End of Kindergarten for Landon!

Our dear, sweet Landon is finishing up his kindergarten year! Class of 2024!

He invited me to join him for their class park and picnic field trip to the Swisher park. Of course I will!! When I arrived at the park he spotted me and ran over for a hug. And then he was off.

He had a great time playing with his friends. It was fun to watch him play and interact with the friends from this school year.

His wonderful teacher

Thanks, Landon for inviting me! I LOVE you and pray that every school year will be at great as this one for you.

Mother's Day & Sisters Weekend

MOTHER'S DAY I was blessed to spend Mother's Day with my parents. I attended church with them in my childhood church and the church where Don and I were married. Then we went to Amana to eat out. The afternoon was spent walking mom's beautiful flower gardens, playing many games of sequence and enjoying time with my sister Judy when she arrived.

SISTERS WEEKEND Judy and I drove to Charles City to spend the weekend with our sister Jane. Jim and Jane were transferred to Charles City a year ago from Pella. Jim is the pastor of the United Methodist Church there.

We spent Saturday afternoon driving through the area to shop - antiques and flowers! Did you know that this area is FULL of Mennonite Greenhouses? Wow, we only got to 4 or 5 but we all found flowers to buy at each stop. Jane packed a picnic lunch for us so we had no need to take too much time with that.

Saturday evening we toured Charles City - the river and all of the wonderful areas around it. Sunday we attended church at Jim's church, had lunch together and then Judy & I started home. Fun weekend! I am so BLESSED with this family!

Celebrating Birthdays in Indy!

Cade and Brent have May birthdays so that was a great reason to fly to Indy for an extended weekend stay.

Brent is 31 - how can that be? Our son has grown into a wonderful man, husband, and father. Through all the years Brent has given us joy and activity. He was an energetic little toddler and boy, an athletic teen, a mature college student and a dedicated law & MBA student. Now he is a husband and dad.

Brent chose Fogo's for our evening out!

Cade is 4 - how can that be? We so remember the excitement when Brent and April told us they were expecting and then waiting for the call after they were off to the hospital. IT'S A BOY announced Brent on the phone. We canceled the weekend plans and headed to Indy to meet this sweet babe! We returned the next weekend for more time with him. Cade - our bright, curious, thoughtful, loving, hoop-crazy grandson.

A weekend of fun with in Indy!

Cade invited us to go with him to preschool on Tuesday morning. This nana and papa had a great time!

And ever so quickly it's time for us to fly home. We enjoyed lunch together at the airport and then it was time to say good-bye.

California in April/May

Off to California for a spring vacation! We will spend the first three nights in Monterey and then a week in San Francisco. Home base in Monterey is the Marriott. They upgraded our room to a suite and a breakfast buffet comes with our stay. Wonderful! We decided to take the famous 17-mile drive on the first day through Pebble Beach and Del Monte Forest. We enjoyed the coastline drive and stopped at many areas.

Bird Rock

Seal Rock - actually many rocks covered with seals!

Several of the lookout points were closed due to the harbor seal pupping season. They fence off the areas to protect them. The famous Lone Cypress - it has prevailed on its rocky perch for over 250 years and is the symbol of the Pebble Beach.

We walked around and saw the 18th hole at the world-famous Pebble Beach Golf Links. We exited the 17-mile drive to have lunch in Carmel-by-the-Sea. We found a wonderful little cafe and were delighted to have live music and dancing.

We had a relaxing afternoon and then off to dinner at Domenico's on the Wharf. The restaurant overlooks the marina and Monterey Bay. We enjoyed watching the harbor seals and several big sea lions. The city was tired of trying to keep the seals and sea lions off the wharf so they created this area for them.

Don had crab legs and reports that they were delicious!

Destination: The Big Sur It is about a 120 drive along the coast in the mountains from Carmel to San Simeon.

Lovely evening meal in the conservatory room (this restaurant had many themed rooms) at The Sardine Factory Restaurant. Don had steak and I had halibut and prawns. For dessert we had sorbert and it came in an ice sculpture. Interesting!!

ON TO SAN FRANCISCO!!


HIGHLIGHTS OF SF

**Club Donataleo: our residence for the week. A traded time share located us in the midst of SF. We are just 1 block off the Powell street Cable Cars.

** Basketball Game: We took BART (Bay Area Regional Transportation) the first evening in SF to see a basketball game between Oakland Warriors and San Antonio Spurs.

** City Bus Tour: crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, the Golden State Park with the Japanese Gardens, the view from Twin Peaks, viewing the steep hills, the "Painted Ladies" - the many colored houses.

**Baseball Game - SF Giants vs San Diego Padres. We had dugout seats right behind home plate.

**Lombard Street - the crookedest street in the world. Yes, we drove down it!

**An evening of blues at Biscuits and Blues

**Boubin Bakery & Restaurant on the wharf. Yummy clam chowder in a bread bowl.

**Fisherman's Wharf

**Cable Cars - our favorite mode of transportation. We can catch a cable car a couple blocks from our hotel and go to the wharf. Standing on the side and hanging on tight is the most exciting way to ride.

**Bay 2 Bay boat ride - We rode the "red and white" fleet under the Golden State bridge then under the Bay bridge.

A seal hanging out on the bouy.

The Bay Bridge

The Giants stadium

**Eating crabs at The Francisan on the wharf. We ordered "lotsa crab" which was a delicious amount for two.

**Alcatraz. We were ferried across the mile of cold, choppy bay water to get our evening tour. Alcatraz was a maximum-security federal penitentiary from 1934 to 1961. Due to it's location on an island in the bay it proved to be "escape proof." We heard many stories of attempted escapes only to be caught or end up drowning. It's a cold, isolated place.

**Wine Tour of Napa and Sonoma The bus picked us up at Union Square and we were off to 4 wineries and 1 cheese, gelato, and fudge tasting location. We were surprised when we stepped in the bus - it was like a limo complete with breakfast. There were only 18 in our group and that made it easier for tasting at the wineries. In the morning we tasted at two wineries in the Sonoma area. The last two were in Napa and at the third winery we had a lunch on the grounds. This whole area is beautiful and we enjoyed the drive and tastings!

Look closely at the new bunches of grapes just budding.

**Boat trip to Sausalito. Sausalito is a quaint town across the Golden Gate Bridge from S. F. It's famous for the many house boats.

**Another Giants baseball game and eating at a family run Italian restaurant.