End of Summer!

Yikes, this year is going by fast!

When I am at home, Christine and I get up at sunrise and walk about three miles down the hill through our little town. Things are changing now, it's almost dark when we start at 5am. Last month at 5am, the sun had been up for at least thirty minutes. It seems like the shadows are longer now and the grass greener. Things smell different this time of year, all of the plants are mature and their fruit is becoming ripe. I took some apples down to our grand kids in the valley last week. It made me happy to see Davis slurping and chomping something we grew in our yard.

Every year, about the middle of August, I'll tell Christine, "It sure is starting to feel like autumn is near." She always shushes me and suggests summer can stay a little longer. She loves to swim and our local pool closes today. It is a sad day for her.

The kids feel the change too. Spencer started his senior year in high school on Monday of this week. Karen starts her last semester at Mesa Community College on this coming Tuesday. I'm happy they are learning and progressing in their lives. But a teeny little part of me doesn't want to see them leave our home.

We had a ton of fun this summer. I've never seen so much activity packed into two months. Spencer built a 17' boat from scratch - I think it is pretty cool. Our family has gone scuba diving several times in the mountains as well as Catalina California and Roatan Honduras. We have been to the mountains camping and picnicking several times. In addition, Christine and the kids planted and have raised new half acre lawn in the front of our lot. If that doesn't sell the house, nothing will.

I have a garden that reminds me of the plant from the Little Shop of Horrors. I planted the tomatoes too close together and now we have an impenetrable hedge of tomatoes. One of these mornings, I'm afraid the garden is going to demand, "Feed me Seymour, feed me now!" If I disappear you will know what happened.

Okay, I guess I'm a bit sad for summer's end. Oh well, life is good.

Hanging with our peeps!

We are spending the weekend in Queen Creek with our kids and grand kids! Compared to SJ , the weather here rocks. Though, I am missing Spencer because I've been in California all week. So I will probably head up the hill tomorrow.

Todd and Graham

Todd and Graham

Christine and Graham

Christine and Graham

Karen and Daphne, Christine and Graham

Karen and Daphne, Christine and Graham

Karen and Aubrey

Karen and Aubrey

On the road again, again, again

I'm on a business trip in Santa Clara California this week.  Silicon Valley is one of my favorite destinations.  Christine and the Kids smile when I complain about coming here because they know the truth.  This is about the coolest geek paradise in the world.  It is full of the craziest electronic surplus stores that make me smile: Halted, Ace, Fry's Electronics, and Weird Stuff.  :-)  This afternoon, I went to Halted and found a car charger for Aubrey's DVD player - best part is was only $1.95, beat that Phoenix!  It was funny, I looked around Halted and saw a bunch of certifiable geeks and it dawned on me that I was among friends.   I bought some magnets there to make a wind generator that were so strong they caused the clerk's thumb to bleed when they snapped together.  That wasn't good but the magnets are really cool.  Honey, get the band-aids out, papa is coming home!

Go ahead laugh and make fun of me. Keep it up... You know I'll get the last laugh, because someday your computer will break and you will ask me to fix it.  And I will because I love you.  So there!

The GPS map at the top of this blog is connected to my cell phone!

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles - and more...

I've had a chance to step back now that we are home and consider the last seven weeks.  Wow. Wow. Wow.  I loved every moment of it primarily because of my time with Christine.  Think about it, we spent twenty four hours a day together for seven weeks.  Not once did we argue or have conflict.  Our time together was fantastic, amazing, and rewarding beyond measure.  What a girl!  Thank you Christine, the past thirty years have been the best.  I can't wait for the next thirty and beyond.

Here are some interesting statistics for our trip.

• Miles driven in our van - about 9,000
  
• Hours driving  - about 150
  
• Air miles - 9,460
  
• Commuter trains/subway - about 60 miles
  
• Motor boats/sailboats - 60 but this was the most amazing (diving and sailing)
• Treadmills - not very many but we had a good time
• Total distance was about 19,000 miles.  The earth is 24,000 miles in circumference.
  
• Virgin pina coladas - we lost track
• 588 photographs 
• Scuba dives - 14

Ding, Ding, Ding!  Lollie won the movie trivia prize.  The name of the character is Ruprect.

Home!

We are home now and my head is spinning.  It is good to see everybody that we missed so much during our adventure.  What a great time we had.

Our trip from  New Mexico was uneventful and really quite short compared to our other driving days.  It snowed on us almost all the way from the Texas border to Albuquerque, but there was very little on the ground and none on the road.

I'll wait until tomorrow and let my head clear before I recap the last seven weeks.

FYI, no one has answered all of the questions from my last post yet.  Kirsten identified that Steve Martin is the actor and Lollie added the correct movie title, 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels".  So what was the characters name?