Moana Pool is coming down

Several years ago the Moana pool was deemed too expensive to repair, and has since been closed waiting for something to happen.  Last fall our crafty mayor offered the parking lot as a site for the Reno "Occupy" movement.  He even waived the permit fee I believe.  The Occupiers were thrilled for a couple of months until they discovered that it inconvenienced no one when they occupied the Moana pool parking lot.  Eventually their permit expired along with their enthusiasm and Moana pool was once again vacant.  But new plans are in the works.  A new swim and sports complex is being built on the site of the Moana ball park and pool.  We recently watched the ceremonial smashing of the lobby on TV.  I hurried down to get a picture before it was all gone.

Although it was several days after the lobby smashing, most of the structure was still standing.

The lobby, however, is a pile of sticks..

 I remember walking through this lobby what seems like hundreds of times dropping off and picking up swimmers as they swam their hundreds of laps.  I stayed outside the fence for this photo, but I'm sure some members of the family would not be deterred by a fence, or even a locked door when looking for a little after hours swim time. Some stories are just too good to forget Peter.

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.

Maui

Calvin gave me a cool new camera for Mother's Day, so I have been having all kinds of fun taking pictures.  Calvin and I are in Maui this week, which gives me unlimited time to sit in a beach chair and take pictures.

Here we are hanging out on the patio of our little rental cottage, getting ready to go out to dinner.

Sunday night we watched the sunset on the beach at Makena Landing

I had lots of time to watch the waves creep up to my toes.

We were sitting under a cool  tree.  This is looking straight up in the sky, the tiny little white dot at the bottom is the moon.  The moon never looks quite as good in a picture.

Calvin entertained himself throwing rocks at the sun.

My camera is waterproof, so we (actually Calvin) took it snorkeling this morning.  Here is proof that I do actually leave the beach once in a while.

The snorkeling has been pretty good.  Good visibility and lots of sea life.  We saw three turtles in just a short kayak paddle on Saturday.  My goal today for Calvin was to find a turtle a photograph it.  I actually spotted the turtle and it obligingly took a siesta on the sand so that Calvin could dive down and take an up close and personal shot.

A Superior Weekend

This week we took Friday Fun Day to Colorado.  We dutifully took our camera and used it, but it seems like we mostly took pictures of Zach and Austin.  Friday morning we spent a little time riding "bikes" and scooters.

Zach was a flash on his scooter

Calvin set a good example by wearing his helmet

Austin still didn't want to wear his

After riding we went to a creek near their house to throw rocks and sticks in the water.  I just love parents that think rock and stick throwing is important enough for regular outings!

Zach gets his picture taken a lot, he was more interested in showing of his stick here.

I think Austin's favorite part was snack time.

Zach had a soccer game Saturday morning.  He and Austin were both recovering from a serious cold, but Zach was a gung-ho soccer player anyway.

Austin's favorite toy while we were there was a bicycle pump.  He loved it!

We had wonderful weather, Colorado was absolutely gorgeous and we enjoyed two picnics in Butch and Emily's beautiful backyard.  They even managed to plant their garden while we were there.  What fun it is to share time with their family.

We also got to see Peter's new apartment in "Uptown."  It looks like a great area.  We had lunch at a little place just a block from his house.  I thought I would take a picture of Peter in his "Uptown" surroundings, but I didn't pay attention to the fact that he was sitting in front of some very bright windows.  He looks a little funny when I adjusted the shadows, but in real life he still looks normal.

We always plan a little extra time when we fly out of Denver, it sometimes takes a while to get through security and ride the train to the gates.  This time everything went smoothly and we had a little extra time at the airport, but that is OK because Denver is Calvin's favorite airport so he doesn't mind hanging out here.  I don't love the airport with as much enthusiasm as Calvin, but I love to get to visit everyone.  What a fun weekend.

Friday Fun Day-Kayak season begins

Two weeks ago we had planned to take a weekend outing, but everywhere within driving distance was either raining or snowing, so we stayed home and Calvin had an epic end of the season ski day.  This weekend we thought about taking a trip again and the weather was nice everywhere. I looked at a few locations thinking about what we would like to do, biking for Calvin and kayaking, and decided Reno was the best location for both.  It was a good decision.

Friday we went to Pyramid Lake. It is a good "early/late" season choice because the elevation is lower than Lake Tahoe.  It was a beautiful clear day, not too many boats on the lake, but the shore was thick with fisherman.  Fortunately with our sleek little kayak we can leave the crowd behind. You can see "the pyramid" of Pyramid Lake in the background.

Anaho Island in Pyramid Lake is a bird sanctuary with one of the largest nesting colonies of the American White Pelican. We didn't see large numbers of pelicans, but enough to clearly identify them.  The challenge with trying to photograph flying birds is that they are flying, but we pointed the camera in the general direction and actually caught one in flight.

Photoshopped so you can tell it is not a gull.

Pyramid is beautiful in a serene desert sort of way.

I'm practicing my backwards photography.

This is forward photography, but a little blurry.  I was trying to take a picture of a fisherman sitting on a chair on top of a ladder fishing, but I missed him.  There were ladders all along the shallow water where the fishermen would sit in chairs to fish.  Already by Friday afternoon the beach was wall to wall RV's. We weren't the only ones who thought it was a beautiful day.

Saturday we went to Lake Tahoe.  While the temperatures in Reno were in the mid 80's, the Tahoe forecast was for the high 60's to lower 70's.  I thought that might be a little cool for kayaking, but it turned out to be one of the nicest days we have ever spent on the lake.

Fay and Vance Gabbart went with us, which made it even more fun.  Calvin took this picture, which makes it look a little like they are paddling up hill.

We had perfectly smooth water, warm weather and gorgeous scenery. This is the view headed toward Chimney Beach, so named because there is a chimney on the beach.

Still working on my backwards photography.  I forgot that I had zoomed for a previous shot and I got lots of pictures of Calvin's elbow.  Part of the beauty of practicing photography in the boat is that Calvin paddles while I get a rest.

We were headed back here and I missed Calvin all together except for his hat, but the mountains look good.

Another shot of Fay and Vance.  We were paddling at about 6pm.  I have never seen the water this still in the evening at Tahoe.  What a great day!