Week 5

Hello and welcome back.  The weather around here has kept us guessing for sure.  Spring like for few days, then a lot of rain and crazy wind with a small break before more rain and worse wind.  We do need the rain and snow pack built up, but it would be nice to spread it out a bit more instead so much all at once. The poor southern part of the state got hit way worse though. Our activities lately have been restricted a bit by the weather but we do see an end in sight and have some good things to look forward to.

Here are last week's pictures-

Day 29- Monday, 1/29/24

All kinds of cuteness right here and one of these 2 chocolate females will be ours in a few weeks.  We put a deposit down today.  It's a litter of 11 and they are 4 wks old right now.  Our whole family is super excited and we're working together to pick a name.

Day 30- Tuesday, 1/30/24

The past few days have been so sunny and warm that is has felt like spring.  Unfortunately that's coming to an end with a couple crazy atmospheric river systems planned to hit land starting tomorrow.

Day 31- Wednesday, 1/31/24

What a difference a day makes!  The rain started over night so Wednesday at work I got soaked and it caught many here by surprise.  I guess they don't watch the news or check weather reports because we were warned. Back at home there was an afternoon break in the storm for a couple hours where the sun tried to come through.

Day 32- Thursday, 2/1/24

Happy February! I can't believe January is already over but looking forward to what good things this month has to offer.  After work this is one of my go-to lunches.  I call it an adult lunchable with fresher and healthier ingredients.  The rain hasn't been too bad today--very spotty--but the wind this afternoon really picked up and is expected to get worse over night.

Day 33- Friday, 2/2/24

Haha!  I told you the wind would be bad last night.  Guess I better stack these chairs for more weight in preparation of crazy wind round 2 coming Sunday.  Otherwise TGIF!  We finished watching The Crown finally (too many seasons) so now we moved on to this True Detective series everyone is talking about.   Each of the 4 seasons are independent of each other so we're starting with this 4th season that has the most hype right now and then will go back to the other seasons. So far so good.

Day 34- Saturday, 2/3/24

Thankful we have a nice break between storms today because we had wine tasting with friends planned.  The weather was perfect.  Maybe little chilly but not bad at all especially with a couple heat lamps out.  What a fun, big group meeting up at this winery 15 min from our house and since we live so close the party continued back at our place.

Day 35- Sunday, 2/4/24

Time for the next system to roll in bringing a lot of rain.  2nd time this week I had to drain excess water from our pool.  It was a lazy slow start kind of day that eventually ended up turning into a chore day especially since it was hard to much else with the rain and psycho wind.  A lot of people in the greater Sacramento area lost power because of it but Southern Cailf. truly got pummeled with the worst--flash floods, mudslides and fallen trees.  We're pretty much done here now but they still have a few more days of this weather left.

That's it for now.  It was a wet and wild ride this past week but according to the ground hog we're expecting and early spring so I guess mother nature is just getting winter all out her system now.

Stay safe all!  These new weather patterns are no joke.

Week 4

Hello and happy Tuesday! Can you believe January is almost over? It was a full and quick month and we're looking forward to what the rest of 2024 brings. I do know for sure February will get a lot more interesting for us and I'll tell you why next week.  For now it was nice that in January I got my birthday trip to the mountains again which was the perfect way to spend time out in nature on and around my special day.

Take a look at last week's pictures:

Day 22- Monday, 1/22/24

Happy Birthday to me and what a great day it was out on the slopes of this beautiful ski area.  John even tried to ski.  The altitude was a bit hard but not his most limiting factor.  He did great trying to make a few strings of consecutive turns but didn't feel safe enough to continue because his one leg just can't turn quite well enough to help him control his speed.  It was worth the try though because now he knows what he needs to work on in PT to give him a better chance of success next year.  Thankfully he didn't mind hanging at the lodge while Tyler and I continued to ski. The best gift of all for me was no lift lines since it's a Monday and  having small spurts for big fluffy snow making it feel like I was truly skiing in a winter wonderland.  Afterward we feasted at the local pizza place for dinner.  There is nothing like a good warm pizza after a full day on the mountain.

Day 23- Tuesday, 1/23/24

Here's our last bit of time in the village before we drove home today from the mountains.  Of course the blue skies and sunshine show up while were leaving but that's ok because we skied on fresh snow which will be better than the icy/melty snow they get today.

Day 24- Wednesday, 1/24/24

It's Wednesday at work where I have 3 days to get 5 days worth of work done which feels daunting but we also had birthday goodies for me at our lab meeting which allowed for a nice break.  My boss's son decorated the box for me too and I got to take the extras home.

