Happy
Holidays!
Finally! A Holiday Newsletter again. We never got around to sending one out last
year due to last minute “excitement” preventing us from getting around to it
until it was… February (i.e. too late).
2014 in a Nutshell
Here is the Reader’s Digest version of the highlights
of 2014.
Our friends Leah & Jonathan got married in April
and we attended their wedding on a cruise ship to the Caribbean. They had a reception at a local brewpub for
the many local friends that could not attend the wedding. Their golden retriever (Elvis) and our
yorkie-chihuahua (Ginnie Mae) were the junior bride and groom. A photo of Ginnie and the newlyweds was also
on the label of the bottles of wine Jonathan made for the wedding.
Ginnie Mae is available to make your next ceremony a success.
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| Dee with Kenny & friend with shells |
We stayed a little longer in Florida and visited with
our friend Ken Needle in Clearwater, who graciously put us up at his
house. Dee was over the moon at the
seashell-encrusted beaches, particularly San Ybel Island. Dee had stuffed so many shells into our
suitcase that it was over the weight limit for the flight back! (We obtained a (clean) plastic garbage bag
and carried on a bunch of clothes.) We
also visited the (rather smallish) aquarium that has Winter, the dolphin with a
prosthetic tail, upon which the kids’ movie “Dolphin Tale” is based. It was an interesting story about a dolphin
that lost its tail after being tangled in a crab trap. Without a tail the
dolphin would have died and so began the making of a prosthetic one that now
benefits many people with prosthetic limbs.
Also interesting is the story of the dolphin saved the aquarium from
insolvency.
Because he is a volunteer director of a credit union,
Les is encouraged to partake of relevant conferences for training. We therefore
spent a few days in Palm Springs in December courtesy of the credit union. It was a nice relaxing time at a beautiful
resort (and Les also learned some things).
Barbara Sandberg visited in July and came back in
September with her friend Jackie. Bob (Les’s
brother) visited in December.
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| Melon enjoying some WeightWatchers oatmeal |
On a very sad note, Melon (our cat) died suddenly in
August from anaphylaxis, cause unknown. We,
of course, miss her, but the surprise was that Freddie Mac, her nemesis,
searched for her everywhere for months.
2015 Year in Review
The biggest news is that we started the remodel of our
house this year (yay!). The bad news is
that it is not done yet. The boring
details are saved to the end of this newsletter because there are probably some
dear readers that do not care – even though we have talked about hardly anything
else for 4+ years.
Les has grown his solo practice not only by increasing
his client base, but he is also Of Counsel (i.e. is an independent contractor)
to another small law firm and therefore enjoys steady work.
After a fairly quiet period, Dee’s vet work also
picked up substantially from spring right up to November.
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| Fred and Les using the brewkit |
On the craft beer front, Les judged at the America’s
Finest City Homebrew Competition and at the International Beer Festival at the San
Diego County Fair. Jonathan (the recent
newlywed) bought a beer kit system that can brew up to 15 gallons of beer at
the time. Because he lives in a condo,
the system is stored in our garage and Les and Jonathan brew together. We even included this in the remodeling plans
by installing a larger door between garage and backyard. We could only roll out the brew sculpture to
the front of the house so that is where we were brewing – and all the neighbors
walking/driving by would gawk or ask what we were doing. Dee was not amused (“There go the Clampett’s
again!”). As a concession to propriety,
we will be able to brew in the backyard in the future. However, after making a few batches, the
system had to be put on storage status due to the remodeling activity (too much
dust and too little room to work).
Hopefully, we will bring the beer kit out of storage soon and start
brewing again.
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| Dee with the grad and one of the professors that Dee also had in vet school |
We traveled to Texas in May. One for the purpose of attending the
graduation of Elise Jemmot from Vet school at Dee’s own alma mater, Texas
A&M (Dee was as proud as Deb, the mom).
The campus was barely recognizable from when we graduated 26 years
earlier. We had a great time hanging out
with the family, eating barbecue and drinking beer. It rained almost the entire time. The severe flooding did not occur until a
week after we had left.
The other purpose for visiting College Station was
that it was nearly 30 years from the day we got married in that town – a return
to the scene of the crime. We visited
the church where we married and drove past the houses we lived in (or, in some
cases, where the house used to be).
Several of our old haunts were still there and barely changed – the
chicken fried steak sandwich at the Dixie Chicken was still as good as we
remember it and Duddley’s Draw was still as grungy. But all the surrounding businesses were new
and very different. Our friend Kathy
Beifuss graciously put us up at her house. It was great to catch up with her after a
couple of decades. Kathy plans to stay
with us next year when she runs in the San Diego Rock & Roll Marathon. We will watch from the sidelines.
Dee went to Catalina for a veterinary business
conference with Sandra in September. They
got to travel to the island in a helicopter!
They had a great time and Dee is always grateful when Sandra invites her
to one of these conferences.
Dee went to Vegas and the Grand Canyon with Barbara in
September, and another helicopter ride.
No big casino winnings. Can’t
retire yet.
We traveled to Albany (and nearby Schenectady) in
October for Dee’s nephew’s (Andrew) wedding.
