January

For our 39th anniversary, we decided to do something completely different. We booked a Segway tour at the San Diego Safari Park. The tour is about 2 hours long. The first hour is spent training the participants (limited to no more than 12 at time) how to safely get on and off and ride the off-road Segways comfortably. It was really a blast. The rest of the day and most of the next we took our time looking at all the exhibits the park has to offer.

February

My HP computer, the one I had so happily acquired back in 2007, refused to start one day. It had been having problems handling animation and graphics for a while before then. I took it to a repair shop where they determined in about 3 minutes that the motherboard and graphics card were shot. It would have cost too much to repair it so I decided to salvage what I could and buy a new one. Fortunately, my trusty old (more than 10 years) Dell computer was still chugging along and had backup copies of things to which I needed immediate access. I was able to keep the 360GB hard drive, the DVD-RW drive, the TV tuner, the infrared remote control, and the 24″ LCD monitor. Best of all, I was rid of Windows Vista, as the new Dell system came pre-installed with Windows 7.

Jason paid us a rare visit for his 32nd birthday. I can hardly believe our “babies” are almost middle aged! He has become quite the outdoorsman so we went for a hike in nearby O’Neil Regional Park, and met his brother Matt after he got off work where the four of us went out to dinner to celebrate his birthday.

March

The last of the “Greatest Generation” of Fullers, our Uncle Dale died on March 6. I have many happy memories of times spent with him, especially one summer when he lived in Rancho Cordova. He took my brothers and I to Folsom Lake and I finally learned how to water ski with just one ski.

June

Matt turned 29 in June. Patty and I met him at his house where Queenie decided that she just had to be in the picture taking with her girlfriend Yuki. Later on we went out to dinner.

Pretty much the rest of the month was all about tile. We finally decided to remove the wall-to-wall carpet from most of the house, all except the bedrooms. Our neighbor Joe is a contractor, the same one who remodeled our bathrooms a couple years ago. That had turned out so nice we went with him again. We moved most the furniture into half of the garage and setup the big TV in our bedroom. It was kind of nice to have a 52″ screen at the foot of the bed, but for some reason, the remote controls did not work very well that way.

Construction is rarely without surprises and this was no exception. First surprise was the huge crack and hump in the concrete slab in the living room. That required an extra two days to grind down and level. Pat was cleaning the dust off of literally everything in the house for months afterward. The second surprise was the discovery of termites in the wall between the living room and kitchen. That cost a few days (and dollars) to schedule treatment. Finally, we decided to tile the fireplace, which once done looks very nice. After living mostly in the bedrooms for a month it was extremely nice when it was all done.

July

The big event this month was Valerie Marincic’s wedding, which provided a good reason for Patty, Jill & Steve Bennett, and I to dress up and party. Valerie Marincic is the daughter of one of Patty’s closest friends, Pauline Marincic. Valerie married her fiance Roni Dhillon at The Villa in San Juan Capistrano, CA. The menu was delicious, of course, with an open bar and entertaining guest,s the party was a lot of fun!

September

Pat had another birthday. Can you believe it? The nerve! She’d been holding nicely at 50 for some time. I guess she didn’t want to be married to an old guy so she had to keep having birthdays. No matter what she does though there will always be a three year age difference between us. It’s my turn again real soon here, when I will be 61 years old in December if you can believe it! How the heck did that happen?

November

The Bennets now have a bona fide doctor in the family. Patrick is now practicing and living in Las Vegas. Pat and Jill spent the week before Thanksgiving over there, staying in Patrick’s recently purchased house and visiting some of the hot spots on the Strip.

Everyone returned to Mission Viejo for the big day. The Bennetts and the Fullers had Thanksgiving dinner at the local Claim Jumper restaurant. The meal was great, the company was great, and the fact that there was no cooking and cleaning up afterward was super!