February 2016

NEOS LOG
February, 2016

The month started with Max’s tenth birthday. He had a party on the weekend with his friends playing Laser Tag, but on the day of his birthday, he had family over for a hamburger dinner and party. His folks had gotten him a Chima Lego kit and by the end of the evening, he had completely assembled it by himself. It doesn’t seem that long ago that Pops and Dad had to help him put Lego kits together. Heck, it doesn’t seem that long ago that Ryan was first putting kits together!!

The following week, we had a date with Max to Gray Eagle Wilderness Area. The place was huge and there were only about 10 other people there, so it felt like we had the place to ourselves. We took the long walk around the marshlands and saw lots of birds….ducks, woodpeckers, herons, sandpipers, egrets. Then we got in the van for the tour for vehicles. As we were coming up to another car parked on the side, we noticed them looking up in the tree. Lo and behold...a bald eagle!! We got pretty close to it before it flew off, and then later on, we parked under a tree it had settled in. We must have been 10 feet from him. What a gorgeous bird! There was no topping that so we headed back to Rocklin, stopping for a burger along the way.

For Valentine’s Day, Michelle and Eric had a special night out and the kids stayed overnight here. We watched “Secret Garden”, had a bonfire and roasted hot dogs and s’mores. Max and Pops figured out the rules to play SET, a card game we had given him for his birthday. A true engineer, he was soon beating all of us. Meanwhile, Karissa was doing a great job with her sight word Bingo game.
The craft project this month was a rainbow chain necklace for St. Patrick’s Day. Never too early to start celebrating the Irish holiday.

The newest project is a new front yard. I looked into the rebate programs for removing turf and found that not only did the water district pay $1/sq ft of lawn removed, but the state matches it with another $1. We have 902 sq ft of lawn so that comes to a tidy sum for us to buy plants with. In addition, the water district pays up to $500 for a drip irrigation system. So we had them come out to see if we qualified and signed up. We now have 4 months to complete the project. The state has a website (bewatersmart.com) that lists all of the drought resistant plants we can use so I have been designing and planning. I even took a stab at designing an irrigation system but I think I will have to have a bit of help with that. We took a trip to the new Green Acres in Rocklin and they said they only need 2 days lead time on ordering the plants. We will spend March rototilling and be ready to plant in April. Exciting!!! I did finish weeding the backyard and transplanting the ice plant...all in time for an expected wet March. The weather this month has been springlike. Unfortunately, it has been dry but the temps have been in the 70’s most afternoons so it has been delightful.

Rog gets to build some short decorative screens and a gate for the new landscape but he needs to finish Tess first. He spent most of the month completing the electrical and cabinetry. Before we hook up the final wires, he is trying to get an electrical expert to review his schematics to assure we have all of our ducks in a row and won’t be blowing ourselves up. We are on our third contact now and hope he can do it. We shall see! Rog got my passenger swivel seat installed and I can now use the recliner. Comfy. All of the drawers and cabinet fronts are painted and ready for installation. Progress.

Rog spend a weekend in Santa Barbara at the SKA Black Belt Convention. Hiroko from Redding drove down with him and spent the night here. I was glad he had somebody to travel with. It is such a long drive!! But they enjoyed the weekend. Meanwhile, I hit my thrift stores and am now well supplied with new jeans and tops.

We had a relaxing afternoon with George and Kathy Remaley playing cards. It has been quite a while since we have played 64. Rog came in last place for the first game, then won the second game. Go figger. Jim Nordstrum called from Puerto Vallarta to say howdy while we were playing.