Pumpkin Patch

We deviated from our normal trip to Bishop's pumpkin patch this year and instead made the drive slightly south of Stockton to Del Osso's. While certainly bigger, I'm not convinced it was better. Nate loved the fact that it had bounce house areas in addition to the normal train rides, pumpkins etc. We had a great day, stood in a lot of lines and enjoyed the company of Nene, Dani, Claudia and Maria's cousin Pamela.

Here we are on the train ride. Hard to show how much Nate loves going on the train ride, he thrust his fist into the air and was yelling train ride!

Here we are waiting to board the train. Felt a bit like Disneyland, lot's of time waiting in lines, for a few short rides.

More waiting in line for the train.

The kids picking out pumpkins, or more likely playing. Pamela taking the shots here, so a bit more artistic than what we usually shoot.


Claudia was SO happy to go on a pony ride. That is until she had to get off, she did n;t like that part!

Nate got about half way through the pony ride and was bored, wanted to go to the bounce house.

Now you see me, now you don't.

Hodgepodge

Been a busy last month. The Puerto Rico trip was really unexpected, or at least unplanned. We've been wrapping up end of summer activities and winding things down. One of the biggest things is getting financing for the Orinda house. We're finally ready to submit the application, we're pre-approved and that will really help take the pressure off of paying for Lorraine's health care. Which brings me to all the joys of being a landlord. Just got a note from the tenant that her glass table in the back yard was broken. After some investigation, it turns out the neighbor kids were hitting rocks or golf balls or something into the back yard. Not only did the tenant, but apparently in all of this, the skylight got broken as well. Add that to the list of things I need to get taken care of before the rain starts. We also need to fix the back patio, which needs a major drainage fix.

We're close to getting Nate back into Pre-School. In fact we're hoping to get him started on Monday the 12th. He'll be going a full 5 days a week, but only for 4 hours a day. It will be very similar to what he'll be doing next year when he starts kindergarten. But before we can put him back in school, he has to go back to the Dr.

The Doctor said he was doing great, but did note a few things. In the last 8 months, he's gained 4 lbs. He's clearly no longer skinny, although still not fat. For his age, he's now up in the 82%, from 74% back in Feb. To go along with that, in Jan he was in the 94% for his height, at 3' 1.25". Now he's at 3' 5" and only in the 75%.

As the weather is cooling here, we're able to spend a little more time outdoors and not in the pool. Nate's been really enjoying riding his bike in the front yard. Wants to go outside everyday and play. He's hoping Jake & Logan or Jimmy & Emily will be out front to ride with him. Last night, no one was around, so we rode around the block several times. I'm looking forward to going out with him Sat morning, and see if he can do a longer ride on one of the trails around here.

Maria's gym is having an 8 week biggest loser challenge $500 to the male and also to the female who loses the biggest % weight loss. So we signed up, which should be a challenge through Halloween and thanksgiving. I think we've got a good shot, as long as we stick to it, we know what we need to, to win.

Finally, on a happier note, it is getting close to Halloween. Which means we got some great photos of Nate and Claudia in their costumes. Nene and Dani joined us for a fun day of photo taking. Enjoy!!!

Puerto Rico

Spent the week of 9/27 to 10/4 in Puerto Rico. Been working with the local HP site there to move a fairly large portion of our business from our local supplier here in Roseville down there. It's become my full time job over the last 3 months and will be for probably another 9 months. Since it's been nearly a year since my last visit, and we're now officially underway, I was able to go down and see how things are coming along.
This shot was taken from Villa Montana, a place I really wanted to stay at, but they were booked up when I made the reservation. This was a rather quickly planned trip, as I only got approval to travel about 2.5 weeks before I left. Villa Montana has a restaurant called Eclipse, that has the best food of all the places I've eaten there. The resort is right on the beach, I hear it's great to get up and snorkel in the morning before go to work. I've only been there after work, looking at the sunset. My next trip is already booked for the week of Dec 7th, and I have my reservation for here, so looking forward to checking it out. Only drawback, or maybe a huge plus, is there is very poor cell reception at the resort.

This photo was taken at a little place, right off the road called Happy Bellies. I first came to Happy Bellies about 10 years ago on my first visit to Puerto Rico on HP business. The place serves good cheap food. I haven't been there at night, but I hear they have great drink specials, loud music and very popular with the college crowd.

One of the benefits of flying on Sunday and Saturday, is that you get a full 5 days to be in the office while traveling. Many people refuse to travel on the weekends, which makes getting travel approved more difficult and you get less accomplished. Since I allowed for the full 5 days, we were actually able to wrap up most of the work after 4 days. We took the last day for a little team building. The site manager, for our business, is Orlando Pena. This is his boat. He offered to take me and a some of the other managers working on this project out for a day of fishing and snorkling.

Some of the things we saw, were amazing. Hard to capture the beauty with an iphone camera. I can kick myself for not bringing my water camera. You can bet I won't make that mistake in Dec, when we return. The water was very warm and even though we were about 2 miles offshore, there were these mangrove islands that had all these shallow areas you could walk around in.

That's the team. From left to right, me, Sammy, Manny and Orlando. Of course the fishing pole, which was used, but no fish were harmed this day.
Underwater was nice, Manny came decked out with his water camera, spear gun and dive knife. So he took several of these pictures.

One thing I learned on this trip was that where the HP plant is, and where I stay is in the town of Aguadilla, which is on the North West side of the island and on the Atlantic Ocean. Where we went to Snorkel, was on the South West side of the island and is in the Caribbean Ocean.


What a great way to spend a day. It's a good group of people and I'm looking forward to seeing them again. They'll be coming to Roseville in Nov.

This last photo is from Orlando's second/weekend home, which shows the docks where his boat is and the mangrove islands where we did some of our snorkling.