Day 25- Thursday, 1/25/24

Rusty is happy we are back.  He's not a fan when we leave him for a few days and tends to be extra clingy when we get back after, of course, he's done ignoring us for the first couple hours to let us know he did not approve of our absence--cats!  Also this pretty ring was my birthday gift from Tyler and Lupe along with a new book to read and I just love how delicate and imperfect the little pearls on the ring are.

Day 26- Friday, 1/26/24

TGIF!  Up in Humboldt even though Justin is no longer an official student he's still able to run his gaming club and lives for his Fridays because of it.  Since it's a new semester he's doing some new recruiting and hoping to find a couple people to run the club after he leaves for good in May.  He's also been busy in the kitchen and I want him to make some of these candied cranberries for me next time he's home. Otherwise not much going on here at home. Our Friday night movie just dropped on Netflix and was actually a pretty good true story depiction of the GameStop stock takeover if you can get past the foul language and certain crud song choices.

Day 27- Saturday, 1/27/24

Today we went out to take in the new Godzilla -1.  We missed it in theaters when the color version was out but they just released the black and white one so we hit that up and it was way better than I was expecting which was a nice surprise.  The story line is really good and compelling.  Even had me in tears near the end.  After we went out to dinner at a nice local place.

Day 28- Sunday, 1/28/24

Go Niners!  You can bet today was all about football in this house.  It was a horrible 1st half but thankfully the 49ers brought their A game in the second half for a win.  Next stop--Super Bowl!

That's it!  See you all next week as we start a new month.  I already feel this year slipping away--how can that be?

Week 3

Welcome back and happy Tuesday!  I wasn't sure I'd make it posting today since we just got back from a quick trip to the mountains but luckily I found the time.  Last week was a full but fun one and now we're back to being empty nesters again until spring break.

Here's what happened last week:

Day 15- Monday, 1/15/24

Today was MLK holiday so I took advantage of the time off to head to the mall for some returns that I could not return by mail and exchanged them for these much better options.  I can't even tell you how long it's been since I've been at the mall but thankfully is was not busy and I was successful in my mission.  

Day 16- Tuesday, 1/16/24

We're expecting some series of rain events over the next several days so I took advantage of the sunny day today to get some weeding and winter pruning done.  While back there I kept seeing pops of red that helped make the winter dead yard seem not so bad and even pretty in its own way.

Day 17- Wednesday, 1/17/24

Wednesday at work was all about results and getting caught up on data entry plus trying to learn the new university-wide purchasing system that has way too many bugs to make it user friendly.  Later at home my computer time was more enjoyable with the start of our 1st monthly zoom meeting for the year long Recollect group photo project I started.  I like the idea of a monthly zoom check in with the group and was happy to hear I'm no more behind already than anyone else.😉

Day 18- Thursday, 1/18/24

Tonight we took Brandon out to dinner since this is his last week with us for awhile and he chose Chinese food.  We had fun looking at the Zodiac sheet and finding the right sign for everyone in our family.  Turns out, according to this, Brandon and Tyler have competing signs and Brandon's sign should watch out for Tyler's.  LOL! This explains a lot in the way the butt heads playing games together.  My sign is the Dog and and it's pretty spot on for me. I like my cookie fortune too and am hoping I can put to good use at work soon.

Day 19- Friday, 1/19/24

TGIF!  I love seeing snapshots of how Justin is doing back in Arcata. Since he's just working on a research project he has a lot more time to have some fun and enjoy his time in his surroundings the next few months.  He's still doing his gaming club, he enjoys baking for his roommates, and he loves being one of the favorite subjects for his artist friend. Now for us here at home it's time for popcorn and a movie. We found this 2018 movie while searching for something free to stream that we haven't already seen.  All the current movies we want to see are not available to stream for free yet.  I hate how Prime has all the good stuff but to rent for $24--ack!  Anyway this was good with great actors and had a similar feel to the The Last of Us series.

Day 20- Saturday, 1/20/24

I dropped Brandon off at the airport this morning so he can head back to LA and start his spring semester next week although it seems there may be a teacher's strike that might delay the start a bit.  We'll see!  Later it was all about the Niner's game in our house and it was a bit of a nail biter but they pulled through in the end.  Tyler and John were happy boys and look forward to the next playoff game.

Day 21- Sunday, 1/21/24

Yay!  Time for a trip to the Sierra mountains.  We drove up in the pouring rain to Northstar ski resort.  The snow coverage at village level is not that great this year but we hear things are much better up at the mountain where we plan to ski tomorrow.  Fingers crossed!  It was great to relax in our condo once we arrived and to go out into the village for dinner after dark.  Tyler is with us and took this cute picture of John and I.  Cheers to getting away for a quick, early-week trip with no real crowds.

That's it!  Catch you back next week.