I Left My Heart...Again!

Jim and I just returned from a long weekend in San Francisco. It had been 18 months since our last visit to this city by the bay, and the one U.S. city that we never grow tired of. We have made many trips to that beautiful place, and with each return trip we find something new to see and do. Here are a few highlights:

1. We managed the BART transport(train) both from the airport and back. We had to link the BART with a city bus ( and one short taxi ride due to an error on our part) but for the most part it was smooth sailing to and from the city. Saved a lot of money on cab fares as well, and exciting to learn new things.

2. We enjoyed a couple new restaurants in the area. One was a fantastic Indian called Dosa and the other was Thai, also outstanding food.

3. We caught two Farmers' Markets, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. The hightlight of those was the freshly popped Kettle Corn. Yum!

4. Having received a tip from the concierge of our hotel we took the bus to the theatre district/ Orpheum and put our name in a lottery drawing to see the Sunday matinee of the Broadway musical WICKED. About 60 people gathered at noon for the drawing. If your name is chosen from the group of people you are then given the opportunity to purchase tickets in the 'limited view' seats. The seats are somewhat obstructed, so you miss about 20% of the scenes on the side where you are seated. But you can't beat the price...a normal ticket sold for $99.00 ( and they were sold out for the next 3 weeks) and a lottery ticket was $25 cash only. Well, wouldn't you know, our name was drawn and we had $50 cash so we saw WICKED on Sunday afternoon! GREAT SHOW! OH!! This was so cool, Patty Duke had one of the lead roles! AWESOME afternoon!

5. A lot of running and a very long walk...Jim and I had several runs on the Embarcadero and a long walk from Fisherman's Wharf to the Golden Gate. We had done that the last time we were there ( photo is from that earlier trip Oct. of 2007) but this time we stopped only briefly at the Golden Gate and then continued west to the Cliff House. Almost all of this hike was along the water/cliffs and the scenery was beautiful. The total trip was just shy of 8 miles! It was so much fun!

Good weather, good companionship, good food, and a time with no schedule and only a few business calls that Jim had to take. Not too shabby!!

JOY!

Birthday, Balance, and Blessings!

Greetings to all of you,

Jim and I were so grateful to make a trip to Albuquerque the last days of February to celebrate Nolan's 5th birthday! The picture on the couch is in our home in Albuquerque, and was taken the day after Nolan turned 5. We are so thankful for his very life, considering the challenges that he has had to face in his short lifetime. And the recent blessing is that he is cancer free! The scans taken on March 3 came back clean. Praise God for that answer to prayer! However, the advice of the doctor was for him to undergo two more rounds of chemo, which he will have. So please continue to keep all of them in your prayers during these next two months.

The second picture amazes me! Beth has one posted on her blog that is very similar. This was taken on Sunday, March 1st in our Albuq. place as well. Claire was one day shy of six months in that photo. Beth has said that if it was anyone other that Eric doing this trick she would not allow it...but because it is Eric, we are all fine with this balancing act, as we know his capacity for balance and reflex!

One final blessing...Jim's latest job assignment to divest the coal mines in North America has one success to date. One of the coal mines has been purchased and he has succeeded wonderfully well!! We were in Gillette just a week ago today when it hit the headlines...Arch Coal buys Jacobs Ranch mine...front page Top Story!!

I write this blog with thanksgiving and send each of you love, from Jesus and me