Zip went July and now here's August!

My humble apologies for lagging so far behind. I can give reasons, not excuses, but that is besides the point. For two and one half weeks of July we had a lively house. The first week our son Geoff and his family came with daughter Annie's oldest Emily in tow. We took the sailboat to Lake Mendocino for a day, went to the coast for a day and just sort of hung out the remainder of the time.

I drove to Fresno after the first crew left and picked up Claire, Annie's 8 y.o. making her first solo trip to visit. We pretty much repeated the activities from the first visit but Claire and I added a day in San Fransisco. We spent about 4 hours the museum and aquarium in Golden Gate Park http://www.calacademy.org/. We then took a drive down Lombard St. http://www.sftravel.com/lomabardcrookedstreet.html  and Claire wasn't too impressed with that as she "thought it would go on and on and on." Lastly Gammie bit the bullet and we did the major tourist scene at Pier 39 http://www.pier39.com/index.cfm having a nice dinner at restaurant there with a view of the famous sea lions http://www.pier39.com/Attractions/index.htm .

Annie came up on the Amtrak the last Sunday and was able to stay over two nights. So we all went to Lake Mendocino with the boat again for a day. Everyone had a blast including Ari who is so hardwired for swimming it is amazing. Before anyone post about the lead - it is quite long and we are very careful with her. Until she is a bit older we keep her on lead at all times.

So what you may ask what am I doing now that everyone is gone? I work 2-3 days a week at the Vet. clinic still. At home there is much to do this time of the year. So far I have put up two batches of Bread and Butter pickles and one batch of carrots. I have tomatoes to tackle next. Our weather was cool and wet so late into the year the tomatoes are just beginning to get ripe. I anticipate that they will all ripen at the same time and I will find myself in the kitchen putting up allot of those.

Sorry about the lack of photos but when the kids and grandbebes were here I got very few photos. I just wanted to take the time to enjoy them. The few I got are still on the camera and I will take them off soon.

Trust your summer is going well and life is wonderful for you and yours!