Friday, May 16, 2014
Anna and the Big Redwoods
Last year, I got to take Katie Jo to Manhattan with me when I spoke at the SQL Saturday there. This spring, I got to take Anna Lynn to another of America's great cities, San Francisco. One of the highlights of our trip, and there were many, was a day trip up to Muir Forest for a walk among the redwoods. These beauties are between 200-300 feet tall and so majestic that it steals your breath away and leaves you speachless.
Some of the other highlights of our trip included lots of time spent on the piers, Chinatown, Japantown (also known as J-Town), a tour of the city, the Goldengate Bridge, and the San Francisco Imaginarium (or something like that), which is one of the coolest and most fun hands-on museums I've ever experienced.
One of my personal highlights was getting Anna to have a delicious desert crepe for the very first time. After that, she pretty much wanted crepes for every meal. Anna also loved spending every available moment in the big Kintetsu Mall in J-Town. We also got to visit my nephew, Sam Holley-Kline, whose working on his PhD at Stanford and shared a wonderful evening with him.
One of the other unexpectedly fun things we got to do was a visit to the interesting Winchester Mystery House in Palo Alto. This huge sprawling mansion is the blueprint for every haunted house movie you've ever seen. It was great fun and, despite being a bit creepy, very interesting.
Labels: Anna, Experiences
Monday, May 05, 2014
So Many Birthdays and a New Gazebo
March and April are the busiest of seasons for birthdays, here at Kline Manor. Ava has the first birthday of the year on March 4. And the April gets real with three more birthdays. Kaylee's birthday is April 22, Savannah's is April 27, and Anna's is April 30. Whew!
Pictures to come.
In the meantime, here's a quick picture of a new gazebo I put up on the deck. It's reinforced and bolted to the deck, so I hope it'll stand up well to storms and high winds.
We've always enjoyed our deck. But without any shade, the deck had a very limited time period where we could use it enjoyably. In fact, even in mid-April, it wouldn't be possible to use the deck in mid-day because of a blazing hot sun. So this is pretty awesome for us. Since I built it, we've spent about 400% more time on the deck than in previous Springs. And have enjoyed it a lot.
