Kehlet Mansion at Lake Tahoeby Angie

Sat
20 Sep 2008
8:09 pm
2

I saw Lake Tahoe for the first time today!  Roger, Kathy, Jim, and I spent five hours today on a train and arrived in Truckee, where we met up with Jon and rented a car.  It took us another half an hour or so to drive to Lake Tahoe – specifically, Kehlet Mansion at Meeks Bay.  We wanted to check out the facilities, location, etc. of the house because Roger and Kathy are considering reserving it for the 2009 Hoffman Family Reunion.  It is a beautiful, old building with two floors, lots of rooms, a spacious living/dining room, but (unfortunately) a fairly small kitchen.  The house is charming, and has beautiful quilts on the beds and an amazing view from just about every window in the house.  The best thing about it, though, was the location – the deck at the point has a gorgeous view of Lake Tahoe, and it is very close to a public beach.  It was so fun to explore the house, climb the rocks, and enjoy the  scenery!  We may or may not actually end up staying there next year, but I’m very glad we got to see it!


Hoffman Family Reunionby Angie

Sun
13 Jul 2008
12:07 pm
0

We had a wonderful time at the reunion this weekend!  It was for all descendants of Verne Hoffman, Sr. –  grandfather of my father-in-law, Roger.  It was held on Saturday at the Heritage Oak Winery, a vineyard owned and operated by Roger’s cousin, Tom Hoffman, and Tom’s wife, Carmela (we all call her Camucha).  I was given the job of running the sign-in desk, where we collected contact information for everyone and let each person make their name tag.  We had a great time figuring out each person’s “code number,” which we also put on the name tags, indicating their relationship all the way back to Verne Sr.  My code was 1.3.5+, which means I’m Verne’s first child (Verne Jr.)’s third child (Roger)’s fifth child (Jim)’s spouse.  Jim’s, of course, was 1.3.5 – all rather complicated, but very entertaining.

We ate lunch and various family members gave announcements, performed musical numbers, and told stories.  After mingling and chatting some more, several of us changed into swim suits and headed down to the Mokelumne River, which runs along the boarder of Tom & Camucha’s land.  We had innertubes and kayaks and took turns floating down the river beginning at the launching point and arriving at the beach area 30-40 minutes later.  Huge blackberry bushes grow along the river in a couple of places, so we paddled over to eat ripe, delicious berries right off the bush several times.  It was incredibly relaxing and fun.  I absolutely loved it.  At the beach area, there was a picnic table, where we set up snacks and leftovers for dinner, and then across the dirt road was a meadow where a wiffle ball game was held.  We stayed until twilight finally forced us to pack up and head home.

Hoffman Family Mini-Reunionby Angie

Sat
12 Jul 2008
1:07 pm
0

Since we were all getting together this weekend for the big family reunion, the Roger & Kathy family decided to meet up and have a BBQ on Friday evening.  Tom & Pam Dozier were kind enough to open up their home and pool for our family’s use.  They are good friends of the Hoffmans, from back when they all lived in Texas:  Now that the Doziers are in Livermore, we get to see them all the time!  Tom grilled up some delicious steaks and hot dogs, and we all swam and ate and played for hours.

Since Jason’s birthday is Sunday, we wanted to be sure to celebrate that, too, so we all had prepared movie scenes for a game that consisted of Jason guessing what movie we were portraying, despite the fact that we changed situational elements to make the lines harder to place.  He won lots of candy that ended up being shared all around.  Jon’s girlfriend, Michelle Piazza, came for part of the evening and met everyone; and even Kathy’s mom, Vera, flew out for a special visit, since she didn’t want to miss a gathering of so many grandchildren and great-grandchildren!

Love & Sympathy for the Chapman Familyby Angie

Mon
9 Jun 2008
7:06 pm
0

Many of you know that one of our favorite music artists is Christian singer/songwriter Steven Curtis Chapman.  You may not know that in addition to being an incredibly talented musician, he is also a wonderful husband and father.  In fact, after having two sons and a daughter of their own, he and his wife, Mary Beth, adopted three more daughters from China.

We just learned that last week the youngest of those three, five-year-old Maria Sue, was killed in an accident last Wednesday.  Our heartfelt love and sympathy go out to that wonderful family.  I know this must be a terribly difficult time for them, and they will all be in our prayers.

Here is a sweet video of Steven and Maria washing dishes together, including music and dancing!  If washing dishes were this much fun at our house, there would never be a dirty dish left in the sink  🙂  (for those of you who checked out the links above, it is the same as the second video in the mlive.com article).