We had a great time catching up with the family and the ceremony and
reception were terrific.
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| The happy couple, Andy & Allie |
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| Matt, the brest man. |
We went to our cardiologist’s Apple Days celebration
in October at his ranch in Julian where we usually come home with enough apples
to make apple crisp, apple pie, etc.
This year, because of the drought, we came back with about 11 teeny-tiny
apples. Probably only suitable for a
dried flower display. Fresh apple pies
will have to wait until rain returns.
We made a rare visit to SeaWorld in October, courtesy
of our friends Ron & Judith. There
were some nice exhibits: shark, octopus, and penguin displays stand out. We saw what was alleged to be one of the last
Shamu shows in San Diego (due to “Blackfish” pressure – and low park revenues). Frankly, we have no desire to be in the
splash zone, but because we enjoy their fireworks displays all summer we want the
park to continue operating in the black!
We went to another credit union director conference,
this time in Orlando in December. The
weather was nice, we stayed at the Disney Swan and Dolphin Resort (nice resort,
horrible housekeeping and room services).
Due to a bout of stomach flu, we missed going to Epcot Center, but we
did go to a great museum in Winter Park prior to that fateful day. The Charles Hosner Morse Museum has a great
collection of Tiffany art including glass (windows, lamps, etc.), painting,
sculpture, etc. – much that was salvaged from the derelict Tiffany mansion when
it burned down in the 50’s. Dee was just
mesmerized with all the art.
We had some visitors to San Diego during the
year. (Dee’s) Mom & Mary (Dee’s
sister-in-law) visited in January. We
had great fun taking them to the zoo and Balboa Park. We also had a take-no-prisoners competition
of UpWords (sort of a 3-D scrabble game). Les crushed it.
Matt, Dee’s nephew, visited for July 4th. We enjoyed having him as always and he lead
us further into the money pit (see below).
Barbara visited in August. We also visited the zoo (and many restaurants
she has come to know and love).
After four years we finally pulled the trigger on
remodeling our house. No more putting
out pots and pans to collect water in the dining room! No more covering our roof with tarps! Our friends and former neighbors, Dan and
Gerald, were going to do the majority of the building. But first, we had to draw up plans and get
permits. We interviewed several
architects – all said it was an “easy” job – then quoted a substantial
fee. Fortunately, our friend Ron felt he
could make suitable drawings for the permitting process and did so. Thank you Ron! After many aggravating visits to the city for
permits, we were finally ready to get started by the end of April.
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| Before vacation - note the fine selection of roof tarps |
Dan and Gerald were ready to go - right when we went for the vacation to Texas (see above). They brought their friend Ricky to help. He is shorter than Dee but can pick up a 12 foot 2x10 pretty much by himself. We were gone a week and by the time we got back the garage was empty (all the contents of which were in the house), the roof was off the garage and the concrete in front was poured. And it rained 2 inches right after they poured the concrete. Fortunately, they were able to cover the area with tarps.
 After vacation - no tarps - no roof |
   They then demoed the now interior front door, window and part of the kitchen to form a large foyer (still trying to decide what we are going to do with the space – but it sure makes the house look bigger). The stucco was just finished hours before our guests started to arrive for our 4th of July party (the fireworks were great). We have a great electrician, Mark, to do all things electrical. He put in a bigger electrical panel, removed the old subpanel, and generally brought things up to code. He wired lights and outlets everywhere inside and out. He solved many of the electrical mysteries that came with the house (lights without switches – we would just unscrew the light bulb, switches for lights and outlets at the other end of the house, etc.) and noted that we were pretty lucky that the house had not burned down in the time we had been living there. Many lights and outlets were connected through the walls and ceiling using extension cord wire and plugged into multi-strips in the attic. Yikes! Most of the copper wire in our house is now new. |
Mark just loves lights. Dee had to constantly remind him that she did
not need to perform surgery in every room of the house.
At our 4th of July party, Matt (Dee’s
nephew) was watching our discussions about how the kitchen was much smaller due
to the creation of the foyer and suggested that we could extend the kitchen
into what was a sun room and make part of the room a pantry. And that is what we did. The guys demoed the kitchen in September. We have been camping in the house ever since.
Anyone who has remodeled a house will tell you that
there is a dizzying number of decisions you have to make along the way. We had not prepared well for this, including
not having a clue about what kind of kitchen cabinets we wanted. We started thinking
about it in July, but we did not even order them until September. They were delivered on December 21. We have cabinets for Christmas – but no
counter, back splash, most appliances, etc.
Still we are getting there.
Lots of things are still in the works. We have a plan for flooring – but not
yet. We still are awaiting rain gutters. Because of El Nino, everyone in California is
freaking out. You have to wait a month
just to get an estimate and several months after that to schedule
installation. We will likely get them
installed at the end of January.
Hopefully, we will be (mostly) done with the remodel
before the next newsletter.
We wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday season
and a prosperous New Year. We invite you
to visit – wear closed-toe shoes and have a current tetanus shot.
Love,
Les & Dee
Freddie Mac & Ginnie
Mae
Harvey
