Next on the Agenda

Geesh, I feel like I have been going non-stop this whole month. An 8 day driving trip and family reunion, then came home to have my friend Mimi who stayed with me for 2 weeks, during which I had the middle school book fair and I had to fill in at work for my co-worker who was on vacation. And now I am shopping and packing the camper for a trip to the mountains this weekend. This trip is a fundraiser called "Ride for life" and it benefits the Ronald McDonald house in Palo Alto. Most of our friends have done this ride before, it's our first time. It should be fun, did I mention that this is Dirt bike ride? Yes, It should be fun! I'm sure I will have a story or two to tell when we return.

Half Moon Bay and Beyond

My Friend Mimi is visiting me for a couple of weeks and we have been all over. She lived here on the coast for 12 years before moving to her home town of Moscow, Idaho and now lives in Colorado for the past 10 years. Coming back to the coast is a real treat for her, living at 7000ft the air is dry and she just loves the damp beach air here. Like I said, we have been all over from Santa Cruz to Healdsburg, where the above picture was taken. Tomorrow we are heading to San Francisco for some Dim Sum and city culture. Not only do I love the company, I love having someone to drag around to places you only seem to get to when someone is visiting!

Spring Break Adventure

When I found out that my cousin was planning a "Yamane family" reunion in Los Angles for the the second weekend in April, I realized that it was at the end of our spring break and that it might be a perfect opportunity to take a road trip. I never considered a "road trip" with the boys for obvious reasons and crossed my fingers that they would not only enjoy, but appreciate the trip. I had BIG plans at first. Death Valley, Los Vegas, Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon all before heading to LA where we would go to Universal Studios and Hollywood and finally the reunion weekend with our family. After some consideration I decided that The Grand Canyon was too grand an idea and cut it from the itinerary. We did add the Shelby Factory and The Los Vegas Speedway in Los Vegas and we also stopped at the Gamble House in Pasadena. The boys did great with the driving and we have some great memories from everywhere we went. But I think the best part of our trip was reconnecting with our relatives at the reunion. We had family come from as far as New York and Hawaii. We now have plans for another family reunion in 2012. This time on Kauai. And we have plans to bring my dad back down to LA so he can attend a gathering of his Kauai friends that have been getting together the last weekend in September for years.