April 2025

The weather has turned quite nice so getting lots of outside projects done. But first on the agenda was a trip to Long Beach for our annual Indy race with Ryan and Beth. I was going to rent a motor scooter for the weekend but decided it would be easier to just buy a used one. I found what I wanted right here in Rocklin. We drove a mile away and picked it up. It is a VIVE. It folds up and fit easily in the RAV. But for this trip, we are using Tess.

It took us about 10 hours to get to our destination, the Elks Club in Oceanside. On Sat morning, we headed to the Marriott where the kids were staying and found a parking spot right in front…and with my disabled placard, we parked for free with no time limits. Good thing…the parking pass I had for the race was in a garage and Tess would not fit. Nor would she fit in the Marriott garage.

We spent Saturday touring the venue and doing some reconnaissance on how to get to our seats on Sunday. On Sunday, we got to the Marriott early enough to get one of their outdoor parking spots. We took the kids out to lunch for their March birthdays, then headed over to the race. Our seats overlooked the pits so we were able to watch their pit stops and caught glimpses of the cars as they whizzed by. Crazy trying to keep track of who was who and what places they were in. We didn’t have much trouble getting out after the race. We headed to Van’s for some ice cream and decided to spend the night in our parking spot. We got up the next morning at 3am and took off. The trip home took about 7 hours so we were home by noon.

When we got home, the roofers were hard at work. The old roof was gone. It took them about 2 ½ days to complete the job and we love it! The new gutters really topped it off. They did a great job of cleanup but my hydroponic system was pretty sad. Full of asphalt.

Karissa and Michelle came over to color eggs for the Easter hunt and it sounds like they had a super camping trip as well. Easter morning, everyone came over for brunch and the hunt. I tried to help the Easter bunny out by tracking the location of each egg, but inthe end we were still one short. Oh well. The day was so nice we all relaxed on the patio and chatted.

Rog and I did a power wash of the house and replaced the shade covering on the patio and that got rid of most of the remaining mess. I cleaned up the hydroponic setup and ended up emptying the tub out and using the wet vac to get all of the grit off the bottom. All clean now and the basil is in. I also got the tomatoes and zucchini planted. Meanwhile Rog worked on the bathroom tub bench.

Spring has brought out the wildlife in Rocklin. A hawk visited us one morning, then a pair of ducks that Rog had to shoo away. And we have a dove sitting on a couple of eggs in our patio. We are hoping the deer stay away this year!