May update

This is one of my favorite times of the year. The rain has been pushed aside and replaced with sunlight, the new plants in the yard are blooming nicely and this 80-degree weather has been perfect for working outside and hiking and mountain biking.  This past month has been very busy with a bit of overtime work in the evenings and the occasional portion of a weekend, trips to the gym, Tuesday night (and occasionally Thursday as well) mountain bike rides with friends and fun-packed weekends.  I am starting to feel pretty good about the amount of exercise I am getting and my riding has definitely improved for the better with increased strength and endurance.  And we have Hanna on the bike following her recent purchase—she bought Maria’s really nice Kona full suspension mountain bike.  She has only ridden four times now and on our last ride she cleared *all* of the obstacles on the single track at Granite Bay, including a nasty boulder that requires a hop onto it followed by a careful descent off the ledgy backside.  If she’s this good already, she’s going to be a very good mountain biker.  Bill told me randomly the other day “jesus dude, she’s a really good mountain biker.” 

The house has seen a lot of visitors lately including Hanna’s family, my Aunt from Seattle and a friend who will be staying next weekend from L.A.  And there is a new full-time resident in the house…not surprisingly, Hanna.  We are currently consolidating our belongings, which is finally forcing me to better organize my stuff.  Some stuff has been moved to the attic, one of the utility closets off the hallway has been converted to a multi-use storage area, the top half consisting entirely of camp tents (yay, got a nice new tent!), sleeping bags, camp dishes and the bottom half still serving as a linen closet, with a few random things like a new boxed chandelier I haven’t bothered to hang, suitcase storage, vacuum cleaner, etc.  The matching closet on the other side of the wall is the overflow pantry for canned foods, paper and plastic bags and cleaning supplies.  We are using a portion of the spare bedroom closet for exercise equipment—weights, yoga mats, medicine balls, skis, kayak paddles, camelbacks, etc.  One of the spare bedrooms acts as the guestroom with the standard stuff including a bed, dresser, nightstand, lamp and Hanna’s extra flatscreen TV and the other spare bedroom is a joint office/spare bedroom.  The only home improvement item accomplished lately includes planting two ginkgo biloba trees on the west side of the house.  These will be tall enough to shade the house yet not so full that it will cause problems like the willow tree I removed last month.

Hanna getting lugged around Green Acres in the cart.

We helped Bill celebrate his 40th birthday along with Maria & Ricardo, Beth & Tom, Chris & Loryll, Rose & Stuart, Nehal and Robert.  We rented a cabin in King's Beach, Tahoe within easy walking distance to the beach and the bars and restaurants in town.  We hiked Martis Peak, did a lot of visiting and I did a little skiing on Sunday on our way down the hill.  This was the first time I had been skiing since I was injured and it felt absolutely wonderful to be back at it again.  

Happy Birthday Billy!

View from Martis Peak

That's it for now...thanks for reading!