Log of the Emily B

Passover Seder

Laurel and Noah have embraced their heritage and plan to raise Jacob in the Jewish tradition. We hosted a Passover Seder at our home Friday night, with all the symbolic foods, including matzo ball soup and haroseth (a mixture of apples, walnuts, wine, and honey) and readings about the flight of Jews from slavery in Egypt. (Think Charleton Heston and The Ten Commandments). The ceremony was updated to include Miriams Cup to honor women's roles.

Jacob had missed his nap, but was still game to participate in the festivities. He enjoyed playing with the matzo crackers and the rest of us enjoyed a yummy roasted chicken with vegetables. It is wonderful to live close enough to family to celebrate these important holiday traditions after being away in Mexico for the past five years.

More Family Photos

Tyson,13, with Dean, Stacy, and Jordan; Dean and Stacy. The two U-Boxes, now on their way to Tucson. We went to see Dean's mother Arlyn, 90, in Spokane. Finally a shot of Tyson and Stacy.

Family Birthday Time

Another birthday for Dean just rolled around and lucky him, he got to celebrate with his daughter Stacy and four of his six grand-kids. We had a fun spaghetti dinner and then our traditional family Chocolate Surprise cake.

The two lovely ladies together are Jordan, age 20, and Kataria, 21. At the table,you can see Jerimy, Stacy's guy, Presley, age 17, and Kataria again.

In other news, Dean was quite happy to be finished packing the U-Box. He utilized every corner and was barely able to close the door. However....we got a call the next day that our box was seriously overweight, by 1000 pounds! Yikes!!! I guess most people don't pack as well as we did. So, back to the U-haul place to rent a second box and redistribute our belongings between the two. Bummer! More photos in the next post to come.

Moving Time

We flew to Seattle last weekend to empty out our storage locker in Anacortes, pack it into a budget rental truck, and drive to Dean's daughter Stacy's house in Eastern Washington where we have more things stored. We are now in the process of sorting through all of it to fit into the Ubox (orange thing shown) for shipping to Tucson. More stuff than we thought and smaller Ubox. Quite a challenge but D has a diagram and is a champion packer.

The Desert in Bloom

We took another hike in Sabino Canyon this week, as spring flowers burst out in the desert! Here are some of the photos I snapped:

That's a roadrunner in the next to last photo and a view of the Tucson valley in the last one.

The weather has been glorious (sorry Pacific NW people) with temperatures into the 80's during the day and upper 40's at night.

Here is Dean all duded up for his Sonora Winds concert last month. They were supposed to wear something western and we scored this great jacket at an estate sale. In fact, we have become devotees of estate sales, having furnished our new home almost entirely from them. And here is a YouTube video of Dean at the jazz combo performance. 

 I am pretty proud of him as all his hard work is coming to fruition.

And then there's Jacob, who is learning new things everyday. I never imagined how much joy he could bring. Take a peek at this video. I'm one lucky lady!

 

 

Blogging from my iPhone

Sorry folks on my long absence from this blog. One excuse is that I can't figure out how to upload photos from my new computer. The other was a major funk brought on by a cold lasting more than a month. Being somewhat of a phoenix I have once again risen from the ashes so watch out world!

Now I find I can upload photos directly from my phone as well as make blog posts. So look forward to more frequent but shorter posts since this keypad is a bit awkward.

Enough of excuses. Dean is making good musical progress having performed in two recent gigs. I have become re-inspired about my writing project after connecting with writing group here and attending a Writer's conference this weekend. Have had some fun outings with Laurel,Noah and Jacob as well as a brief visit from Noah's folks and a cruising friend from Mexico. Am posting photos of Dean during one of his performances. Note his cool new jazzy hat.

The View from Here

Here is a view of the mountains from our back yard, taken in the morning. Glorious! The weather here continues to be moderate- into the 30's at night and 60's to 70's during the day. We've had some recent unexpected visitors who were passing through Tucson- first Karen and Roger from s/v Meridien, with whom we had a great Greek dinner out, then Di and Roger in their new 30 foot Class A motor home. They were the ones who babysat our boat in Puerto Vallarta five years ago (geez- time does fly!) when I flew to Guadalajara for emergency eye surgery. A year later they were our crew on the trip from PV back to La Paz. The weather report was wrong and we found ourselves in 35 knot winds on the nose and huge seas. Dean and I ended up seasick on our backs in our bunks while Di and Roger ably handled the boat for the last ten hours. We owe those guys big time! Anyway, we planned a hike to Saguaro National Park with them but I came down with a killer cold, which I still have one week later.

