Family

I recently was going through old photos and scanning interesting things. One thing that I’d had in my possession for years but never looked at was a swim meet program that my Great Aunt Ethel sent to her brother Ted (my grandfather).

The Marstons lived in Honolulu from around 1910-1935? Ted, Ethel, Stan and Warren were all active in local schools, attended McKinley High School and swam for the Outrigger Canoe Club.

After years of no maintenance on a weirdly growing set of redwood trees at the Santa Cruz house, we started to get a failure in the fence. The debris was pushing the fence into the neighbors yard. 

We had gardeners try to keep it clean, but it really needed a stump grinding. We hired StumpKing and Kyle got the job done.

Here's before and after.

Began the year with a trip out to the Seymour Center to play with the touch tanks.

Replaced the patio uplights that had been installed in the new patio in 2012. The constant moisture and exposure had dulled the lights and in some cases they were shorted out. So we bought replacements and I rewired them back up. Here's a before, during and after look.

The year began with a trip to Palm Springs where we stayed in La Quinta for the Palm Springs Dog show. The desert is great in January and I got some nice bike rides in and around the region.

We came home to an atmospheric river event that showed us where some new engineering would be needed for our grave paths. The storms also dropped a huge douglas fir onto other trees blocking our route, power and internet for about a week.

2021 began with a trip to Palm Springs for our first dog show. Lynda and Leo were competing in confirmation, rally and obedience. The trip was successful and we all learned a lot about the difference between the movie and an event.

Due to the pandemic and home schooling and TKD via Zoom, we decide to permanently park the cars outside and change out the flooring from hard plastic tiles to rubber mats style tiles. This would give some extra give for workouts and TKD. By this time Lynda was also participating in TKD.

In 2017, we started the year in Australia. Lynda rented a home for Gunnar, Courtney, Mom and I in the Darlinghurst neighborhood of Sydney. We used this as our home base to enjoy the city sights especially the New Year’s Eve events and fireworks.

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As the world locked down, we adapted. Sure there were a few accidents (broken arm, cut forehead).

The world (ours at least) turned sideways in March of 2020. We went from having a grandnephew in first grade at Baymonte and dog training classes in Capitola to starting a home school at the dining table and Tae Kwon Do classes in the garage via Zoom.