Kauai Vacation – Day 1by Angie
12 Jun 2009
8:06 am1
This was a long day, but well worth it! Jim went to work today, as usual, then came home and helped me load our luggage into the car. Our friend, Justin Bradley, drove us to the airport, and we made our flight just fine.
Jim’s seat was by the window, I was in the middle, and in the aisle seat next to me was a wonderful, friendly woman named Leslie, from Palo Alto. She noticed that I was reading The Count of Monte Cristo and we started chatting about it. She told me all about how her son was assigned to read it over the summer for his 8th grade English class. The little trooper read the whole, 1200 page unabridged version, then showed up on the first day of school to find that his classmates had all read a variety of abridged editions, most between 300-500 pages long. His teacher was immensely impressed with his “depth of understanding” and “grasp of characters” on the reports and tests – you’d hope so, considering he read twice as much of the book as all the other kids! Anyway, Leslie and her husband and two boys (now young adults, but not yet married) were flying to Kauai for a 2-week family vacation. When she found out that we’d be there before, she asked about what sights were worth seeing, which beaches were good for snorkeling, and all sorts of other stuff. We had a great time.
Once on the island, my parents picked us up from the airport. It was about 7pm there, but we felt like it was nearly midnight, and hadn’t eaten anything on the flight. Mom & Dad wanted to do some grocery shopping, so Jim and I ate dinner at the Costco food court while we waited for them. I was exhausted by the time we reached the hotel, but I wanted to see my sisters and Jim wanted to take a late-night swim, so it was quite a while before we finally turned in.
NIF Dedication & Toursby Angie
30 May 2009
8:05 am0
With all of the major, necessary hardware finally installed, the National Ignition Facility has been in fine trim for two days. Yesterday, Jim attended a special outdoor dedication ceremony to honor this milestone in their work. There were enough dignitaries there to warrant half a dozen snipers watching over the event.
Today, the entire campus was open for friends and family tours. Jim was up and out the door by 9am to take some friends from our ward and stake around the NIF facility, along with Becka, who is here visiting for the weekend especially for this. When they were done, he came home to meet up with me, Jon, and Brittany and grab some lunch before heading back again. Becka was there too, to see everything a second time (this was not only for her entertainment and curiosity, but also research for a future book!). At the gates, we met the other members of our group – Kelly, Brennan, and Amber Mills.
The line was an hour long, just to enter the building! I’ve been there before, but this time we saw much more – not only the laser bays and the control room, but also lots of other stuff like the capacitor bays, with one opened up. Best of all, we got to look down into the target chamber! It was a lot of standing and walking, but it was fascinating, and I loved it.
UPick Tripby Angie
27 May 2009
12:05 pm1
We spent a wonderful Memorial Day with the Bradleys, visiting several orchards up in Brentwood where you can pick your own produce (with free tasting as you work!), then pay by the pound as you leave. It was wonderful! It was especially fun to have little Emily and Maddie with us, because they were so excited to help! They didn’t love the in-and-out-and-in the car game, but they were troopers anyway. We picked cherries, nectarines, peaches, apricots, and strawberries. It’s pretty early in the season, so not everything was fully ripe, but we found plenty of good fruit to bring home. Jim used up the so-ripe-that-it-won’t-last-another-day fruit in a delicious batch of apricot-strawberry jam.
This is definitely something we want to do again. There were some things we did right – bringing water bottles, wearing good shoes, bringing a map of the different orchards and which fruits they have – but we still learned a lot for next time: for instance, reserve space in the car (preferably in a box or cooler) for the fruit – if you just leave it in the bags, it will be stepped on and squashed!
Seeing “UP”by Angie
20 May 2009
7:05 pm0
Last week, while my in-laws were in town, we all took a trip out to Emmeryville for the “Friends & Family Screening” of Pixar’s newest film, “UP.” We met up with Jon first at a fantastic pizza place called “Nathaniel’s” in Berkley. After dinner, we drove over to the campus, received our special guest badges, and headed into the main building. There wasn’t much of a line forming yet, so we went upstairs to the gallery to spend some time looking at the concept art for the film. When it was finally time to go in, we sat together in the center near the front and center of the theatre. After “Ooohing” and “Ahhing” at the shooting stars and watching a silly little short, we finally got to watch “UP.”
It was so fantastic! I simply can’t express how hilarious and darling it was, and how much I enjoyed it. I couldn’t do it justice if I tried to summarize it, so I will just emphatically encourage everyone I know to go and see it as soon as you can!
p.s. All you Californian Fenton fans – keep your eyes and ears open! 🙂
Lots of Help Recoveringby Angie
8 May 2009
5:05 pm1
Hi, everyone – I’m alive! Recovery is kind of lame, but going well. Kathy has spent the week with us, and has done her best to wait on me hand and foot. Jim has been wonderfully attentive, too. I feel like a very lazy princess. My most enthusiastic exercise comes from a couple of trips up and down the stairs each day.
Jaquie is enjoying the relaxed atmosphere, and has been very affectionate, as usual. We were a little worried, before the surgery, about what to do with her at night – she usually lies on Jim as we are falling asleep, then migrates to some part of me during the night, but it is pretty uncomfortable to have a cat sprawled on your stomach or legs when you have an incision to worry about. Surprisingly enough, she must have been listening to our conversation about it, or else noticed a difference in my sleeping habits: she now lies on Jim for a while but, of her own accord, she now often spends the rest of the night on the end of the bed or the floor. We have such a smart, sweet cat!
I have a post-op appointment next Monday, where they will check me out and make sure everything looks good. No steri-strips for them to examine – just stitches on the inside and super glue on the outside, this time! Things look good to me, so far, so I’m sure we’ll have good news next week. We’ll keep you posted.
The Mystery Phone…by Angie
20 Apr 2009
11:04 am3
This post will hopefully be of personal interest to someone in our family: We have discovered a cell phone in the back of a desk drawer that we cannot account for. Has anyone lost one? It must have been here for weeks, at least, but it still has enough battery life that we could turn it on and examine it. The phone number appears to be a 772 area code, and the wallpaper is a darling picture of Grandma Hoffman with Jason’s girls – does it belong to Jason or Tiffany? There are very few numbers in the phone book, but a few we recognize: Tom Dozier, Ross Boothe, Becka’s Cell.
I almost have some vague recollection that I was aware of the phone being deliberately left at our house… but I can’t, for the life of me, remember what that could have been, or who left it here. It’s an at&t phone, LG flip-phone model, black all over, with a camera built in. If anyone can enlighten us, I’d appreciate it!
Update by Jim at 9:25 pm 4/20:
By looking through the pictures on the phone, I was able to deduce the following: this phone was in Dad’s office on Jan 21 of this year. On Aug 10, 2008 the phone was in Florida (unless Jason & Tiffany’s girls were somewhere else). And on Nov 23, 2008, this phone was in Portland at Joey & Kelly’s place. Also, the phone was last used on Jan 30 of this year. Hopefully these clues might help identify the phone. I’ve got a pretty good feeling that it is Mom’s. I can’t think of anyone else that would travel this much (and I know Dad has an iPhone now, so this isn’t his).