Dean has been flourishing on the music front. He has rejoined Sonora Winds and is preparing for a concert later this month. More exciting, he is taking an adult jazz combo class through Tucson Jazz Institute and is learning bebop jazz scales, improvisation, and lots of stuff he has wanted to explore for a long time. They will also have a gig in early March as well as record a CD. Up until I got sick, I was juggling quite a few balls in the air- babysitting with Jacob 2-3 times/week, bridge 1-2 times, working on my book, and I joined the Y for exercise classes- Zumba and Step Aerobics. Maybe too busy and that's why I got sick? Hmmmmm.........Time to reprioritize.

And...I have reluctantly joined the iPhone generation. My purse was stolen at a grocery store (in the upper part of the basket and I turned away) and of course I had to go through all the fuss of cancelling Visa cards, ordering a new driver's license, and changing all the automatic payments that were coming out of my credit cards. What a mess! My old phone was in the purse and turned up the next day (although nothing else) in the garbage at the store, discovered when I called it to get my voicemail. It was trashed, I could barely see the screen and was due for an upgrade anyway, sooooo.....iPhone4S. Whoo-hoo- what an advance in technology. Being somewhat of a Luddite, it is taking me awhile to learn all the features but it is pretty amazing what it will do. To complete the tech overall, I finally replaced my five year old laptop for a newer version. Quite an undertaking to transfer all the files, especially Outlook which is a real pain, but luckily I have an in-house IT guy who has been fantastically helpful.

Only one recent photo of Jacob- I've had to stay away the past week since I've been sick-- but he is still getting more smart and more adorable by the day. For more cute photos of him, see Laurel's blog: www.gummybearfiles.blogspot.com.

Close Encounter in Sabino Canyon

We took the day off from our myriad activites here in Tucson to visit the beautiful Sabino Canyon, a wilderness area just ten minutes from our house. Part of a national recreation area, the road into the canyon is closed to all automobiles. It is accessible only by foot and by an open air tram that stops at various picnic and hiking spots along the way.

We rode to the end and hiked for a mile on an easy trail. I got some nice shots, but my camera battery ran out just as I heard a low, shaking sound, like maracas, from the side of the path. I heard the noise again and looked down next to where Dean was standing where I saw a beautiful yellowish-green rattlesnake in a small shrub. We stepped back and watched it wondrously until it slithered away.

 

 

 

 

I also want to show you a couple of photos of our living room, which is coming together pretty well. Can you find our flat screen TV? Hint- look closely at the fireplace. We have been using it lately on cold mornings and evenings to feel cozy, in between PBS news and rented DVD's. Finally, no posting on this blog is complete without a couple of photos of my adorable grandson Jacob, who turns six months old tomorrow.

Holiday Family Time

We got back to Tucson just in time to celebrate Christmas Eve with Dean's brother Randy and sister-in-law Virginia. It was our first company dinner in the new house and we stuffed ourselves silly on shrimp salad followed by pork tenderloin with all the trimmings (including homemade pumpkin pie). The next day, we joined the holiday crowds with a movie matinee (The Descendants) and then back to the house for a hearty soup and a quiet evening.

Laurel, Noah, and Jacob returned from their San Carlos beach getaway the next day and came over for a visit. Little Jacob has grown so much in the past two months and is now so fun and responsive.

Best of all, I have been able to babysit several times while L and N went out to dinner and a couple of movies. Grandma bliss!

On the home front, we have been continuing to furnish and upgrade the house. We bought a used washer and dryer on craigslist and a flat screen TV in an after-Christmas sale. We also bought a new faucet for the kitchen sink and, unfortunately in the process of installation,a leak under the sink developed overnight that flooded our whole kitchen and seeped onto the carpet in the living and dining rooms. Three days later and lots of work with the shop vac and the carpets are finally dry. The joys of home ownership!

 

Sunrise.......Sunset

The sky is beautiful from our slip at the dock at Marina de La Paz. The sunrise these days is around 7am with sunset at 5:30. This varies by about 1 1/2 hours each way throughout the year. Of course now we are almost to the solstice so the days will start lengthening again.

We took care of the bare spot on our hull by having divers apply an underwater epoxy called "Splash Zone" which should protect it from worms. Turns out the electrical current going through copper sheeting Dean placed against the hull for the single-sideband radio caused the wood to deteriorate and the paint to pop off. Luckily we finally figured out the problem and caught it before there was more serious damage. But that problem on top of the engine oil leak earlier this month caused us many stressful days and sleepless nights.

We're heading back to Tucson tomorrow morning to catch up with family there. Our time in La Paz has been shorter than we hoped but very much fun. Between welcome dinners out and goodbye ones, there was nary a lapse. Lots of good times at the bridge table and excellent meetings of the writer's group. Dean worked really hard sanding and varnishing the brightwork as well as repairing the sealant around the windows. No paint on the rails yet- they were so beautiful when he finished that it would have been a crime to paint over them. So, the rail covers are back on and we'll see what we decide to do in the spring.

So it's back to land for awhile. You can look forward to following our Tucson adventures with the new house and the new baby in the coming days.