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.

Soccer Practice

Last night we started the first of several weeks of soccer lessons. The lessons were at the park right near our house. Nate was excited to go out and play. He's been playing soccer with Cuco for some time now, so it wasn't really new to him.


Nate was supposed to be working on his dribbling skills, but he kept wanting to kick with the inside of his right foot and the outside of his left foot. The coach had put little stars on the inside of the kids shoes to show them where they were supposed to kick the ball. Of course Nate was more interested in playing with the stars, and was distraught when they fell off.

More dribbling practice

Nate prefers to run up to the ball and just kick it.

Admire the coach, trying to corral the kids is like herding cats.

After about 15 minutes, The coach decided to have the kids play a real soccer match, but with no goalie. The kids were to just run and kick the ball into the net. Of course for the 8 kids it started with 2 balls and wound up being like 6 by the time the game was over. Nate was running with 2 other kids, but one was faster and Nate didn't like that. I reminded him that he had his super fast running shoes on and he said he needed faster shoes. After running up and down the field twice, I heard something I've never heard from Nate, he said he had no energy. He wanted to go sit down and rest. I was shocked, I'm still shocked.In this drill, Nate's supposed to stomp on the ball like a bug to stop it. Then stand like a penguin with toes out and pass the ball back to me. Of course for him penguin meant more waddling with the arms out and wasn't really applicable to soccer.

After the lesson was over, the coach huddled the kids together, got them to all place their hands in the center as he quietly shared some words of wisdom. Then they raised their hands and shouted Soccer!!!

Labor Day

We had a mellow labor day weekend. Not much going on. Fri afternoon, Nate and I went to a local water park to play in the sprinklers. Saturday Nate and I went to this pizza place that Jessica once described as Chuck E Cheese on crack. Sunday we had a BBQ at our place, with a bunch of friends and Monday I went golfing in the morning before returning to our place to hang out by the pool with the neighbors.

Nate enjoyed the water park, after a few minutes. At first he didn't want to get wet and just wanted to watch. But once he got into it, he loved running around. There were 2 other girls there that he enjoyed playing with, but the water kept shutting off, so he got bored after about 15 minutes or so.

That's Jeff and Missy's little girl Zoe.

Zach, Zoe and Nate hanging out in the spa.

Jeff & Missy, friends from Sac State came over for what amounts to our yearly get together. We enjoy hanging out with them, but it seems our calendars rarely every sync up. It was a last minute thing and we're glad we were able to see them and their kids Zach and Zoe. Also visiting on Sunday was Brad and Kim, back from their camp trip in Tahoe and our Neighbor Barbara and her 2 kids Jimmy and Emily. Unfortunately the adults were to busy playing and chatting while the kids swam so we didn't get any photos.

Lilo waiting for someone to throw her the ball.

Ready or not, I'm going diving.

The frogger ride at the pizza place.

What happens in Vegas... Get's posted on the web

Viva Las Vegas!!! What a great way to spend a birthday weekend. Maria and I arrived on Thursday afternoon, Mike an Lilia joined us on Friday afternoon. We all left Sunday around 3. In between, we gambled, we drank, we kicked it pool side and we saw some shows. The picture above was taken shortly after the Cottle's arrived, we were hanging out at a bar in Mandalay Bay called EyeCandy.


After we grabbed drinks, we went to freshen up a bit and then headed out to Texas De Brazil. This is a Brazilian steakhouse, that I first went to out in Texas. It's a meat lover's paradise. They bring all different kinds of meat to your table and you can have as much as you want. A sample of what we had included,Sirloin, Flank steak, Filet, bacon wrapped filet, sausages, bacon wrapped chicken breast, pork chops etc. They also have a really good salad bar. It was an amazing amount of food and leaves you not craving beef for at least 24 hours.



Of course, we also spent quite a lot of time hanging out at the pool. Mandalay Bay has a big wave pool, and we spent a good portion of everyday there. The heat was brutal, I think we were there during the hottest part of August. Luckily the drinks flowed regularly, and we were able to walk out and refresh ourselves in the pool.

Of course Vegas is known as Sin City, but this was a new twist I had never seen before. Maria and I first saw an example at Excalibur, but these shots are from the Luxor. In the pit area behind the black jack tables, they had a small stage and some scantily clad women hanging out dancing. Great to watch, but very distracting if you're trying to play blackjack. Of course, as married guy's Mike and I would get in trouble if we looked to long, or happened to say something to the wives about it.

This is our waitress, or one of them anyway from the pool. She took great care of us. Mike ordered her to go for me, but I guess he didn't pay the bill, because she didn't come back with us.

We all know Maria can drink, they brought her a blended margarita instead of on the rocks, so they said she could have the blended and the one they later brought on the rocks. That way she could have one drink for both hands.


These photos were taken at the seafood restaurant in the MGM, just before we were heading out to see Chris Angel's Believe. The food was really good, and it was nice to eat a lighter meal after the heavy steakhouse the night before. The show was pretty good, nothing spectacular. I really liked the costumes and dancers. The show was choreographed by one of the folks from So You Think You Can Dance, one of the shows we watch all the time. Earlier in the day, we saw the Bodies exhibit. This is the one where all the skin is peeled away and you get to see the human anatomy. It was really spectacular. There were sections on the bones, circulatory system, neuro system etc. Interesting showing the different diseases that you get as well. I was lukewarm on going, but now that I've seen it, I'd recommend it.

Captain Morgan shots

A few more random pool shots.

Now that's what I'm talking about.

Get a Room!!!

I know what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, so that's all you're going to get to see. Know that we had a good time, I'm sure the girls will pick what they want to do for my birthday next year as well. As long as it's something like Vegas, I'm sure I'll have a good time. All in all, we came away ahead from the tables, about $300, but we lost heavily at the bar and restaurants. Only thing missing was our buddy Brad. Hopefully we can make it back in late October or early Nov.