High on the Hills was a. . .

We had quite the weekend this past weekend. But I will work backwards starting with last night. As seen in the above picture, the little kids were dressed as the Von Trapp children for the Hollywood Bowl "Sound of Music Sing-a-Long". We had so much fun!! Many of the 18,000 people at the "movie" showed up in costume. There was a long line of people trying to get on stage to be able to be spotlighted in their costumes but these four were selected to go onstage and strut their stuff. A lot of people commented on their outfits (Grandma made the girls' outfits and the two Megan's made the boys' outfits).
Ellie and Gavin liked hamming it up in their costumes.
When all four of the kids got onstage, they were pretty starstruck. The lady on the right in pink in the picture is the real Liesl from the movie "The Sound of Music". As it turned out the 5 girls in the Von Trapp family from the movie all showed up for the show. We had a lot of fun as it was pretty interactive during the movie (e.g. not only did we sing all of the songs but when Baroness Schraeder appeared in the movie, everyone hissed).
Earlier on Saturday was the Duarte Route 66 Parade down Huntington Drive. Danny was the announcer with Katie Bayless - and they did, according to the crowds, a marvelous job.
Margaret and Brad got to ride down Route 66 with the four grandchildren - lots of fun for all of us.
A 3-month old pony was curious about the kids in the car so he walked over for a closer look.
Here are the four grandkids, with several other children, and the Mayor of Duarte, Tzeitel Paras. Notice how Coco is styling with her pink cowboy boots and blue muu muu.
Steve joined us for the breakfast. We are pictured here with the Grand Marshall of the parade, Newscaster for Channel 4 News, Chuck Henry.
Here is the the whole city council, minus one, with the Grand Marshall and his wife, Kay, with the Parade Chair, Lisa Magno, and our city manager.
Friday night was Disneyland for us so Stephanie and I got our picture taken right in front of Disneyland.
It was a late night for us so we all rode in the caboose to make it back to the front of Disneyland.
One of our favorite rides is Big Thunder Mountain. . .Ellie really loves this ride.
Steve got a great score on his dental exam so we celebrated with Pineapple Whip from the Dole Center.
One of Coco's favorite rides is the King Arthur's Carousel.
Stephanie and Coco both enjoyed it.
"It's a Small World" is always a hit with the kids.
Coco waved to the princesses on the parade float.
Another real favorite is the Matterhorn. . .the monsters always are exciting to the kids.

A little bit of our life in San Francisco

Jeannie and Erin officially moved to San Francisco in mid-July and have been having a lot of fun in the city by the bay.  We will be better about posting but for now here's a little recap on some of our adventures:

On August 4th we celebrated Coast Guard Day with a 5k run across the Golden Gate Bridge.  Please note the lovely SF summer weather.

Erin planned a fun day on the bay for her department at work.  She pulled the "my-sister's-in-the-coast-guard" card and got to help with the sails.

We've also been to quite a few Giant's games and at this particular one were lucky enough to witness a brawl on the field!  AT&T Park is a great ball park with fantastic views of the bay.

We also went down to the Santa Cruz area and went wine tasting.  While Napa and Sonoma are very close, it's fun to check out the smaller wine regions that California is also known for.

And these are some pictures of our apartment.  Including the view from our roof deck.

We've already had so many visitors and have enjoyed them all.  We can't wait for more people to visit us in the city!

Aloha and Mahalo

We went to Hawaii to work this past week and got quite a bit accomplished at the condo, despite only being there for 5 days. It still left a bit of time to head to our favorite beach, Malaekahana in Laie.
The water was so warm and we all went for a swim in the beautiful ocean.
We watched sunset from the patio at the resort. . .and watched some of the surfers ride the waves in.
Our job this trip, other than working out some of the administrative essentials, was to scrape and repaint the lanai furniture. . .so just to prove that we did do something, here is the proof shown above.
One night we took dinner to the beach park at Chinaman's Hat. In the background is the beautiful Ko'olau Mountains, where they filmed the television series Lost.
Every time that we go down the Windward side of the island, we stop at the Macadamia Nut Ranch. . .and eat plenty of samples but bring home bags of the chopped nuts to use in the White Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut cookies.
The first day on the North Shore, we made the obligatory stop at Ted's Bakery to pick up Chocolate Haupia Pie.
Dinner at Chinaman's Hat Beach Park.
Now you can see why it is called Chinaman's Hat.
We love going up to the resort and watching the sun set over Turtle Bay.
We visited cousin Tat in her new home over in Kailua.
Dinner out on the lanai overlooking the golf course is always a very relaxing time.
Sunset over the golf course, taken from the lanai.
I brought muu muus and Hawaiian shirts back for the grandkids - and Megan taught them to dance a bit.
Here they all are with their new outfits on.

Sierra Summer

Mono Lake was the first stop on our long-weekend Eastern Sierra trip.
We met Ian and Annie at Tioga Toomey's Whoa Nellie Deli for incredible ribs and steak caesar salad.
Then we drove into Devil's Postpile National Monument and set up our campsite by the river.
We also took a hike up to Shadow Lake. . .about an 8 mile roundtrip hike.
We made it to Shadow Lake and stopped for lunch.
We met up with Meg, Danny and the kids and Brad got in a little bit of fishing with Gavin.
Ian and Annie decided it was hot enough to take a brisk dip in the river. . .this little girl wasn't so sure about that.
An overview of our campsite.
Gavin and Coco liked Dutch oven cooking. . .chicken and rice with gravy.
After dinner, Danny helped Gavin with his marshmallow roasting skills.
Gavin woke up the next morning and changed in the car. . .it got down into the 40's at night.
Annie and Gavin enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate together in the morning.
We met new friends from Berlin, Germany and shared a Dutch oven breakfast of eggs, hashed browns, bacon, and cheese, called Mountain Man Breakfast.
Then it was off to some hot springs for a little bit of a swim.
Parts of the river were pretty cold but they were warmed by the hot springs coming up out of the sand in the river.
On our way back down into Devil's Postpile, we ran into Jim and his girls, Tat, Ne and Tica and Ne's friend, Jay, returning from a hike. We drove them back to their condo in Mammoth as it was pretty crowded for them to take the bus out of the valley.
Coco and Gavin enjoyed the Junior Ranger program at the camp.
One part of the Junior Ranger program requires that the kids take a hike - so we all took a hike to Devil's Postpile.
Finally, after Grandma and Grandpa helped Gavin and Coco answer some of the questions in their Junior Ranger books, the kids took the Junior Ranger pledge and became official Junior Rangers.
After 3 days of living in the dirt, Coco was ready to put on her blue muu muu and relax in an air conditioned car. Thanks Ian and Annie, and Meg and Danny - it was a fun trip.