O'Dark Thirty

There are very few reasons to be up in the early morning when it's dark outside. My mind and body do not work until the Earth has been warmed by the sun. This is a real problem during the winter when the sun rises later, or not at all due to weather, I have difficulty functioning. I need sunshine, that's how it is.

So when the kids buy tickets for an EARLY am departure, everyone knows that Dave is doing the duty. But I do drag my body up, at least I think I'm up, so that I can say good-bye. When they leave, I crawl back in to bed. There is just no reason to pretend that I'm functioning. So it is with this warning that I include the following photos:

This is the young Swenson family on their way to the SJ Airport

G-Pa's awake, E...not so much. He still has bed head, and his sleeping binkies in his hand. When he sleeps he has one in his mouth and one in each hand.

And here's a look at Jessica's new do...VERY short hair...the back

The side....she really didn't want her photo taken, can you tell?

It's Fair Time!

This is the 99th year of the Alameda County Fair. This is a good old-fashioned fair that's so awesome it made the pages of the Wall Street Journal. The kids' next door neighbor is a jockey and he receives plenty of Fair passes which he graciously gives away. We all snagged free passes.

We all know the Fair is all about the food. So we began with funnel cake....well we started out with a corn dog, but ssh, we did that before the kids met up with us.

Ezra really doesn't know what these are all about, even though Diane was trying to teach him about putting a quarter in to massage the feet

Ezra's very first ride on a carousel

Ezra was really enjoying everything. This is the first week of the fair, which means the grounds are still clean and untrampled, on a Monday evening so it wasn't crowded, and the weather was perfect

Ezra saw sheep live and in person for the first time. He was so funny making all the noises that he learned while reading books. He recognized the animals from the pages of his books, awesome!

Okay, sorry about the angle, but it is so cute. He cuddled all the little animals in the petty zoo, which was free to enter

Ezra wasn't afraid of the animals. They had plenty of goats, a deer, a wallaby, ducks, lambs

And of course the hand washing after visiting the petting zoo....he really needs a total bath

A GREAT time was had by all and we can't wait to go again......which says a lot about Dave, he's so over the fair.

50 Years of Wedded Bliss

On June 24, 1961 Wes and Diane were married. After 50 years they are still madly in love and having fun! Their children put on an amazing, first class, joyous celebration. It was an honor to be included with their closest family and friends for the celebration.

There was dancing, mostly the women as often happens.

The happy couple

A happy couple working on their first 50 years

Tonka Rocks!

Auntie Donna (& Uncle Bret too) scores big again! It seems that the local school district, where Donna works, has their own "Craigslist" style website. Donna just happened along and found that someone was selling MANY Tonka trucks. They already gave Ezra a dump truck for his birthday, and it was a huge hit. So they brought over a big box full of various models plus they carried in some that didn't fit in to this huge box.

It was almost 100 degrees out, so I wasn't able to stay out too long...and E is way too fair to stay out too. But I'm sure that E and the Tonkas will have plenty of good times.

Tonka rocks, and so does Auntie Donna! and Uncle Bret too.

Thursday Fun

Our new thing is to take a day off each week, just for fun. We thought it would be a good idea to go to Yosemite since we've heard that the Falls are the greatest they've been in years. Plus we thought we'd beat the crowds going during the week. We were right about the Falls, but wrong on the crowds...it's a VERY popular place.

The Merced River was high and roaring. There's just something about a roaring mountain river that is so cool. And the rafting companies have moved way down, the river is just to wild.

Bridal Veil Falls was dumping tons of water. The mist was all over the road. You needed rain gear to get within a tenth of a mile. We were pretty damp, but it felt good.

We even went all the way to Glacier Point.

We left our home at 6:30 am and returned at 6:30 pm, 400 miles. We stopped for breakfast in Oakdale at an old favorite, it was called the Busy Bee years ago, but has changed hands and names. We arrived in the Park at 9:30 and got to use our Annual Pass one more time. I LOVE a good deal!

It got a bit too hot for me as we left the Park and I really should have activated my cooling vest then. The heat really was tough after that. It could have been that we were behind two RVs that did not pull over when possible so we could all pass. They went 10 MPH on the grade, which is not fast enough for us to get even a little breeze. Dave was not amused by the RVs.

We stopped at Happy Burgers in Mariposa where I put my head under the faucet and activated the vest. All was well after that. Oh, and you really need to stop there, the burgers are FABULOUS!

Sonoma Visit

Our friends Pete & Teresa, aka Wine Rock Stars, are both retired now and ready to have some fun during the weekdays. It's fabulous to head up to the Wine Country during the middle of week...no crowds! We've been talking about visiting the St. Francis Winery in Sonoma for some time. They have a friend that just stared working at this winery and they've been trying to get up there for the food and wine pairings...which is a big deal at many of the wineries now. We were all over this, it sounded like fun...and it was...

There's a statue of St. Francis of Assisi, who disclaimed his wealthy family to become a hippie...well he was a big holistic earth environmentalist and loved animals, a few centuries ahead of his time

Here we are ready to begin the wine pairings

First course is a sea bass with a Chardonnay and chorizo slider with a spicy Zinfandel

Mushroom with a Merlot and steak with a Cabernet

Bleu cheese and chocolate dessert with a red dessert wine....are you salivating yet? You should be!

We stopped at Artesa since it was recommended to us by our new friends from Tampa that were at the wine pairing with us....

This place was set up in the side of a hill...set up for big buses to visit. Dave HATED the modern styling. We walked up the big hill....

Took some photos

Enjoyed the views

Gawked at the weird sculptures

Entered the building....used the toilets...and left without tasting the wines...it was a bit of a bunker feeling, but there were several balconies that we walked out on and enjoyed the views

We then decided to visit Domain Carneros because we were passing by on our way home. We do not pay for tastings and we thought we might be in a bind here....but Pete and Teresa have a friend that's a member here so they made a call to Canada and get his permission to deputize him so we could use their membership. This involved Pete pretending to be Mike....Olga, our hostess, really put him to the test, but Pete gave a great performance and the entire tasting was comped....we're getting pretty good at this! Here's the awesome view from the patio at Domain Carneros where we had a cheese and sparkling wine pairing.

It's good to live in California.....

Ezra Feeds Himself....

Ezra is closing in on 18 months. He's actually able to use utensils and get enough food in his mouth so that he doesn't starve. It's tough to sit and watch this mess, but he needs to learn.

He has a new "big boy" fork, plastic handle and metal tines

I still put a bib on him, but there's plenty that still gets on the floor

He's so cute