My father said....

Whenever my mother panicked about us kids not being at home on time or not knowing where we were, my father would say either that we would be home when we got hungry, or that if they don't hear from us, all is well.
So all is well. I know since we are here in South Africa and haven't made an entry in my Blog for the last ten days, everyone should assume that we are having a great time.

As I have mentioned, Patricia arrived on the 15th, and on the 20th, we celebrated my 68th birthday. Our friend Mirjam from Stuttgart, who also lives here for a few month in the year, arranged a nice celebration with some new friends. Everyone, including us, had a great time, and we got a lot of good info on where to go and what to see around here.

We are still settling in, as the house is very comfortable, and our hosts Eva and Bernd thought of everything to make our stay pleasant.

There is a great garden to take care of; I have to check for gopher mounds every day, and try somehow to keep them out of the yard, look after the pool sometimes and do some general stuff around the place.

Bernd left us with his cars, so first thing in the day, we go to the beach for a two mile walk to let the dogs out. Rassie loves to chase the birds - never has a chance - but you know what they say, it's the chase. .........

Patricia is leading Rassie & Tommy on

Then it's time for lunch, and we have the afternoon to play and explore.

Patricia is very heavy in shells at the moment, and I hope it wears off in time, otherwise there will be no room for anything else in our suitcases.

So far, we have had great weather, blue skies every day and temperatures hovering around the mid seventies, although the wind gets up around 35 mph.
Today it started raining, but not very heavily, just steady with temps in the mid 60s.

We have met very nice people and are starting to get a feel for the place, also being told where we can and can not go to be on the safe side, just like in LA.

Another great week

After spending a few days in the high desert in Anza, Aariel and Gavin joined us for a day, so Gavin could continue his mission to explore the planet.

Then we made our way back to Carlsbad via Ramona were we visited Patty and Jorge in their new home on 100+ acres of gently rolling hills. The timing was perfect. They invited us for a Thai lunch and then to their house. As a new house, it needs landscaping which is right down Patricia's alley.  Based on previous conversations, Patty & Jorge asked her to draw up a plan for what plants could go where to keep it as native as possible.
Then it was time to head to our new housesit in Carlsbad at Lore & Jerry's place where Jasmine & Jasper were waiting for us.

We settled in pretty quickly as this is the fifth time in this house, and we know the ropes and looked forward to a relaxing weekend.

Starting the new week, we had Tracy and Ken, Nicole's parents, over for a tapas and wine and great conversation.  On Tuesday our friend Glen joined us for some good SNL humor.

Wednesday was Gavin-day again; we do miss the boy when we are not there for a few days.

The big task this morning was to take care of a blocked drain in the laundry. The plumber made a huge mess, of necessity, but the reward is that the water is now flowing again.

We have needed some nice chairs in the backyard, and they have finally arrived in boxes

 to be stained and assembled; any volunteers?

After all the parts were painted,

they needed to be assembled, and I was very lucky to have a specialist on hand.

 As a reward for a great job, it was time to visit the park where we encountered a school bus, Gavin's new word.

 This gave us the perfect opportunity to practice some new skills

Now it was time for Oma & Opa to hand over the reins to Mama and Papa for the weekend.

Friday was an evening reserved for having longtime friends Tom and Sandy over for drinks, and I had a little too much of the grape juice.  But we had a great time talking about old times and times to come, as Tom is just getting started in his own beer brewery in San Clemente.

Looks like we are fully booked out, as on Saturday, we had arranged to spend time with Ashley and Peter at Sun Harbour Marina in San Diego on Verena & Michael's boat, which they are in the process of selling.

This was the last blast on this boat, and a great time was had for a fitting finish for our week.

FitBit, Sorry

I am starting to appreciate what people have been saying for a while: when the weather is bad (too hot, too humid, raining, snowing, or any other weather condition) it's no fun to go for a walk.
I thought they are wimps, thinking to myself that it doesn't matter what the weather is like. It can't be that bad, but then again I live in Southern California, and it's a bit different and special, and I had forgotten that.  Now on my travels, I realize that there are different circumstances in every part of the world.
Just traveling to Philadelphia, it rains, is hot and extremely humid, and I don't feel like walking. On top of that, it seems most areas I travel to are flat so I don't get floors on hills and would have to walk up stairs.

So I promise from now on I won't be so hard on people in other parts of the world about not walking daily, and when you turn on your FitBit, I will admire you for doing a great job keeping fit.

On a different note, our itinerary for the moment looks like this, and remember we never know when we actually get on a airplane.

We arrive around the 15th in Stuttgart, and leave there on the 20th to France.
From there we will travel to Freiburg on the 27th and leave there for California around the 8th or when ever they kick us out of Germany.

Well I am here now, may as well look good.

Sapote Tree

On Crest on the property where we used to live, there is a great Sapote tree.  Most people around here don't know what to do with it's fruit.

This is what it looked like in August.  Guillermo cleaned away all the
dirt around it and replaced it with new composted dirt,
so the tree can now breath and be nourished again.

By September, the new leaves are showing up all over the tree.

This is only three days after I took the picture above.

This is the same tree after only two weeks

As I was looking, I found one fruit from last season hanging lonely on the tree.

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Can't wait for the tree to bear fruit again; I could eat myself sick on this custard like fruit.

