This is definitely one thing I thought I would never do, but Sara and I have started a garden on our porch to grow vegetables. I say “never do” because both Sara and I were laborers in our parents huge gardens when we were growing up. Since I was not a big fan of veggies at the time it made it even harder for me to cultivate a plant I didn’t want to eat.
Today, however we love them and with veggies going up in price, especially organic ones, we decided we wanted to give a garden a try. Since the many varieties and colors of peppers always seem to be the most expensive we had it in our heads to grow peppers.
Just imagine strolling out to the porch to pick your own organically grown fresh peppers and then adding them to your salad..yum!
Next was some internet research to find out how other urban arborists were forging the way for us. What we found was an overgrown planter called the Growbox that was specifically designed for our purpose.
The instructions were awesome, just like building Ikea furniture, almost therapeutic, I could almost feel my green thumb growing as I worked humming the tune to green acres to myself. Well our journey has started and we will see how fool proof this system is, Sara and I have killed much more promising house plants in the past..
Here is out box after planting our first group of plants…
How many of you have had the pleasure of wrestling with fixing a home appliance with a warrantee? If you have you know that figuring out the problem, getting the correct parts and getting it serviced are such a party!
Let me give you a flavor for our water heater “saga” by saying that it involved taking hot showers outside at the community pool…now on to the story.
To understand what happens next you must know that Sara and I are both stubborn and thrifty.
For about a month we were noticing that our water heater was going out every couple of days and we thought (very incorrectly) that it was getting blown out because of all of the wind storms we were getting. Well this pace escalated where we were relighting it at least once a day and then it wouldn’t stay lit long enough to get upstairs and take a shower.
Now begins the thrify part of the story… this thing is under warrantee for sure right it is only three years old
Like most people I never think about a warrantee or insurance until I need it. So I start doing research online and find out that this is not an uncommon thing for water heaters in general and especially not GE water heaters.
So now it is time… You guessed it! To call customer service..
The said politely – Tear the guts out of the bottom of your water heater so we can check if a “major” part is broken and then give us a call back….hummmmm sounds fun!
So I started taking parts off of the bottom of the water heater after turning the gas off.. I remember the old water heaters where you could literally reach in and touch the flames…
Well this new one was sealed tighter than the lunar module that landed on the moon. Layer after layer of screws and gaskets, oh and of course those screws that need to open by that special hex screw-driver which I had to run to the hardware store.
After ripping the beast open and laying it innards out on the garage floor, I called back customer service and they had me check this safety device fuse that was at the very bottom and it was fine. They said all we can do is send you a replacement gasket to put it back together…well I told them so send it fuming with gratitude
Well at this point we had gone over a week without hot water..not a great thing for our marriage so I called a plumbing service that got great marks online for fixing water heaters.
That afternoon a guy that looked like he should be the lead singer for a punk band came over and this dude knew his stuff. He explained (as my brother George had about 5 days before) that it was the thermocouple, and these things go all of the time.
This crazy simple little part had taken down my mighty water heater (see the dead one below) and we were now back in business.
If you don’t learn something from these fun times then what are they for..right?
So what did I learn
Pay once to learn and then do it yourself the second time
Showering at the pool is ok..you pay for it!
Listen to your brothers especially if they are handy (George you rock)
Don’t be afraid take something apart if you have done your research
Bring it on water heater we are ready for you next time.
A great way to make Easter even better is to go to a Sunrise Service. This year Sara and I went to the Saddleback Sunrise service at Rancho Capistrano.
It was a beautiful setting, and the simple Easter message about Gods promise of forgiveness of sins with Jesus death on the cross. Definately the way to kick off a great holiday.
On Thursday Kari went in for Sinus Surgery to fix a deveated septum and clean out “gunk” in his sinuses. This surgery has been about a year coming; since he has been getting sinus and ear infections every couple of months since Nov 2010. A couple of weeks ago his ENT sent him in for a CT scan of his sinuses and the issues we found.
Not only was his left airway allowing very little airflow but the sinuses were not draining properly. This picture below is in recovery after surgery and Kari was pretty wigged out as you can tell. He is getting better quickly however will have to lay low for at least 10 days to let things heal up. He is excited to be breathing better and getting back to working out like before this started.
