A journey through the life and times of Michael, Marisol and Nathanial. Of course we'll also share memories of our dog, Lilo and our friends and family. Hope you enjoy.
Nate & Jimmy are on the same basketball team. It's a non competitive league to see how much they like it. So far, after 1 practice it's still going good. Clearly they need some work, but I suspect they'll be much improved by the end of the season. They got 10 weeks of practice and games so lot's of times to work on fundamentals.
Nate has the most important piece of equipment, the ball/
Nate and Jimmy getting warmed up. Nate moved to the center of the ring with the coach to lead the team in stretching.
They divided the group into 3 stations for practice, here's Jimmy trying to dribble.
Nate trying to shoot. He struggles with whether to shoot granny style or overhand. Needs to hit the gym and build those arm muscles.
The coach wanted them to do some line drills to help burnout some of that energy this group has.
Nate practicing some dribbling
Granny shot!
Did we get a point for hitting the rim?
Jimmy learning a little defense
Nate taking a break after a busy day on the court.
We finally closed 2010. As I've said before, this has to be one of the wildest years in my life. I've never encountered so much happiness and sadness in a single year. When I look back it's hard to believe what we accomplished and went through in the last 12 months. We began an ended the year in with the Cottles and we are looking forward to a wonderful 2011.
It may be difficult to see in this photo, but we had a very full house for New Year's eve. We kept the celebration at home, had our friends, family and neighbors over to join us and enjoyed a safe end of the year party.
We lit up the fire pit and chatted outside at times
The kids all got together and played in Nate's room. It's amazing how much noise they make and how quiet the house seems when they are gone.
The adults had fun too. A number of us had shots of Patron.
The Slater's were able to join us.
The kids enjoyed roasting marshmallows.
We wanted to get a group shot with everyone and failed, but we did manage a group shot with most folks. Sorry that Nene & Dani were to sick to join us for this photo, glad they are feeling better now.
After quickly putting away all the Xmas decorations, rearranging the house for company, we were set for the arrival of our friends for New Years. Mike, Lilia and the kids arrived early afternoon on the 28th, about 5 hours after Frank, Rhonda and Royce arrived from Seattle. Once everyone was here, we hopped in our borrowed Suburban (Thank's Vato) and the Pathfinder and began a three and a half hour drive from our house to our hotel in Truckee. It might actually have been closer to 4 hours if you count the fact that our hotel was a Best Western when we booked in Sept, but had changed the name to Larkspur Landing about two weeks before we arrived, and we drove past it several times before we were found out about the change. We barely beat a heavy winter storm that came in and caused the last 25 miles to take the better part of 2 hours, as heavy snow caused lots of traffic. But we made it and had a great time.
Our "borrowed" suburban. It drove great int he snow, but we did have a few problems with it over heating. Yeah, that's right, over heating in -4 degree weather. We think the thermostat was sticking. After letting it cool for about 10 min, it would work great the rest of the day. Loved driving it in the snow with 4wd, made us feel real safe and held lots of our stuff.
Nate had to jump in the middle of the Cottle family photo. Such a ham.
Not to be out done, he was in our photo as well. He was so excited to finally be able to ski with Shayne & Chloe.
Here's Shayne as we were waiting for the bus, he found $40 in the snow. He was generous enough to treat the other kids to gelato with his good fortune. He's growing in a really nice young man.
Lilia getting the shot on the lift of the Cottles.
Our first day skiing at Northstar was really cold. The winter storm was in effect and we had lots of snow. Deep powder made the runs slow and hard to turn. The second day, the weather was much better only had about 2" of fresh powder and skiing was much easier. Nate was a little cannon ball who loved to ski fast without much turning. He skied from the very top of Northstar all the way to the bottom. His only complaint was he wanted to do more of the runs with the jumps and tricks on them.
Nate's in the parking lot playing around. He loves the snow and rarely complains about being cold, despite it being really cold up there.
Mike and Lilia near the mid mountain lodge. We didn't get much chance to spend at the top of the mountain since we were dragging Nate with us everywhere.
Nate and I skiing, he doesn't turn much, prefers to go straight down.
This video has two interesting aspects, the first is watching Chloe fall, the second is watching Nate ski backwards into the lift line.
Nate ready to get the ski's on and head up the lift. We couldn't find a good face warmer for him, they were sold out, need to get one vefore our next trip.
Maria playing with her new Xmas present, the Canon T2i, she loves the photos it takes. After skiing all day, the kids were playing outside and Maria snapped this shot of Chloe.
Lilia tried out the camera too, got this shot of us, while we were waiting for Mike to bring the car.
Here's Nate being his silly little self.
We all know that Chloe is Nate's love, and he hammed it up here, making the moves on her at such a young age.
Here's the whole group at Mikuni's enjoying a great post ski dinner.
We had a busy, peaceful Xmas. We woke up in the morning, enjoyed our time as family opening gifts, eating an amazing breakfast before loading up the car and spending the rest of the day driving. We got stuck in traffic on the way to Granny's house, and again leaving Granny's house to Nene's house for dinner. All in all, despite spending so much time in the car, it was fun and we enjoyed ourselves.
Nate made this drawing at school. It's his "elf". He laid on the ground and they traced it around him, then he colored it in. I hung it on the wall outside my office so I could enjoy seeing it, even when Nate wasn't around.
