Snow of Epic Proportions: December 2008

Here's the view of our home after yesterday's storm. Note this snowfall is just yesterday's! The snow from Monday's storm is well beneath the top 2 feet. Mountain folks have been saying that snow like this hasn't fallen in a decade. To us, it seems like all the snow we got last winter fell in the last few days.

Icicles!

Jarod's sister, Meghan, who works at Snowbird resort outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, got stuck with us for this storm!

View from our front porch looking right.

Our backyard.

Danna, trying to scrape snow off the vehicles, got stuck in a snow drift!

Jarod in front of the truck. Thanks goodness both our vehicles have 4-wheel drive now.

We're Engaged!

This is how it happened:
It was a cold Halloween night in London. We were at the Shpongle concert and Jarod looked particularly handsome in his Friar Tuck costume. Inspired by the music and atmosphere, Danna asked him to marry her on the spot. ("Rump, will you marry me?" was the exact quote.) He said yes and the rest is history.

We wanted to share this news with our loved ones, so now you know! More details will follow soon.

Here's us in front of Buckingham Palace the day of the proposal.

Check out the music that inspired us:
http://www.myspace.com/therealshpongle

http://www.myspace.com/youngerbrothertwisted

Meet the Kitties: Jack & Pearl

Jack and Pearl often take a chair each. Jack's the closest , with the white bib. Pearl is nearly all black. Their names are formally Captain Jack and Black Pearl. They came with those names, and given our respect for pirates, we have kept them.

These are the new babies in our house. Here are some pics of them. More to follow!

Germany 2008: The Family

More to come explaining who is related to who, etc., but here are some pics of the family. It's a work in progress!

Theo and his wife, Melitta (who does not like to have her picture taken, so we were lucky to get this one!). Theo is Lotte's (Jarod's grandma) younger brother. From left to right: Karl, Rosemary, Jarod, Luke (bottom center), Ralph and Nathan.

Fred (Lotte's brother) and Jarod on a walk in Treffelhausen.

Left to right: Karl, Lotte, Jarod, Rosemary, Isolde, Fred and Hilde.

Jarod, Dietmar (Karl & Rosemary's son) and Ralph.

Germany: Swetzingen

Swetzingen, a scenic town known for its castle and botanical gardens, sits about 100km south of Frankfurt. There you will find this statue. I think it was called "Blue Baby." A fitting name and testament to the mixture of traditional German architecture/culture with the confrontational modern style of expression. I've often noticed this mixture in my travels around Germany.

It's quite freaky, no? It beckons you to Swetzingen. A town where we sampled an attempt at Mexican food (it wasn't that bad) and were blessed to see this work of art.

Family Trip to Mammoth

Mammoth, CA is usually thought of as a winter paradise, but as you can see, summer is gorgeous in Mammoth. Water rushed through every crag and flowers bloomed around every bend. OK, I'm exaggerating a bit, but not by much. The heavy winter snows made for lots of water flow, though from what we could tell, winter snows are heavy there each year. It was also awesome because there weren't hordes of people around, as there are in Yosemite pretty much any time of year.

Rainbow Falls. A beautiful hike culminates in this view: The San Joaquin River:

Left to Right: Anu Mary, Cousin Colleen, Jarod, Uncle Kevin (in from New Zealand!) and Uncle Jerry (an avid hiker who is tackling stretches of the Pacific Coast Trail, making his way from Mexico on north...)

The Devil's Postpile, Mammoth's most famous monument. It's interesting. We hiked to the top of the pile where the pillared formations look like a perfectly tiled floor.

Danna and Jarod, standing on a foot brigde over the San Joaquin River.

We'll have more pics, as these are missing much fo the family who came, as soon as we get some forwards! We want to go camping more!

In Memory of Flo Jenkins

We lost our beloved kitty, Flo Jenkins, on June 7th. She had been battling kidney disease for years and we had been giving her subcutaneous fluids for about 9 months leading up to her passing. Her kidneys finally gave out on her and the fluids stopped aiding her kidney function.

