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Los Altos, California Some of the people, places, and things from our recent California trip: • The Petersons—Mark, Christine, and Jared—came over for a BBQ at the Lillys. I drove around the block in their new Subaru Outback Turbo, a car that nicely combines good storage and hauling capacity with a rocket of a motor. Pretty plush, too,...

Los Altos, California We have arrived at the Lillys in Los Altos. Today's journey was a touch more difficult than yesterday so far as the kids were concerned, but nothing I'd call a major problem. Elisha just got hungry at in opportune times, meaning just after we'd passed a rest area, and Jonah was tired of being in the car a good 20-30 minutes before we...

Weed, California Erin opted to join an interview committee to help hire one of her assistants for the year—a wise decision in my view—but the interviews delayed our departure until about 1 PM today. The kids were great. Jonah helpfully spotted motorcycles ("motos"), trucks, and trains. No trains with cabooses, however, which must have made me...

Having temperatures in the 90s doesn't help life when you've got a non-air conditioned house. We retreat to the basement on occasion and, assuming the overnight temperatures cooperate, we open up the house in the mornings, get the cool air in, then close everything up as the outside world heats up. This process works well when (1) the overnight low reaches...

The first gift of our 11 year anniversary was given to us by Elisha, who slept some 7.5 hours straight last night for first, and hopefully not last, time. In addition to making through the night, she's also right in the midst of her "incredibly cute" stage, so she's got that going for her, which is nice. It's been a good 11 years. We're frequently in that...

Congratulations to Matt and Ginger on the birth of Emily Marie. While mother, daughter, and father recouped at the hospital the next day, we were lucky enough to get to spend the day with their first daughter, Laura. I am happy to report that Laura and Jonah (and Elisha, for what it's worth) all got along swimmingly. We did a lot of dancing, coloring, and...

MAJOR thanks to Dave for coming over yesterday to help me install an attic fan. I've got a little flashing work yet to do on the outside, but the rest of it is finished (and looks totally pro), and I so could not have done this without him. Now if I can just finish up the job without breaking too many more roofing tiles.... I should have some rain handling...

Jonah's just started his second week of swim lessons and seems to finally be getting into kicking. It's taken him some times because he initially prefers observation to participation in virtually every endeavor and swimming has been no exception. Regardless of whether he's able to dog paddle at the end of the week, he's having fun and that bodes well for...

Bernard and Liz drove up to meet Elisha, hang with Jonah, help us retain the shreds of our sanity, and fix up stuff around the house. They did even more than all that, too, but my sleep has been uneven, so that's the stuff that spring to mind. They returned to California yesterday, having spent the preceding eight days helping us with all the...

Thanks to donations from family and friends, notably Bret and Dave, I've had plenty of speakers to setup a Dolby Surround Sound system for use with our Onkyo stereo system or home theatre. ("Home theatre" is something of a misnomer here since the TV is an old RCA 27". We'll probably replace it in the next year or two with a larger HD model.) Yesterday,...