A very healthy holiday in San Diego

We have hiked about 2 hours per day for the last three days in beautiful places. San Diego is not flat!  Today we spent several hours walking around the zoo.  A lot of stopping and standing but still almost as tiring as the hiking.  Nathan is working on a fishing boat during his school break and bringing home bags and bags of yellow tail which Tui makes into sushi, poke, and fish tacos.

Celebrating Nathan's birthday

Fun at the zoo

Coming back down along a dry river bed on one of our hikes

This slithered across the trail in front of us.  You can see the rattlers.

Tinier House Update

Here are a few recent photos:

Tomorrow I start siding with a mix of corrugated metal and cedar.

I need to rent a 12' ladder before I can completely finish the roof. Otherwise it is likely to blow off on the highway!

Ben is going to earn a little $ tomorrow priming the inside of the tiny house. Still need to cover the wheels...

The front is really cute. Unfortunatly it is hard to see since it is pulled up so close to our shed.

Happy Birthday Nathan, your last teen year

Hope we can get there again this year.  It's a beautiful place.

Jaguar replacement

We are the happy new owners of a Volvo S60 T6.

It is really lovely and very "functional" -- we are reading the book that came with it:360 Pages!
Fortunately the book for the navigation section is only 86 pages long. including a section about teaching the machine to interpret our verbal instructions.  One navigation system is physically getting the car from one place to another. The second is a menu for getting from "infotainment" site to another, as we have a free introductory sirius system.   We may come to regret that we only spend about 25 minutes in the car every day, going to work and back. Quoting Cammy "Too many pages"
GPa Jim

Recap of Sicily Trip (as seen through my IPhone camera- see Madhu blog for quality photos)

Lobby of Palermo theater where we saw Orpheus and Eridice opera

Trapani museum that resides in an old convent

Our B&B in Agrigento with host playing the piano

Mount Etna seen on our way from Agriento to Siracusa.

Piazza in front of Duomo in the old area of Siracusa (Ortigia).

Pillars of the original 500 BC Greek temple, now a part of the Duomo

Typical street in Ortigia

Benefits of living close to work

One of the drawback of living in CA was the long drive to work.  Have now replaced the 30 minute drive each way with a 30 minute walk to and from work.  Note 15 of the miles each week are on a bike.  I am surprised no one has done a study on proximity to work vs health.

FEBRUARY 17

A Good Day to Be A Boy: Not a Good Day to Be a Dog

Lottie had her knee surgery on Tuesday; to repair a damaged ligament. The boys and I drove her to a country vet about 1 hour North of here in Mount Vernon. I saved us $2,000 by driving her up there!

 Very Elizabethan.

After drop off we did some Tumbleweed Adventuring (I call it that when you follow your whimsy.) We had a marvelous pancake breakfast in a small town café located next to a Card and Coin shop (!) --great for Ben who found some baseball card 'must haves'. And, the café was across from a toy store that had Lego for Liam to spend Christmas money on. That was a fun morning.

We then decided to travel south in search of bald eagles along the Skagit River. They come by the hundreds to feed on the salmon carcasses every winter. We counted at least 10. We visited an alpaca farm that we happened to pass by,  and witnessed the white alpaca in the photo below spitting at one of the brown ones. Very funny. She sounded just like a human spitting.

 Such a beautiful day for a road trip.

 

 Isn't that a funny toed hoof?

 

Then we stumbled on what we thought was a junk yard, but turned out to be the house of a "folk artist" who makes wonderful pieces from other people's trash. He calls it "unart." Here are some photos of his stuff. He talked to us for over an hour....probably lonely. He was a very funny and interesting person; quite the philosopher. We enjoyed his company.

 My absolute favorite. Try and identify some of the dress adornments.

 Here's something you all could do with wine bottle corks....

 

 

That night, after Liam had gone to bed, he called down from upstairs to say "That was a really good day.!" Yes, indeed.