September 2021

We celebrated Max’s special day from August a week late. Max picked out an eagle to print out on the 3D printer, Then he helped Pops set up the printer for its initial test. They printed out the chess piece test that comes with the printer. While it was printing, we went to Don Quixote’s Restaurant for dinner. It was done by the time we got back. Max designed a plaque on Tinkercad to go with the eagle and I spent the next few weeks researching how to prepare the design for print. Our first attempt collapsed on itself. Trial and error.

A few days later, the grandkids came over for s craft day. It has been a long time since we have done any crafts together. We tried to make flying butterflies. Everyone did a good job but these butterflies didn’t fly far.

We decided to start taking the kids out with us for their anniversary celebration. It took us a few weeks, but we had lunch with Beth and Ryan at Pete’s on Douglas in Roseville. There is a Pete’s 3 blocks from our house but it is small and doesn’t look it has much ambience. We had a great lunch and Ryan is looking much better health-wise now that he is off of the meds that he had a bad reaction to. On Patriot Day, we headed over to Johnson Springview Park to say hi to Max while he helped man the scouting booth. We watched a police drone show and walked around the place. Small town stuff….love it.

Rog and I finally got to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse to redeem the anniversary gift we got from the Blooms last year. We had tried earlier in the year, but they had to close for the pandemic. We went to an early dinner and were treated quite royally. The table was strewn with rose petals. We had the chateaubriand and lobster dinner for 2 which was perfect. They made a special dessert for our anniversary as well. We felt quite special and appreciate the special gift.

We had to really minimize use of the Mirai this month. We use it to transport the kids to school but then use the van for everything else. The Sacramento stations are all out of hydrogen and have been since Aug 20. Finally got hydrogen in the third week of September. The trials of being energy efficient! The grandkids decided that they both wanted to do the Auburn Obstacle Race for their special date. We picked them both up early on that Sunday morning and headed up to Auburn. Roger’s dojo had decided to hand out water to the participants and Rog set up for that while I waited with the kids for the start of the race. It took them about 1- 1.5 hours to finish the course and they seemed to enjoy it. They weren’t as muddy as I thought they would be, but they did hose off and change clothes before we headed to McDonalds for ice cream.

Even though they shared the activity, they each got a meal out with us. This month, we took Karissa for pasta at Olive Garden. Then we headed to our place where Karissa made some very yummy nutella cakes.

For projects this month, I trimmed the kurapia and Rog actually got some work in on the Moss Rock and Timber Railroad. I have managed to keep the latest batch of goldfish and koi alive for more than a month so I have started some seeds for plants. At the end of the month, we headed up to Granite Flat for an overnight with Nordstroms and Lyons. I would say it was to beat the heat but things really cooled off and the night in Truckee got down to 28 degrees. A bit too chilly for me and our propane heater took the edge off, but died trying. It was great to see everyone and we left with the same question we always leave with...why don’t we do this more often during the hot summer? It is so close and so cheap… MIchelle ended our month with fabulous news. She had been student teaching at Rocklin HIgh and was offered a job at Loomis Franklin MIddle School to start immediately. She is now a full time science teacher at a school about 15 minutes from home. So very very proud of her!!