Keeping Rick out of Trouble!

We continue to work on improving our yards. Rick has been digging holes for our latest purchases: King Palms.

The first hole was a killer! He thought he might need dynamite! :-) After 3 days of shovels, picks, poles, and well, no dynamite, he got the 1 foot deep hole in.







Fortunately, the 2nd hole out front, was
easy soil and he was done in 20 minutes!





















He's now working on the 3rd, and finding
quite a few buried rocks!

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We are also working hard on our walking plan...

One hour a day, almost every day. I thought for a couple of days that the hills were getting easier. Then I remembered it's 20 degrees cooler than last week, and THAT is why I made it up our hills a bit quicker.

The trouble with living up 700+ feet is that the walks always start off DOWNhill..... everything is wonderful. But then it's always UPhill the whole way back, and that last half mile about kills us! We have to get out the door by 8am or it's tooooo hot when we are making that return trip.

There is a lot of beautiful scenery around here to enjoy, the hills, valleys, ocean.... I must admit that we haven't been able to see the Pacific since about May. Even as clear as it is out here, the sea mist clouds the coastline view. It's much clearer in the winter and we'll get our view back!

Update: Sept 17th we saw the ocean again! And it's here to stay till summer.

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A nice visit with Rick's cousins

Today Rick's cousin, Olga DiMercurio, came to visit with her son John, and daughter Carla. John and his wife Marie live out here in El Cajon (east of San Diego, and about 1 hour south of us). Olga and Carla flew in from Michigan on Monday and are staying with John for a few days.

Olga is the daughter of Adele, who is Rick's Dad's sister. Olga's husband, Bud, worked with Rick's Dad for many years in their tile business. As a teen, Rick helped out some summers and became very close with Bud. We were very sorry when Bud passed away earlier this year.

John and his Dad did the tile work in our Troy home. We hadn't spoke in a long time and didn't know John and Marie had moved out this way until after we did! John is still in the tile business. And, John's brother, Frank, lives up in Monterey, and has a tile store: http://www.thetilestudio.com/index.html

Olga and Carla out front:
















We had a beautiful, bright blue sky, perfect for a pleasant outdoor lunch.

Rick & John did the grilling: my BBQ shrimp kabobs came out great (whew!)

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All Shook Up

Well! Our first earthquake!

It was quick -- for us it only lasted 1 to 2 seconds -- near the epicenter it shook for about 14 seconds... that would have scared us more! It was so quick that some of our neighbors thought it might have been just a big bomb dropping at near-by Camp Pendleton. (We hear those often, but I don't think we've felt one yet!)

So, no big deal. THIS time! :)

Quake centered near Lake Elsinore
rattles region

LAKE ELSINORE -- A moderate earthquake centered in the Santa Ana Mountains near Lake Elsinore gave Southwest County a jolt Sunday morning while rattling much of Southern California.

The magnitude-4.7 quake hit at 10:29 a.m., with an epicenter eight miles west-northwest of Lake Elsinore and about 1.6 miles from Santiago Peak, the largest peak on the Riverside County side of the mountain range, according to various reports.

For more of this story, click on or type the URL below:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/09/03/news/californian/22_42_299_02_07.txt


Update: Sept 4, 2007
We've had 3 "shakes" in 4 days now! We only felt the first one, our neighbors felt others. The second one was just 10 miles off the coast of San Diego. The 3rd was Lake Elsinore again.

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