The Yellow Deli

What a great place to eat and relax. Aariel had taken Patricia and me there a while ago.  The other day when we were there just before lunchtime, getting more familiar with the Vista area where we might buy a house, we decided to stop and refresh ourselves.  The Restaurant is called the Yellow Deli.  The food and atmosphere (the vibe) are great, the service excellent and the prices very reasonable.

Read their story; it's quite interesting and inspiring. 

Monday morning

This is where you will find me most Monday mornings, at the Java Hut Coffee House on 101 in Encinitas, Southern California having my latte and muffin with Glen. Life is tough for some of us.

This is the place, if you are looking for me.

Glen holding up the sign

Social life

Sometimes, our social life really takes off, and it is very unpredictable. Like last week, we had dinner at Wendy and Tom's. Tom is giving a lecture in Germany in September and wanted to know what I still remember about the old country.  I think I wasn't much help, but the dinner was great.

Dinner outdoors under the lanterns

Then there was, on short notice, a BBQ at Corina, Chris and Kaia's place; very pleasant and we got to see Maria, Gerd and Michael.

I think we all had plenty to eat.

I also had a chance to check out Chris's newest addition to his property.  He made about ten vegetable beds; but hold on, its Chris, no half- hearted effort.  They are solid steal frames. They'll still be here after the great Southern California earthquake, and we will get our veggies from them.

Can you believe it: steal veggie boxes

And then there was, of course, Henry, providing the entertainment.

Henry looks so cute

It's almost been a Month

It's been almost a month since my last entry, and I mean to write in it every day, and every day seems to get shorter than the day before.
For the last six weeks, Patricia and I have been taking care of Jessica & Eli's home and their Shitzu, Homer.

Homer, the top dog

We have to say that Homer is the best behaved dog we have ever encountered, as long as Patrica hand feeds him, and he is not left alone for too long.
When we got there on the 10th of July, the first thing Patricia looked at was the front courtyard and started to make plans to redesign it - with previous permission from the owner.  Good husband that I am, I went strait to work and pulled all the weeds, and I mean everything went. I did not even have time to take adequate 'before' pictures.

This is the closest to a 'before' picture, and lots of stuff has already been removed.

Now it's a blank canvas, and Patricia can play.

And play she did.

Now this is only one part of it; there is another and larger part on the other side where we actually began.

First we had to move a 300 pound Buddha up the plank to the far right corner from the side shown above.

Then Patricia & Homer worked out a design.

And after it began to take shape, Homer had to test it out and give his approval.
He's mostly worried that his digging space is gone!

There are some more pictures on my Facebook.

On a more personal note, I have been walking alot, 7 to 10 miles a day over 2 months. I've lost 20 lbs. along the way and am resolved never to find them again.  I've been walking with my Fitbit device.  If you are curious, go to FitBit and see for yourself.

Walking is my new buzz word

Patricia gave us each a new step-counter, called Fitbit, and this inspired me to walk once again.  I love walking; I could do it all day.  It needs no brain activity; just put one foot in front of the other, and that's it.
While walking, I have ideas, sing, talk to myself, and this is the most intelligent conversation; no argument or disagreement, ahh sometimes I do contradict myself, but by the end of my walk, I have usually reached either a compromise or come to a solution.
In any case, this new devise is great.  It's called a Fitbit and clips onto my belt and counts my steps, the distance I walk, how many floors I climb and most depressing, it tells me how many calories I have burned. For example, if I walk 5 miles, I barely burn enough calories to have a Starbucks Frappaccino.
If you are interested in watching my progress, bookmark this link.

Market Day

Encinitas now has it's own Farmers' Market.
Every Wednesday after I pick up Patricia from the train, we head over to the market.
Great fun and lots of great produce.

Just opened: it's on from 5 to 8PM every Wednesday

What a great display

Beans Beans and more Beans

Strawberries must be in season

And then there is the entertainment, starting with tuning the guitar.

Not much happened

and yet we are doing things that matter, like doing jobs around the house, sometimes cooking dinner, walking the dogs and making ourselves useful in any way we can.
It's fun sharing a place with Aariel and Ryan and the animals, and we are looking for a place around the area of Oceanside, just to be conveniently close to them when the nanny role kicks in.
I am also busy looking for a job around here, have put out a ton of applications, but not may bites.
Patricia got all her work done in the garden, and the first shoots are looking at daylight.
On Patricia's days off, we visit our old haunts at Encinitas and walk Crest just for fun and to see whats going on and to talk to old friends.  We just like the place.

The first bean sprouts have come out.

And here are the radishes 

and the flowers on the fence. 

Soon this will be hanging on the wall.

It is a lot of fun doing little projects, as long as I don't have to.

One little job at a time

Patricia and I have been busy doing our thing around Ryan and Aariel's place for the last week.
On Monday, I got to spend a little time with Michal, burning some Sugar-pine cones we had collected at Anza.

Sitting there in front of the fire with a glass of Port.

In the meantime, Patricia is building an above-ground garden, well above,

with a little help from Aariel. On the right, you can see a bit of Ryan supervising.

And it's done, just the right height for the veggies.

It's now time for planting

with Aariel inspecting.  She's not supposed to have her pregnant hands in the dirt!

Here I am walking Sasha and Banjo.

One of my job's has been to paint the garage floor.

First everything had to come out of the garage,

so I could paint it

and put it all back again. Here's the finished product.

Patricia and I are still looking for a place to live, an actual settle in place.