Another year goes by, another trip to the Beach House in Santa Cruz. This year Gyttie and her family joined with myself, Chads family and Jeff with Tim were all there. The kids had fun as usual. They went for an early night swim (ill advised by the older kids and warned by the adults). They of course came back freezing, and there was no re occurrence of that. The weather was spectacular, clear blue sky by 7 o'clock in the morning and staying that way all day long. Its always nostalgic and relaxing. We are lucky to have been able to visit all these years.

Tylers 10th Birthday

Tyler Schafer had his 10th birthday celebrated at the Pizza factory in Valley Springs. He had family and about 10 friends to share his joy. It was a hit, Bakugan was the toy of the week and all of them were anxious to play a game with the ones that Tyler got. He had a big cake and a great time. We were just glad to be with him on one more joyous occasion.

LOVE YOU TYLER, Grandma and Grandpa

We went to Hawaii !!!!!!!

I've been lazy. We have done several things and had lots of nice outings since my last post. I will start with after the holiday season, we did our ski trip, its in a blog below. After that in Feb, we went to Maui for one week. Man, now I know why so many people keep going back and back again. We took Tyler and Angie's boy Jonathan. We all had a ball. The boys snorkeled morning day and night. We stayed at the Paki Maui, a condo and it was great. Just steps to the beach. The weather was with us all week long, great. We got tan and happy. The boys really outdid themselves to the point of falling asleep by very early evening, like six o'clock and waking early to start their water adventures. They went out on a snorkel trip to the crater, went to the aquarium and of course a Luau. We saw whale after whale right from our beach and anywhere else along the way. We can home so relaxed, the most of any trip I have ever taken. We will for sure return again.

Tylers 4th Grade Mission Project

The much dreaded Mission project has come and gone for another 4th grader in Ca. Tyler of course had several weeks notice but it was not brought to our attention until the week before. First I will say, this is a somewhat daunting task even for an adult. I hate to think what poor 9 year old without assistance would come up with, "it was hard". I am not the craftiest one when it comes to paint glue and wooden craft sticks. Chad is even less. Unfortunately for Tyler we were his only two assistants this weekend, everyone else was out. Too bad Grandpa was not here, this is just up his alley. Anyway, the trip to JoAnns with a cost of ??? I wont bore you with numbers, was first on the list. We picked up anything that we thought would help, having no real plan for the project, and trying to keep in mind that a 4th grader was supposed to accomplish this at home with things "lying around the house". That's a farce. Anyway we ventured into the occult club of The Mission. After a couple flops I made a trip to my "place of employment". I faintly remembered projects of the past and how the plaster casting material looked suspiciously like adobe, even the right color. With plaster in hand, we followed some instructions for the cardboard cut out frame. Ah Haaaaaa. Well, this is the best that can be expected for a 9 to 10 year old boy, dont you think? Tyler is now the proud owner of a plaster replica of the Santa Cruz Mission. I seriously hope he goes for a more non exact more forgiving career like medicine or nursing, for his future career. Good luck to all your future 4th graders out there, may the force be with you.

Jan 2009 Skiing in Lake Tahoe

Here we are, we all made it up to Lake Tahoe for a ski trip. Jon and Christine flew in from Phoenix, the rest of us drove up. The weather could not have been better, bright blue skies and tons of white snow. We could not be denied. No the the family in the picture above is not my lovely family making their way down the slopes but we could wish.

Everyone decided to try snowboarding the first day. Some were better than others, all gave best efforts. Needless to say there were some ups and downs.

On the second day they all tried now skiing. Most were better at this, even Gary strapped on a pair after 20 years and no falls. We had a great time and lots of fun. Thank you to my family for everyone making this a time to remember.