New posts!

Head on over to our blog to see pix of our trip to the beach and Clark's second birthday. Two more posts coming soon...Easter and Clark's new haircut!

Ben, Alli & Clark (click here!)

Shepard House

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Wildflower Festival at Sunol

On Saturday Rick, Franny, Sarah, Ray, Michael, Brandon and Savannah went to the Wildflower Festival at Sunol. The boys took a three mile hike above Little Yosemite and came down beside the fall. They were quite taxed but met a few cows and lots of green hills and water. Here are a few pictures of our hikers. When the boys came to the festival they spent their time making flutes. They did a great job.
The girls went on a Butterfly Hike and had a great time at the festival. Savannah made a shirt with painted leaves, a bookmark with dried wildflowers, a butterfly from a coffee filter, picture of a poppy, and had her face painted. They also made "lavender ice cream" with real lavender and she enjoyed that. It was in her words -"the most awesome day of my life."
The last picture is me - I was named Employee of the Month for April 2011. It was quite a surprise - since I was gone the exact time we set this up - Mary was able to get it all together to make me the EOM. I received a watch, pen, pin, parking space, plaque & $200. My picture is in the hallway between the operating room and the medical staff lounge for the month.

Our vacation and such

Rick and I just had a great 12 days traveling and playing. Our first stop was the BNP Paribas tennis tournament in Palm Springs. It was about 87 and was a great place to start.
Our second stop was Arizona, visiting Brian, Danielle, Ayden and Drew. It was again flip-flop weather for 7 days. We went to the Giants vs Brewers game at the Giants stadium and went bowling, to the movies and played fun games - LRC and Chicken! We had a very fun time.
Yesterday we went to visit Carol and saw her new granddaughter - Lily Grace - even though she was 9.5 lbs she looked very small.

And then finally - today is Mom and Dad's 61 anniversary. We took Mom to dinner and here is a picture of her with our first order of dinner - breaded onion rings with ranch dressing. YUM!

We are back into routine.

Navajo and Zuni Jewelry

Mom and I took her jewelry to a man who buys and sells similar jewelry. We had an interesting conversation. He polished up the 2 bracelets (no big deal he said because you wear them and enjoy them, then they tarnish up right away anyway.) She has not worn these bracelets since June 1943 when she enlisted in the Navy. They got to be too difficult to put on after that. He did a slight adjustment to them and here she is proudly wearing her Native American bracelets.

New Home in Oregon!

We got the house!  Paul and I are excited to announce that we got the Hillsboro house. It will close at the end of this month. All newer homes in the area are 2 story so they can save the land for green space. We will be about 6 miles from Alli and Ben and just a little farther from Amelia and Chris. Most importantly we are near the Sushi restaurant we all like. It has the smaller yard that Paul wanted and a large room for me to have as my quilt room. We are 1.5 hours from the beach and 1.5 hours from Mt. Hood (snow) The Visalia house goes up for sale in March. Paul is taking time off to get this house ready and has made tremendous progress. I'm still going to class on Saturdays for my Autism add-on to my credential. I fly up for the teacher fair in April. We will keep you informed as to our progress.

Happy 59th Birthday Rick

Rick celebrated with a great dinner at Outback and then carrot cake at Sarah's. It was a great evening!