paws off the tree!

We feel very blessed at this time of year. Merry Christmas everyone.

Oside in October

I have determined that our family is like a pod of gray whales. Yes, some of us may be packing a few more lbs. than necessary, but that's not the reason. We are like gray whales in that we are seen near the beach in Calif. almost every October. Usually, the weather is pretty spectacular without the crowds. As a matter of fact, I was gloating to some of my friends about how I was going to be sitting on the beach soaking up the sun. The joke was on me. As you can see from the pictures, our weather was anything but spectacular. Clearly, I did not get my requestition for lovely weather into the weather man soon enough! Still, it was great to get away. As you can see, JJJ has been growing like a weed. He's tall enough to pat me on the head and hopes to soon to that to his Dad! We spent one day in SD and went to Point Loma.

Becki's husband claims he has the patience of Job. He must, to go on vacation with us!

The teenager.

It looks like he's holding up pegleg boy...hahahaha.

Becki is very supportive of Ben.

The guys liked seeing the navy ships coming and going thru the harbor. We even saw a submarine.

Like 2 ships passing in the night.....except it was day.

Got any idea what this is? It's the stairway in the lighthouse, duh.

He ain't heavy, he's my brother. (Only old people would get that one.)

Here's to our little buddy who isn't so little any more. He's so much fun.

Life is not all fun and games, however. Jordan had to invent something out of rubber bands. He came up with the idea of a sling. Thank goodness he has a dad with an engineering mind. I was no help whatsoever.

Savoring September

September has to be one of my most favorite months of the year. The weather is delightful--not too hot, not too cold; the leaves are just beginning to change; peaches, nectarines and raspberries are plentiful from my garden; and school starts. We have tried to squeeze in the last little bit of summer from these early September days.

Earlier this summer all our kids kept telling Mark, "You should get a boat...we'd have so much fun...etc." Once Mark got permission from the CEO around our house (that would be moi) he earnestly began to search for a used one. Naturally, if you look hard enough, you'll find one. So in late August he bought a 21'. Now Mark has a new toy to play with. :) We took it out one afternoon, letting the young guys try out the tube.

Over Labor Day weekend Mark, Jord and I went on a hike to one of the mountain tops in the area. It was the perfect day--clear skies, in the 80s. We hiked 2.5 mi. up to the top. Jord is such a trooper going hiking with 2 old people.
We got a great view of the valley...

and the ski resort, where we parked our car.

Then 2.5 miles back down. Wow, we did 5 miles in 2-1/2 hours. Of course, it's much faster coming down. I love hiking.
Here's a few pictures I never got posted from one of our camping trips during the summer. We had a 3 day outing over the 24th of July. I stayed at the camp and relaxed while the others went to the lake to go fishing. Adam
Jordan
Becki

Ben

Adam & Jordan

What a great way to end the day!

More of the wedding...

When I get a bit of spare time I work up some of the photos. You might, however, see some repeats, so I apologize.

The happy couple...

Mr. & Mrs. Bennett Honstein

Becki and Ben had an absolutely beautiful wedding day. It was perfect in every way. All the pictures are pretty self explanitory so I won't bore you with written commentary.