Flo was an original. She came into our lives when Ed and I were at UCR and decided we needed a kitty. We went to the Moreno Valley Animal Shelter and Flo pretty much picked us by meowing her butt off and touching my shoulder with her paw through her cage door. She was obnoxiously affectionate and had the loudest voice of any cat I have ever known. She was named after Flo, the sassy waitress from the show "Alice", and the Jenkins just came along because it was a good last name for her. :)

It turned out she was pregnant when we adopted her, so we had a litter of kittens join us about a month after we adopted Flo. Her babies were nothing but little rays of sunshine and we ended up keeping one, Lumpy. I need to find and upload some pictures of him...

But all of this happened 14 years ago, so Flo was a part of our lives for a very long time.

Flo on her favorite thing, the Alpine Scratcher! Flo also loved passionately head-butting people, couches, walls and stairs. There were moments when I thought Flo's love for me bordered on unnatural...I captured this loving expression in this picture. If Flo could be on a lap, she would be.

Flo inherited this kitty donut bed from Ricki (Carrie and Ed's cat) and she loved it. She was just small enough to fit in it. Flo usually weighed about 7 pounds. Sorry these pics are blurry, but I think they're so cute.

Displaying a slightly punk expression. Flo was admittedly kind of a punk. She was known for intentionally pooping outside the litter box when unhappy. Sometimes she would not shut up. One time, riled up with enthusiasm over getting so much attention, she bit the crap out of Carrie's arm. It was, however, the one and only time I ever saw Flo sink her teeth into anyone or anything. (Sorry again, Carrie. Flo loved you!)

She was a jealous creature when it came to other cats, though other cats loved her for some reason. Rebecca's cat, Pi, would cry, waiting outside my bedroom door for Flo to come out in the morning.

Flo staring down a Fox on YouTube.

Doing another favorite thing: being a cuddle-saurus.

She was the bestest and most adorable kitteh. She is irreplaceable and we miss her terribly.

Family Visit for Xmas

Much of the Whittman side of the family and Jarod's mom Carole came up over xmas week. My family rented a lodge just down the street from us.

Eating at The Lake Inn. (best pizza in the universe.) Jarod's mom Carole is on his left and my brothter, Dave, is on my right.Dave had to climb onto the roof because his son, Sam, locked the bedroom door. The lodge wasn't the nicest place and we had a few mishaps. The owners seemed to care more about bear- themed furnishings than the plumbing or making sure the heat worked. But is was rustically fun and it was wonderful having the family staying nearby.

My brother, Tom, brought his guitar and played for us. Above him is is a mechanical singing deer head. Though the lodge had its downside, there was a huge gameroom with a pool table, old school video games and an awesome bar.

Dave and his kids, Sam and Emma.

My mom and dad, Steve and Katherine.

Emma likes to braid hair and out it into ponytails. Here's proof.

The Family.

Uncle Jerry going over the jump at the nearby sledding hill, about to knock the wind out of his chest.

Jarod, Danna and nephew, Sam
Me

Jarod approaching the jump.

We are Alive!

Hello.

Ah, blogs and my lack of dedication. I need to get on it. So here it goes.

Late December/January-July Summary: Danna worked for a non-profit company called THINK Together, where she herded middle school kids into an after-school program at Fontana Middle School. That's all you really need to know. It sucked and she quit June 18th. (new job starts thisweek;more on that later.)

Jarod started working at Stamps.com in March and is in the office 3 days a week and working from home 2. He stays with friends when he's in the office (located in Marina Del Rey), which also sucks, but he gets to hang out with friends. But at least he's at home 2 days a week.

Our cabin is lovely and when the winter snows melted in April, it was indeed a relief. We had a freak snow storm over Memorial Day, but that's the last we'll see of snow for a while. We want a house with a garage and paved driveway, but hey, we survived quite well through the winter. It's nothing we can't go through again.