Mikuni Golf Tournament

Myself, along with Bobby Jackson and Rob Horne

Monday 8/23, is one of my favorite days of the year.  The combination of Mikuni Sushi and golf makes for a wonderful time.  This year was no exception.  The format this year was a four man best ball scramble.  It really helped take the pressure off when you got 3 other people to help on every shot.  Although there was one par 5, where they sold you an opportunity to use a guest's drive.  The guest was one of the guy's from the pro long ball driving circuit.  For $40 you could use where his ball landed as your new teeing area.  This guy hit our drive a tad over 400 yards and it wasn't even his longest drive of the day.  We saw a few celebrities, hit a few golf balls, enjoyed the free Bacardi and beer and finished it off with an amazing sushi dinner.  Here are a few photos from the day.

Rob taking a swing at the par 3.  We played his ball, which landed in the sand trap short of the green.

That's Dave raking the sand trap after Ken hit Rob's drive from the sand into the cup for birdie.  Great shot Ken!!!

Rob and Ken enjoying the free beer while waiting for the group in front to clear.

That's Lee and I, still waiting for the group in front to clear and we now have the group behind us also waiting.

Rob's about to earn some $$$

So I need to pause here and give a tip to anyone who may not have spent time with Rob, never and I mean never challenge or accept a beer chugging challenge from Rob.  That is, unless you want to lose.  After Taro wisely declined, Rob offered this lady a chance to compete.  To even the odds, she only had to drink a 1/2 full glass, while Rob would chug a full glass. This hole was the $25 closest to the pin, beat Taro hole.  Hmm, think Rob won?

Rob's done, is her glass still half full or half empty?

Rob, Taro and Ken.  Taro was impressed, Ken was amused and Rob was thirsty for another.

Rob found a place to quench his thirst, the Bacardi booth conveniently located at the first/11th tee area.  That gives a double shot at the double shot drinks.  I learned that the torched cherry rum is great.

Rob finally cries uncle!

OK, now here is something I thought I'd never see.  Free sushi and Rob says he's done, throws in the towel and there's still some amazing sushi left.


My thanks extend to Comtek for the invitation and Mikuni's for putting on another great tournament.

August Activities

Nate, Baba & Claudia enjoying Sunday Breakfast in Old Sacramento

Our famous Sacramento bridge

Nene, Dani & Aggie invite Maria, Nate and I out to breakfast one Sunday morning.  We agreed to meet in Old Sac and have breakfast on the river.  What was a short notice for us turned into an outstanding day.  We had no plans and it was a great opportunity to get us out of the house and do something fun.

Nate and I waiting for breakfast

Here's the beautiful Claudia looking up to her hero "Daddy"

Nene enjoying the cool August morning.

Nate doing his best pose with Claudia before breakfast.

After breakfast we walked out and there was this band singing and playing. Take a seat on a hay bail and enjoy.

The kids loved it.  They even took to dancing a bit.

At the railroad museum.

Everyone else peeled off and went their separate ways.  We spent most of the day wandering the streets, looking at toys, eating some ice cream, buying candy and enjoying the Railroad museum.  All in all a great day. 

Aggie really wanted to get out to this Alpaca farm.  Maria & Nate joined her and Nate got to see, pet and feed some Alpaca's.

What would summer be without sun, friends, & ice cream.  The kids having a blast and enjoying our very mild summer.

At one point Brad came over and got a lesson on all of Nate's new iTouch games.

The other Green's came by and joined us for S'mores one night.

While we were supposed to be looking for meteorites, we didn't see any, but the S'mores made up for it.  The kids loved staying up late and getting an extra dose of sugar.

First Day of School

Our little boy isn't so little anymore.  He joined the ranks of school aged children and has yet again changed our lives forever.  We are now slaves to the school schedule, responsible for pick ups, drop offs, spring breaks, summer vacations and numerous birthday parties.  Today marks the first day of Kindergarten for him, or us or him or... 

Nate walking to school from Adventure Club, where he goes 3 days a week prior to Kindergarten.

All the kids have to wear their backpacks, adults aren't allowed to help. 

Jimmy and Barbara on their way to class.

Jimmy stopping for a few of those first day photos.

Nate's new teacher

Nate laying down, says he's got all this down, time for a quick rest.

Nate and Jimmy are in the same class.  Should make for a fun year.

The blond buddies

Nate hanging up his backpack.