Kari and friends headed down to horse ranch county for one of our favorite races. It is put on by the Hash House Harriers and they have yummy chili at the finish line. It is a beautiful, low key, rolling hills race and they all did great; even Scott who pulled his calf muscle half way thought the race. Well done guys.
My friend, Tina, who has tons of energy came to visit so naturally we took her to a place where we could really have some fun.
We went to Sky High where they have trampolines all over the floors and walls and even a foam pit to jump in. We all had a great time but I got a little carried away….
At the end of the night my ankle was quite a mess. I was off work with my foot up on 3 pillows for about 5 days.
If you read day one of our trip to Cabo you know about that not so great road we drove on, well it turns out we got to ride on that road again on our road trip to La Paz.
The van picked us up at 6:20 AM so we could grab a total of 9 people for our expedition.
We arrived in La Paz after 2.5 hours and then drove around the bay to the harbor on the other side. Everything here along the sea was geared toward the water with statues of marine life and beach living.
After stretching our legs we tried on our wet suits and our flippers which were all waiting for us in the size we needed; then it was off to our boat. Our captain was on board as well as another guide for the whale sharks who is a Marine Biologist – super knowledgeable and respectful to these awesome fish.
After a short boat ride to their feeding grounds the crew starting spotting for whale sharks on the surface. They come to this area and feed off of the micro-organisms and plankton in the water. Sara took a picture of this guy as we were trolling around the bay…
The Whale Sharks we saw were about 30 feet long and they skim along the surface with their wide mouth open to scoop up their food while the rest of their body is submerged so they breath through their gills. So now we got our gear on to get ready…
So here is the drill.. when we sighted a whale shark, Jesus would have us all jump in the water and he would lead us over to the Shark so we could sight off of him. While in the water we stayed at least 2 meters from the side and 3 meters from the tail fin.
Check it out……
Whale Sharks
On the way back we stopped in and went to….Todos Santos
Sing it with me now – Welcome to the Hotel California…such a lovely place…
That’s right the one from the Eagles song you now have running in your heads – Ha!
Well here is what it looks like, probably the nicest place in town…
Ever since Sara and I saw an article in a magazine a couple of years ago of people swimming with Whale Sharks we have been keeping our eyes out for an opportunity to get a chance to meet them as well. After some research we found out that there are tours out of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico to swim with these giant fish in La Paz.
So on to trip planning….
The trick is where to stay in Cabo for cheap and still get to do all of the water sports and activities we want to do. Sara found a great deal – all inclusive stay at a resort on the beach in Cabo for a great deal for 5 days for both of us and all we had to do is go to this presentation….you guessed it for a time-share. Normally we would not be in for this, but it was too good to pass up.
We were not disappointed. We stayed at the Villa De Palma right on the the beach in Cabo. You can see Lands End on the left side of the picture…amazing view.
Down the beach you can see Cabo San Lucas in the distance just before the hill in the picture below. It was just a short 15-20 min walk and very safe for Americans.
We had a second reason for going to Cabo this time of year and that was Sara’s cousin Renee and her husband Chris have a timeshare up the coast and we wanted to meet and spend some time with them as well.
Our first day we had the timeshare meeting in the morning, during which we found a new way to “get out” of the presentation by crying… it freaked out the sales team and we were hurried out the door.
Next we had planned to meet up with Chris and Renee to explore the cities outside Cabo and go on a dinner cruise out toward Lands End and the Arch. We loaded up into their rental car and we are off driving north up the coast toward Todos Santos (All Saints).
What we didn’t realize was that the road was seriously under construction… and i don’t mean like in the states where they close down a couple of lanes, I mean they take you off the paved road onto rock and dirt off road for large stretches of time…
After rattling around in the car for awhile we realized we had to get back for a dinner cruise and we were hungry. To get the real taste of the area, we opted out to the sit down dinner and stopped at this roadside chicken & steak outdoor barbeque place. Man was it busy!
The guy was cooking in that big yellow outdoor grill full chickens and huge pieces of flank steak.. which is apparently the most popular kind of steak they have in Mexico.
