Cherries, Cherries and more Cherries

This has been a bumper year for cherries at our house.  We have three mature cherry trees, and the cherries are so thick on them they look like clusters of grapes.

We have three mature trees drooping from the weight of the cherries and we only have one person in our house that actually likes to eat cherries.  However, I just cannot stand to let those beautiful cherries go to waste, so I have made cherry pies, cherry crisp, cherry chutney, and cherry syrup.  I have dried cherries and I have frozen cherries.  I even made cherry chicken, but Calvin drew the line there and announced he had had enough cherries.  We shared our bounty with anyone who came by.  We had our water heater replaced last week which took several days and the plumbers got cherries every day. Not little bags of cherries, but 5 pounds of cherries. I took cherries to the Family History Center and cherries to Relief Society.  We invited people to come pick.  The birds are eating liberally and we still have cherries. Calvin will get back from his backpacking trip tomorrow.  I know that he will be thrilled to have some beautiful fresh cherries from the tree when he gets back.

I mentioned that we got a new hot water heater.  We actually replaced the hot water heater and the heater for the baseboard heating system with a single unit.  For years we have been juggling showers and baths because we didn't quite have enough hot water for more than one every hour or so.  It became a critical issue, in my opinion, when I didn't have enough hot water to fill up the bathtub. I am happy to report that I can now have a full bath and in theory Calvin could shower, and we could run the dishwasher all at the same time and still not run out of water.  Truthfully, I only care that I get a full bath.  Here is the new heater and storage system.  A thing of beauty.

At least compared to what it replaced.

Jay's Graduation

The Graduate!

There is nothing like spending a June afternoon on the quad at UC Santa Barbara. It was a beautiful day to watch Jay graduate, and since we didn't have any responsibilities in the graduation we sat around taking pictures.

So here we are celebrating Jay's big day.

Along with a few thousand of our closest friends.

Calvin without his sunglasses and hat.

Way to go Jay!

More Maui

We are inside taking a break from the sun, so it seems like a good time to post a few more Maui pictures.

This is the "English Cottage" where we are staying.  It is a modern replica of an English 12-14 century stone house.  It is not your typical tropical retreat, but I really like it.

This trip we took a hike we had never done before.  We hiked the Waihe'e Ridge Trail.  It is a beautiful trail that goes from about 1000 feet to 2700 feet over the course of 2.5 miles.  The panoramic views were spectacular.  We saw lots of helicopters buzzing by looking at the same views.

Here is Calvin looking happy at the end of the trail

And here I am looking exhausted at the end of the trail.

And here we are together, just make sure the hike was well documented.

Calvin decided he didn't get enough exercise hiking, so he rode his bike about 50 miles back to the cottage.  This is a rental bike made by FUJI, which Calvin thought he might like better than his beloved Trek. 

We  kayaked a couple of times, so here is the obligatory picture of Calvin in the back of the kayak.  We took a snorkel cruise to Molokini, but I was a little disappointed.  I remember the snorkeling being better than it was.  The clarity was great, but the fish were sparse and the most common site was the legs of first time snorkelers dangling down in the water.  We did see an eel free swimming, so that was kind of cool.

One evening we took a sunset stroll along the beach in Kehei and got an obliging sunset gawker to take our picture.

Another new site we saw were petroglyphs at Olowalu.  There are amazingly similar to some we have seen in southern Utah near Blanding.

And finally we took a moped/scooter ride from Lahaina to Napili.  I have never actually driven a scooter before, and the rental agent was a little appalled that I had never driven one, but valiantly helped me circle the parking lot about six times and we were on our way.  I felt a little confident going straight, but stop/starts and turns were still a little shaky. We drove about half a mile and then stopped for lunch.  So far so good.  Then we headed to the to coast.  Things were going well until I got a little more confident and headed straight into the rocks on the side of the road.  That was a breath-taking experience.  Literally.  Once I could breath again, I gathered up my body parts and they all seemed to be in the right location.  One of the nice things about being married to doctor is that he is pretty good in an emergency, so even when I was having trouble breathing, I was sure that when Calvin figured out I wasn't behind him and got back to me he could help.  Fortunately I didn't need any of his advanced skills and got away with just a very minor amount of road rash and a few aches and pains today.  So here is the proof that I actually rode the scooter.  I'm not ruling out riding again,  but only on a straight road with no stops, starts or turns.  I can handle a straight road.