As you can see, Santa came again and still has not learned to clean up after himself. His footprints were all over the floor when we woke up.
Here's our Xmas tree, before we set Nate loose to open presents.
Nate had a lot of fun with the presents this year. He was reading the tags and trying to determine which presents were from or to him. He helped open all the presents and assumed if they had his name on it, it was for him.
Nate and I played Connect 4, one of the presents he got this year. He's excited about playing games with us.
At Granny's house, he hauled in a bunch more presents. While I don't think he was expecting Xmas presents, he was just excited about seeing G-Pa and the stash of presents he knows G-Pa keeps in his trunk.
G-pa opening his box of puzzles. Always a good gift. Next year we'll get him something for his new place, after we get him moved to Roseville (Did I just write a New Year's resolution?)
After Granny's we went to Nene and Dani's for a few more presents and a wonderful prime rib dinner. You can see here, Dani opening her team Edward doll, I think we nailed it with that gift.
HP was kind enough to force employees to take 2 weeks off around Xmas time this year. Since we had a few days before Xmas and we had finished our Xmas shopping, we decided to head up skiing for the day. Nate took 5 lessons last year and by the end was ready to ski with us, but never really got a chance. We knew the Cottles would be coming up for New Year's and Nate would want to ski with everyone, so we decided we'd do a little trial run up at Soda Springs. We decided to give him a 1 hour private lessons before spending the rest of the day with us.
Long line for Nate's rental gear, but he found a friend with this little bear.
Maria waiting for Nate and I to head down, had to show off her new hat that Nicole brought from Peru.
Here's Nate on his first run with us. Soda Springs only has 2 lifts and this was an easy green run.
The instructor told us that Nate didn't turn much, really just wanted to get down the hill FAST!
The trick we have to remind Nate is to make Pizza with his ski's. The more he wants to stop, the bigger the piece of pizza to make.
He went down one run, going fast and crashed into the soft powder alongside the groomed area. As we got there, he was missing both ski's and buried in the snow. We pulled him out and he said "Did you see that? It was totally awesome!" I guess he liked skiing & crashing.
Nate and I riding the lift. Nate's biggest problem on the day was getting ON the chair lift. Maria wouldn't ride with him, as he constantly needed help onto the seat (not really tall enough) and twice he lost his ski getting on. The trooper managed to get off the lift with my help and ski out of the way on one ski.
After several runs, a break for lunch and several more runs, Nate was ready to play in the snow. Wanted to make snowmen, snow angels and of course...
Make a snow ball.
Glad he doesn't have his aim developed yet, he really enjoys throwing snowballs.
After 2 amazing days in the south, we headed back to San Juan. Before catching her flight out, Gwen joined us for a trip to El Yunque, the rain forest in Puerto Rico.
At the base of La Mina falls.
Great hike down to the falls, but very humid.
Here's the view from a tower we stopped at. You can see all the way to the ocean.
Standing atop the tower. 93 steps to the top if I remember correctly. Maria was running up them.
Stopping for a breather on the hike.
Lot's of vegetation, flowers etc.
One of may stops as we followed the river, creek down to La Mina falls.
Here we both are at the falls. We didn't bring our suits, so we didn't jump in.
Now that's a set of balls!
After the rain forest, we dropped Gwen off at the airport and headed to El Morro the fort in Old San Juan.
More hiking. Got lots of exercise in today.
Stuck between levels 4 and 5 of the fort. Last time I was here, was 10 years ago with Wally Imfeld. The fort hasn't changed much.
Here's the beach from the hotel we were staying at in Old San Juan. The sand was like powder, not coarse at all. We were quite a ways from old San Juan, but still a nice place to spend a relaxing day before flying home.
Relaxing poolside with a Cuba Libre!
These little lookouts around the fort are one of the monuments you see all over.
Here's another one. Most have been repaired, but still a site to see.
The Pina Colada was invented in Puerto Rico. Here's one from The Parrot club. One of the best we had while there. They don't use/crush or shave ice. It's made in a slushee machine, but they just use the rum and coconut juices to make it.
Here's a great dessert, a Chocolate Tres Leche cake with Coconut on top. Pure heaven.
Our trip to Puerto Rico was a blast. I got lot's accomplished with work, Maria was finally able to join me. We squeezed in some diving, lot's of touring and a day of rest. We didn't get bitten by the Chupacabra, which we heard and talked lots about. Orlando was a great host. The time he took us out on his boat and showed us around was wonderful. I can't say enough about the hospitality of the team working in Puerto Rico. I'm so happy to be associated with them.
The only part of the trip that was bad, was the return home. Now usually that's just because it means the trip is ending, which still applied, but it was compounded in this case by United. Our flight was 2 hours late leaving PR, as they had trouble loading fuel in the plane. That meant we missed our connecting flight in Washington and had a 12 hour lay over. After 2.5 hours in line waiting to hear what to do, they finally got us a hotel room. Of course that meant we had to go outside and wait for the shuttle. It's 5 degrees outside with a 20MPH wind and we just came from a tropical island. Not prepared for standing outside. We finally made it home safe and sound but it was quite and adventure. Took us nearly 31 hours from airport to airport.
To stand outside we bought Maria a sweatshirt and these socks to wear with her flip flops. How sexy!
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