Last Day of Winter

In honor of the last day of winter, Nimue wanted to run through the sprinklers! Actually, it was because it is warm and sunny out -- about 70 degrees -- and we only thought about winter after the fact. Ha. I love California.

 

 

 

The cat watched her intently through the living room window.

 

My Lunch is Better than Yours

 

I took a delightful long ride earlier this week, and as it exceeded the 50 mile range beyond which I get dreadfully hungry, I put the front bag on the bike. It may look a little goofy, but while other cyclists have to gnaw on dried-out quasi-food in bar form, I had a delightful sandwich, banana, and container of edamame. Mmmmm.

Star of the Week

  Nimue got to be "Star of the Week" in her class this week, which meant she was the special kid who got to bring in something interesting for show-and-tell every day, as well as to make a book about herself. I went in for the Monday morning presentation of the book and photos. So far, she's taken in her blankie, Pengie (a crocheted penguin I gave her for Valentine's Day), some rocks out of her rock collection (including one of Joe's crystals), and her pet rocks. I'm curious as to what's on deck for tomorrow.

Last Weekend's Activities

Now that the weekend is almost upon us, I owe you all an update on last weekend before I forget it all...
Friday night, we all trooped over to Stanford for the Early Music Singers concert -- I got to sing, Chad listened, and Nimue fell asleep. Given that there was going to be birthday cake for the director, Nim rallied enough for us to go to the party afterward. The program this time was sort of jolly -- we did a set of Monteverdi Vespers, in combination with The Whole Noyse, a Renaissance band.

Saturday brought Chad's turn to get out on a long bike ride; he sped through my loop from the previous week while Nimue and I took a bike excursion to Mountain View. Nim rode 10 miles on her own bike!

Sunday was family outing day. We headed out to Joseph D. Grant county park on the slopes of Mt. Hamilton, and hiked until all of our legs were sore. (It took about 7 miles and 1700 feet of climbing.)

Highlights included panoramic views of the Santa Clara Valley, wildflowers, warm weather, and cows at play. That last was oddly entertaining, as we kept wondering what the bellowing ruckus was around the corner at one point, until we came within view of a herd of mixed-age bovines of both sexes. There were a couple of bulls busy pawing the ground and bellowing at each other, while the calves on the other side of the lake practiced butting heads and the females continued to graze unperturbed by it all. Nimue, like her Grampa, likes cows.

 

 

 

 

Fun with Zoom

I've been playing around with the largely indestructable camera Chad got me for Christmas, and in addition to being waterproof, freezeproof, shockproof, and Annaproof, it also has a sort of fun super-macro mode. Just as an example, here are pictures of an iris from the front yard, the cat, and inevitably, yet another of Nimue.

 

 

 

The Sun Came Out

After a week of wet muck, the sun finally came out this weekend, leading us to goof off...

Chad went on an insano 3-hill ride over to Santa Cruz on Saturday with some buddies from work, while Nimue and I rode the tandem up to Rancho San Antonio to go on a hike. After we all got home, I took off on another bike ride so as to equalize the amount of tired legs we were all feeling. (Of course, Nimue bounced right back after dinner and zinged around the house like a mad thing while the parents lay splatto on the couch)

Today, after a leisurely morning spent eating waffles, we all headed out on a ride up Stevens Canyon, with Nim and Chad on the tandem while I got to frisk around them on my good bike (which incidently no longer squeaks since Chad replaced the front wheel bearings -- yay!). There is a lot of water still pouring off the hill from last week, which made riding along the creek pretty entertaining. After riding about 20 miles, we ended up at Stephan's house for Sabi's birthday party. Cake at that point was very very good.

Leakings of the Roof

Fun and adventure in Eichler-land: We've had a couple of battles with leaks lately -- nothing too serious, but annoyances that required analysis and fixing before they led to worse things. The first to make itself known was an occasional drip from the master bath's vent fan. This was difficult to diagnose, as there is an identical dripping that results simply from condensation on the fan housing when one takes a steamy shower... but copious rain produced a clue. Complete disassembly and removal of the fan revealed some very wet wood, a real surprise considering that the entire roof is coated with a thick layer of (supposedly) waterproof foam! Well, the water was getting in there somehow, and with more rain on the way Chad quickly engineered an impervious multi-layer barrier, complete with articulating fan door. It has now withstood several intense rains and fierce winds, with no water penetration.

Leak number two appeared as a water stain on Nimue's bedroom wall -- apparently, the roof drain adjacent to her wall clogged up enough to let water pool up (normally not an issue on our sealed roof) and it somehow wicked back around the drainpipe into a joint between the outer sheathing and the roof. This spot is normally sealed with caulk, but this particular drain was placed a little closer to the wall than ideal, and was never caulked behind the drain pipe. Chad filled it in, and so far so good, the leak has not re-appeared despite some real downpours.

Nimue's Field Trip

I find it somewhat amusing, for obvious reasons, that Nimue really enjoyed her class field trip to Stanford to learn about rocks as part of their GeoKids program. She's now inspired to take in some of her rocks and minerals to show when she is star of the week later in the year. An upgrade to the previous plan to take in stuffed animals, in my book -- especially since she has so many good ones!

The mineral collection outside the geology library looks much the same as it always did (above) and Nimue was very surprised to discover that pumice floats (below).

(No, I didn't get to go, but got the pictures from the teacher.)

Knocking off the unfinished projects

 

 

So now that it started raining, we've finished off a few of the projects started in recent weeks:

1. Nimue's makeover of Fluffy the Pet Rock and her sidekick Fuzz was successful. As pictured above, the pet rocks had their faces painted, and Nimue also glued felt and tiger-striped pompoms onto Fluffy.
2. Chad kegged his beer, and in his words "It tastes like beer." There was some grumbling that it needed more hops (not that I would be able to judge, as I don't drink it), so now there's motivation for the next batch.
3. We had a lovely salad composed of lettuce, peas, and fava beans out of the garden -- the first dish concocted from this particular patch of the yard.

and of course, there is the project created/exacerbated by the rain -- Chad is now industriously searching out the best bearing and tools he needs to fix the horrible squeak that appeared in the front wheel on my good bike after the chilly rain ride a couple of weeks ago. Given the age and mileage on this bike, it probably just wore out due to natural causes, but I can't help but feel at least a little bit guilty about abusing the poor thing in the rain. But hey, a bike is meant to be ridden, right? Plus the family bike mechanic gets to buy a new tool.