January 2008 postings

January 28
Frank's company retirement party was held at the JW Marriott in Denver's Cherry Creek area on Saturday night. The theme was Island Casual of course! It was attended by close to 200 of his colleagues, former colleagues and friends. Folks flew in from all over the country. Two of his long time pals were there, Steve Haltom, from high school days, and Randy Holloway from the Navy years- the 70's - also flew in with his wife Judy. Four of my girlfriends came from out of town; Maureen, Marianne and Sally from Houston, and Sharon from Reno - Tom and Mary made the trip, via a ski trip to Utah and the CO Rockies, and my daughter surprised me by flying in on Friday with her beau, Paul. We had such a great weekend! We stayed down at the Marriott in order to spend more time with our out of town friends. Frank arranged a special mixer on Friday evening for just that group of guests, knowing that we would not get much time, if any, with them at the party. And as predicted, we did not get to connect with at least half of those in attendance at the party. Frank's colleagues and bosses present and former made some very dear comments to and about Frank. He was well loved and will be missed - at least as much as anyone is missed these days when they retire.
This is our last night in the condo. Tomorrow all furniture will be gone. All of our personal effects will either be going to storage or to Destiny. We will spend Tuesday and Wednesday night at the Martin's home, I'll pick Frank up from work on the 31st, we will take the Tahoe to Larry Hill's house and park it while we're in Houston, spend the night with him and then hopefully get on the 6 AM flight to Houston. Wish us luck!

January 1, 2008 - Happy New Year!
My sister Beverly flew in from TX and went to Ensenada with me on New Year's Day. Frank is not taking any time off since he is retiring at the end of the month, so Beverly and my brother and sister-in-law, Tom and Mary and I planned to go and to enjoy some long overdue bonding . Tom and Mary were flying in from VA; however, they got to the airport to find that their flight was canceled and were unable to get another flight. We were more than a little disappointed because we had all been looking forward to this for a long time. So Bev and I made the trip solo, meeting in San Diego and then taking the usual jaunt down to Ensenada. She is not only my sister but probably my very best friend. Easy going and such a great traveling buddy, Bev was like a wide-eyed child during the excursion. She certainly had some great stories to impart to friends and family when she returned home.

The weather was cold! I was accused by our neighbors on Crazy Notion of bringing Colorado with me. Laurie and Bryan were still around (staying with Joe and Peggy on Crazy Notion), and Bev really enjoyed meeting them all. We had a New Year's Day"eat the leftovers from the New Year's Party" get-together with them the first evening and that took care of our dinner.

The next day we set out to do our grocery shopping and to familiarize Bev with Ensenada. I introduced her to fish tacos at the little street-side eateries - they are lined up and down the streets over by the fish market behind Baja Naval. This has become the standard "tour de Ensenada" that Sheri and Tammi both enjoyed when they came to visit. Our favorite spot charges only 80 cents for a fish taco, but $1 for agua mineral. We had a shrimp cocktail that probably had 15-20 large size shrimp in it for about $7. Over the course of our stay we returned a couple of times and Bev sampled ceviche and I don't remember what else. Of course we hit the fish market and bought a kg of shrimp that fed us for about three meals.
We couldn't get the internet to work on the new Gladney laptop, so we used it instead to watch movies. During the day we ventured out and then in the evenings we either watched movies or played Mad Gab. What a goofy but fun game. We spent our last full day ticking Honey-do's off the list Frank had sent with me. One of them was to measure the floor in the saloon and in the galley for carpeting - not fun! I won't go into it, but we will never do this again unless we are well paid. (See photos from Bev's visit to get a visual idea.) If someone was watching us they would have sworn were were Lucy and Ethel! By the time we finished we just sent up a prayer that the custom carpet bears some resemblance to the intended form of the sole (floor).

All in all we had a great time, but felt the tinge of sadness that Tom and Mary couldn't have made it down with us. They did cal us a few times and ask us; "What would we be doing now? This very moment...", and we would convey to them the amazing and exciting things that we were doing - hee hee. We figured in the grand scheme this was what was meant to be, and that there will be other opportunities in the future.

That's it for now, at least until Frank and I return. Then it will be the real thing - retirement dreams coming to full fruition. Until then, my very best to you all.