Sara and Renee ordered up a whole chicken for Sara, Chris and I to share (Renee is a vegetarian and a camel – Ha!) If you look on the wall you can see the prices – Pollo Entero ( A hole chicken) for 110 pesos or about 10 dollars for chicken, corn tortillas, lettuce, salsa for all of us – super great deal and tasted awesome.
We made it back to Cobo in time to board our boat, did I mention it was a party boat with drinks and Mexican dinner included. After some drinks and heading out to sea we started to eat and one thing Sara and I were always impressed with is how meals were served with “buckets” of guacamole – so very awesome…
The boat took us right by Lands End rock and the Arch and out into the Pacific for a nice view of the water around Cabo, and we had a great time catching up with Chris and Renee, we love them…
We were signed up to swim with the Whale Sharks on Monday but for Monday and Tuesday we had to wait out the wind over the Pacific to die down before the company would go.
While we were waiting we took advantage of the water sports that the resort had to offer and it was really fun, check it out…
Water Sports Video
After all of that playing we were plenty hungry and with our handy white bracelets (all inclusive) we were able to sign our names to get food and entertainment all week long. One night they had a huge Mexican buffet outdoors with entertainment; check out this sample….
Entertainment
an awesome couple of day and now onto the next day where we met our new best friends the Whale Sharks in the sea of Cortez….
Sara and I started out 2012 early by driving with Larry to Rancho Santa Margarita at 6AM this morning to meet up with some other crazy people ( I mean trail runners) to run up to the main divide to race the sun up into the sky .
Here is two of them now….Ha!
We started in Rancho Santa Margarita and loaded up two cars for the off-road drive up Trabuco Creek Road to the trail head of East Horsethief trail. The stats don’t truly show how technical this trail was especially on the way down with loose and hidden rocks.
It was cool in the morning but we could see from the clear skies and the sun starting to come up that it was going to warm up as we climbed. There were 7 of us in the group and we were ready to take on this trail, but we didn’t know what the morning was going was doing to throw at us.
The run – jog – walk up HorseThief to the Main Divide was pretty smooth only one person fell on the trail (Miwa) in an area with leaves and hard to see rocks. The trail goes gradual for a short while and the turns into switch backs going straight up. As we ascended we kept looking out over the valley toward OC and starting seeing more and more, until the ocean and Catalina Island were visible in the distance, with the sun warming our faces.
We were glad to take a short break at the Main Divide to strip some clothing and get some food in. The Main Divide is this cross-roads of sorts in the trail were the you can follow the main divide trail across to peaks. We were really lucky to have Linda along as our trusty guide; she was gushing over how much she loved to be up here on such an awesome day.
Next stop…Los Pinos – an out and back peak with a 360 degree view of the entire area. On the way up we could start to see Lake Elsinore to the East off the back of the divide and Orange County off the West side. Below you can see Larry and lake Elsinore off in the distance behind him.
When we reached the top of Los Pinos it was only about 10AM and the sun was shinning and we found the marker for the peak, but for some reason we couldn’t find the can with the sign in book…we must have been the first of 2012.
The way down was much more technical with loose rocks above some hard ground and a very steep trail. I ran ahead a ways to get some video of the group running down the trail in this nice shaded tree section
and check out what happened in this video…..
There was one last reminant of Christmas out on the trail with a pine tree, right next to the trail decorated for Christmas. It looked great and we all wanted to check it out because Linda told us to keep and out since Los Pinos…
Nice day to be outside in OC….Here is to a great 2012
The Christmas run is a yearly run that Sara and I organize to see the Newport Beach Boat parade and this year is our 10th running.
This years Christmas Run was by no means a slam dunk because a couple of hours before the run the weather went south with rain, thunder and lightening. On our way driving over to Fashion Island to the start we were getting texts and calls asking if it was still a go, and some people we told to not come, but we knew we had to show up no matter what.
As we drove closer and closer to the beach the weather got better and better, until there was no rain, thunder or lightening. All of these brave souls showed up for the run and many even dressed up. The weather ended up being great and it was less crowded (easier to run) so it was an awesome time.
so I called a plumbing service that got great marks online for fixing water heaters.
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