Happy Easter

Due to my weak immune system because of a medication I have to take for another month or so, we were not able to go to Simply Country for dinner tonight. One of the kids has had a flu bug the last few days and we just didn't want to take a chance. So Jen brought Easter dinner to us! What a sweetheart, we are so blessed with our adorable family.

She had prepared a delicious ham dinner . . . baked ham, scalloped potatoes, delicious string beans garnished with bacon and pine nuts, and a corn muffin with honey butter. Couldn't have been better!

Of course we missed being with the family, but we enjoyed Easter dinner so thoughtfully prepared and delivered to us. Thank you Jen!

 Life is good!

Lucky in Healdsburg

My brother-in-law is amazing. He wears many hats. But the hat I believe he loves the most, outside of being a loving husband, is the surfer/abalone-diver-hat. Actually he loves the fisherman's hat too, but being on a surfboard has got to be his favorite. He's been surfing for fifty years, mind you, and he'll probably surf many more years to come. We went over for a quick visit and were lucky enough to benefit from an abalone diving trip Rick took the day before. We arrived just in time to enjoy a fabulous dinner!

Jackie took this picture of Rick going out for abalone, trying out his new surfboard at the same time. As you can see it was a beautiful day, however the water was very cold.

A short time later he was back with his treasure.

Three in possession is California's limit, and Rick came home with three beautiful Red Abalone, after diving 30' to get them.

"What a Beauty!"

Here he's "popping" the abalone and releasing the mussel from the shell. You can sneak a peek at the beautiful "Mother of Pearl" underside of the shell.

It's a team effort preparing the abalone for the frying pan. Rick is in charge of slicing the abalone (a slippery messy job) while Jackie carefully pounds it for perfect tenderness (a job that keeps her arms in great shape). It was oh-so-delicious and such a treat. Commercial abalone diving is no longer legal so it cannot be purchased in a store. Lucky for us we have a gracious diver in the family.

Cooked to perfection . . . and delicious!

The Red Abalone's shell is gorgeous. Here is a picture I found on the web which shows the natural outside shell, then the inside and outside after it has been polished.

Life is good!

"It will be a growing experience" . . .

. . . An expression my Mom used whenever one of her five kids was preparing to start a new adventure. We got up early Friday morning to head down to Fresno's Convention Center to watch our granddaughter participate with her team from Minarets High School in FFA's Parli-Pro State Competition. Sixteen high schools from all over the state of California made it this far. Competitions started at 9 a.m. and finished at 4 p.m. It was a long day but what a joy to watch these teenagers working within a team of six, proudly representing their high school. The sixteen teams who made it to the finals, after months of regional competitions, were divided into four groups. The top three teams from each group moved on to the second round, leaving twelve teams to compete. From the second round, six teams were chosen to move on to the final round on Saturday.

There are five "Chairs" (Karah is Chair 5, far left, and Chair 1 -shown here at far right -also acts as secretary) and one "President" who, with her gavel, leads the session. When the team comes into the room and takes their appropriate spots, they are given one minute to read their card (instruction) and compose their thoughts.

Then the show begins, with the team doing their thing, following their instructions . . . all led by the President, using Parliamentary Procedure to the "enth" degree. It's almost musical, and moves quickly because they are being timed — should they go over their score is docked.

Karah making her point in the debate.

When the timer goes off, hopefully each team member has succeeded in his/her assignment and the entire team stands in front of the judges. The judges ask a question of each team member, testing their knowledge of Parliamentary Procedure. Their answers are added to their overall score. Then there are two more minutes where the judges can ask any member on the team more questions. When the timer calls "Time" — the team leaves the room and waits for all sixteen teams to finish.  At the end of the day, Minarets High School was one of six teams called back to participate in the finals on Saturday.

 

Karah's looking pretty happy after it was announced that Minarets made it to the finals— quite an accomplishment for this "Novice" team!

Jen volunteered to drive part of the team to the competition. Of course what this really means is that they had to get up in the pre-dawn hours to feed the goats and rabbits and chickens before they changed into city clothes to make the drive.

Ken and I witnessed this new adventure on Friday, and it definitely was a "growing experience" both for these kids and even for us. We took a pass on Saturday, but crossed our fingers all day thinking about "our" team. At the end of Saturday we found out they took sixth place . . . of course they were a bit disappointed. But I can tell you, as grandparents, we are mighty proud of the whole team for making it to State finals. This is a novice team and this was their first year competing — so being sixth in the whole state of California is something of which to be mighty proud!

Life is Good!

Cousins

Our Midwestern family came to California for a "Spring Break" . . . they were greeted not with spring weather but with this . . . about four inches of snow the first night and another couple of inches the following day. So much for California sunshine!

What's up with this?

It was colder here than from where they came.

Until the next day . . . the sun came out and melted the snow. The two ten-year-old cousins had a blast climbing the rocks in the back yard.

It was such a joy to see them having fun together.

They became quite adventurous jumping from boulder to boulder.

What one would try, the other would be close behind.

Buddies forever.

The three boys had spent an hour or so panning for gold down in the creek. They got good and muddy but were successful in finding a few specs of gold. While the ten-year-olds were jumping on the rocks, the eleven-year-old had fun "panning" for gold right up by the deck with the backyard dirt and the outside water faucet . . . he thought it was pretty cool to have gold-flecked-dirt close by with a handy water source!

The four-day visit seemed to fly by, but we all had a great time and got to catch up on our life stories. My sister and brother-in-law from Healdsburg came over to be with family. 

It was great having them here too. 

Life is good!