This is the start of some of the pictures and hopefully a video from Rachel's piano recital back in June.  I am just running a little behind.

Spring Vacation

Rachel and I just returned from a vacation to California to see Justin and Stacy. We had a wonderful Easter and week after with them. Had a lot of fun and saw a lot of new sights. Thanks again kids for a wonderful time. Here are the links to my different web albums of our trip.https://picasaweb.google.com/111472392053516289027/SacramentoOldSac#, https://picasaweb.google.com/111472392053516289027/NapaValleyAndPointReyesNationalSeashore##, https://picasaweb.google.com/111472392053516289027/SanFranciscoTrip##. There are three different web albums here about three different things that we did. We also did things that I didn't post the pictures of on here but these are the real highlights of our trip. Most of them are captioned but a few still need captions. I will try within the next few days to get them done. Enjoy the glimpses into our lives!

Diet Sunday Dinner

Here are the steaks, hot off the grill. I hadn't tried to grill this winter with my new grill because I have never been able to grill in the winter with a grill because it is too cold here in the winter. It was mild on Thursday, so I tried cooking burgers on the grill and that worked fine, so Rachel suggested that we try the steaks on the grill today. I first had to shovel the pile of snow off of the back deck and clean the snow off of the grill before I could even light it. Got it heated up to 400 degrees and cooked them 10 minutes on one side and about 8 on the other side. Just right is the way to describe them.
Added the rest of the wonderful things to go with it and it was an awesome meal. Sauteed the onions with a little butter and a little olive oil, and then added a can of mushrooms and a can of french onion soup, then cooked off the extra moisture and they were delicious.

Savored every bit of it.

Ice Storm

These are the branches of the tree in front of our house. There is approximately 1/4 inch of ice on everything. The light is reflecting through the ice and I just thought it would make an interesting picture.
You can see the ice build up here on the shepherd's crook plant hanger on the porch also.

You can see the icicles hanging on the porch light at the end of the porch. Everything was encased in this ice. Sort of reminiscent of the Ice Storm of '98.

And this is a duplicate picture that I can't seem to delete.

Good- bye Intrepid

Our dear faithful Chrysler Intrepid is finally going to take its final trip out of the yard in the next couple of days. (It would have been gone today, except we had an ice storm) A man stopped and inquired about what we were going to do with the two cars in the yard, I explained that one belonged to my son, but that we wanted to sell them. He wanted the Intrepid for parts, made an offer and we took it. We bought it with 19,000 miles on it and in now has 189,000 miles on it. It has been a very good car for us, it survived two teenage drivers, one deer, one ditch, and one stop sign. Good-bye Intrepid, you have been a good and faithful friend!

Merry Christmas from our house to yours!

Merry Christmas a little early

Justin and Stacy were home on the 1st of December. While they were here, Chris, my sister came and we celebrated with them. They were here for several days and then went to Pennsylvania to spend several days with Stacy's family. They came back home and then Rachel and I took them to Syracuse to fly out on Wednesday the 14th to go back to California. We were so glad to have them here. While they were here we took the opportunity to get a few group pictures. The time flew by so quickly, but it was a good time. Here is a link to the pictures https://picasaweb.google.com/111472392053516289027/JustinAndStacyWereHome##