Saturday 13 May @ 1537

Greetings,
Henry is off to NYC today, he's very excited. I'm sure he'll have many stories to tell as he sees the sights and experiences the city that never sleeps.
I'm taking care of Nina while he and Kristin are away and she howled all last night making sleep an interesting endeavor for both Butch and I. I have the front of the house blocked off for her and Butch stays outside or in the back of the house. Today she has been coming to see me a lot and has been very needy. Here she is exploring her digs for this week

I wish I had both the kitties for a week as I have missed them but you'll recall her brother Cole left for kitty island a few weeks ago. She seems none the worse for wear but like I said is very needy.

I picked up my new bike today and it's a doozie. Here is a photo. It rides great but with the suspension it is definitely a new experience. You hit the front brakes and it dives forward as your momentum carries through the stop and the back end has suspension as well so it seems a bit "loose" or almost as if the back tire is low on pressure. I'll get used to it and should be able to withstand longer more challenging rides with the suspension being somewhat forgiving to my 45+ year old bones ( at least that's what my Doc told me, he's been on a similar bike for a few years now and sez it doesn't take near the recovery time).

I brought it home and took it for a short ride and now I'm working on dialing in a few adjustments. Tomorrow will be my first ride of the season so I'll keep it short to about 10 miles or so to start killing the nerves in my tush. I do not look forward to this but I'm going to try and ride nearly every day this week while Henry is gone so I'm ready to ride with him when he gets back. I'm sure we'll take our bikes to Oregon with us for Memorial Day weekend so I need to be able to keep up with him.

I was able to book our summer vacation yesterday. We're headed to Puerto Vallarta for a week, whoo hoo!!! I found a deal on a nice resort (http://www.paradisevillage.com/) and had enough miles for us to fly free although I had to settle for first class and I've now used all my miles in one trip. Oh well, it's worth it. My friends have a time share at this resort and I know others that have been with their families and all reports are tremendous. We fly through SLC on the way there and in order to make the flight, we would have to spend the night before there so I set it up that we'll have two days there and we'll get to see the Utah contingent of friends and family. Henry's very excited about that as well, one trip and we get two trips out of the deal. I think I'm most excited about some long first class travel and a hotel with 3 pools, a kid's pool and activity program with a zoo onsite and a program to let the kids pet the baby lions and tigers and bears oh my! A big beach with watersports rentals and paragliding, etc. Throw in a bit of tequila and lime and I'll be happy as a clam.

It's a beautiful day today so I'm working in the yard and just doing stuff around the house this afternoon, here's a couple picture of the backyard for everyone.

The first is from the north side of the shed on our parking area on the alley. You can see the deck and this is the entrance we use most often. W have some flowers planted in containers to liven up the place and have a nice back lawn.

The next photo is the whole back yard from the driveway across the alley. You can see Butch to the right of the car and just a peek of the 20' high and 20' wide beautiful and fragrant dark purple lilac as well as the very large sitka spruce just to the south of the back door. The entire south side of the house has lots of windows and there is a skylight above the kitchen on that side of the house in the middle front to back so the house is very light and even stays warm in the Spring before it gets warm outside. All the windows have blinds and there are strategic deciduous plantings on the corner of the house up front that are starting to shade the brightest sun while still allowing much light. We're planting our herbs and sunflowers along that side of the house along with a hill of zukes to keep me in grilling fodder for the summer.

Not much more for now, got some really nice greens @ the farmers market this am, baby arugula and mizuna. Asparagus is up to $3.00 a lb already! Yikes! Ah the passing along of the cost of fuel, even Costco was $3.08 on Thursday so I'm still trying to minimize my driving and wile even experiment with the bus to work some this week since I don't have to pick up Henry at a certain time.