Nate's cubby hole.

Nate and Jimmy jumped right into the art portion of Kindergarten.

Full class, no chairs?  Too many parents all shedding tears over watching their little ones growing up.

Nate's in the afternoon class and attends from 11:35 to 2:55.

Here's where all the kids, and parents, lined up waiting to get into class.

Nate woke up this morning and climbed into bed with us.  We were talking to him about going to school and whether he was excited or not.  Nate's biggest concern, was that after watching Toy Story 3, he didn't want to go to college, or at least he didn't want to go alone.  He asked if we'd go to college with him.  I'm sure that will change as he gets older, but we said we'd love to go with him.  He knows that Logan is in the first grade, and after first grade is second grade.  He is curious as to how much longer he has to go after that, I told him until he got his PHD.

Cabo San Lucas, now arriving in Sacramento

That water is COLD!!!

Our week long trip to Cabo San Lucas was canceled thanks to our friends at Mexicana Airlines.  We booked our tickets a few months ago through Expedia for an American Airlines flight, direct from Sac to Cabo.  The flight was "operated" by Mexicana.  About a month ago we decided to add a ticket for Aggie to join us, we booked the same flight on Expedia, but this time directly with Mexicana.  Aggie's ticket was ~$150 cheaper, so we were looking forward to a week lounging in Cabo, with a day all setup to do some deep sea tuna fishing and snorkeling.  Otherwise the trip was going to be hanging by the pool, relaxing and letting the activities of the past 2 months drift off into the sunset.
While On our Catalina Island trip, we got an email from Expedia asking us to contact them immediately.  They needed to inform us that Aggie's flight had been canceled.  Apparently Mexicana was having financial issues, they were striking in Mexico city and the FAA had downgraded their rating to that of a third world airline.  Expedia continued to assure us that Maria, Nate and my flight was not impacted.  They stuck tot he story that Mexicana only canceled Aggie's flight, and that they were operating two flights, leaving Sac and arriving in Cabo at exactly the same time.  We weren't  naive enough to believe Expedia, so we contacted AA, they agreed something was going on, but had not decided on a solution yet.  We got confirmation 2 days before the flight, from AA, all the while Expedia continued to assure us our flight wasn't canceled.  AA offered to fly us from Sac to Dallas, to Cabo and instead of a 3 hour direct flight, we could spend 9 hours in transit to our vacation, but nothing was going to happen for Aggie.  We decided to go ahead and get a refund on our airfare, eat our hotel costs and check out this notion of a staycation.  I took Friday off and we went up the mountain to the American River confluence (North and Middle forks).  We brought Lilo and spent the day with a picnic lunch and swimming.

Here's Nate and Baba hanging out on a rock and enjoying the weather.

Nate's becoming quite the camera man

May be hard to see, but Lilo was not impacted by the cold water, all she wanted was that ball.

That's my hand as I fall backwards in the water, when Nate throws the ball for Lilo right at me and Lilo jumps all eyes on the ball.

Lilo heading down river chasing after the ball.

And returning with her prized catch in her mouth

Nate refilling his water gun, while Lilo returns with the ball.

Lilo dropping the ball off, waiting for another opportunity to fetch it.

Now the truly amazing part here is that Lilo still wanted to fetch the ball in the river.  Earlier in the day, Maria decided she would send Lilo white water rafting, without a raft.  She chucked the ball straight out from shore, Lilo dutifully went after it, retrieving it just fine, but wasn't fast or strong enough to avoid the rapids, Lilo goes down through the rapids disappearing out of site.  I took off running to the bottom of the rapids and Lilo swims to the side and comes trotting back to Maria.  But we were pretty freaked to see her head backwards down the rapids.

Nate in mid jump into the river

splish splash, he's all wet.

now, back to the rock for rounds 2,3,4....

That covered our Friday.  Saturday we got up and went to the Farmer's market and got some local farm fresh produce.  Then Nate and I headed over to the gym for a morning workout.  We returned and had the neighbors over for some afternoon swimming.  We intended to go see Despicable Me, but had to cancel after Nate threw his iTouch.  We did manage to see it Sunday and enjoyed it.  Typical family fun cartoon.  We enjoyed a nice waffle house breakfast with Aggie before the movie and had Jake and Logan over in the afternoon to round out the day.  Not the same as being in Cabo, but still a relaxing time.