The week in photos

Eric Call took us out on his 2000 Nautique V-drive on Thursday.  They live in Discovery Bay, right on the water.  It's a sweet setup.  The boat sits on a pontoon and when you want to go out, you just lower it into the water.  Slick.  

The V-drive has a significantly bigger wake than a direct drive boat and we dumped Scott and Tyler off the tube.  Eric said that when v-drives were first installed, all the waterskiers were selling prematurely those boats because the wake was enormous and the wakeboarders snatched them up.  Then Nautique capitalized on the notion and made the wake even bigger. 

No one took any pictures of the wakeboarding but I had a good run with lots of big jumps, three failed flip attempts, and an injured knee.  Each of the kids got up and rode the wakeboard enough to say that they could do it.  The water was at least 78 degrees.  It was awesome. 

Here's the island sans top.  The granite is coming in august.  Mister has made this his little hideout.

Evan got his mission call to Cambodia!  Wow.  He's pretty stoked.  He's been watching the kids this summer while Heidi works. 

We ate din din with the Blodgetts in their new home.  Missy, Viv, and Maddie.

Devin living the dream.  We even did some work on his garage door.  The drive gear failed and he replaced it, but didn't line up the upper and lower limit switches.  We had to loosen the chain and put it back on correctly.  Devin was pretty excited.  The infrared sensors still don't work, but that's for another day. 

 Heidi and Kim

Maddie

Coop throwing a pose

Okay, that's all for now.  Bye.

Summer 2018

School's out and swim season is in full swing.  Diamond Hills hosted Dana Hills and we smoked them.  Scott was happy to break some pool records.  

Tyler isn't swimming this season.  Most of the time he's happy staying home with a book, but he came with me to this meet. 

Kira likes hanging out with her friends. 

Mr. Anger management himself.  This was one race before total hostile meltdown.

Heidi in her element.  I'm glad she's wearing her glasses and hat. 

Kira's all muscle and no fat.  She continually takes 1st.

Scott did well at this particular meet.

One of the perks of working in Walnut Creek is that there is a culinary oasis downtown.  Lately I've been favoring the Buckhorn Grill.  I was happy to run into our old neighbors, the Clark's.  

This past weekend we vacationed to Lake Tahoe.  We splurged and stayed at the Hyatt Regency.  Since I had to work on Monday, I rode the VFR while Heidi took the kids in the van.  This is the view from our 5th floor room.

There was a private beach and the young employees had activities for the kids.  It was kinda like Aspen Grove.  Here the kids are making tie-dye shirts. 

While we were gone, our remodel guy painted the cabinets, removed the island, and got the foundation ready for the new floor.  I went back to work on Monday and he's like, "Do you know how long it took me to get this effer out?"  We only communicate in Spanish, and he referred to the island as the f***er.  It took a half day.  I wanted to say, "That's why we hired you as opposed to doing it ourselves. 

I returned to Tahoe after work on Monday, but this time, I took the Lexus.  It took a half hour longer but was way more comfortable.  Scott, Tyler, and Mister went to the skate park for a bit on the last day.

The next three nights were at Shawna's time share.  Her parents had two side by side, and they weren't there yet, so we hung out with Shawna and her kids.  Here's Abbey and Kira in the hammock.

The water was super clear and blue but real cold.  The boys spent most of their beach time catching minnows.  Here's Blake giving his favorite angry expression.  This was followed by a one hour raging meltdown. 

Heidi always runs into people she knows.  This was a swimmer from Aquabears that Heidi coached about ten years ago. 

The Ahulualias were staying at the Hyatt too.  Our kids hung out with them on the first day.

Mexican food and Apples to Apples, at Shawna's time share

Ethan, Hanna, and Mister hanging out

It was a great trip.  The vehicles ran well.  I've detailed my excursion stories on the other blog, but you should know the van hit 200,000!  It has been a great van.  I'm sure Heidi has more to say but I'm a man of a few words and more photos.  This is at least 32k words in the form of pictures.  Okay, bye.