Spring has arrived!

It seems like it has been a long, cold, wet winter, but Marion reminds me that we didn't even turn on our furnace this year until almost Thanksgiving. It seems like we had weeks and weeks of rain and unending cold, but we live in Southern California; how bad can it be?

After the annual rain that we get on February 19th, Brodie's birthday, it has started to gradually warm. These last two weekends have actually been very nice. Last weekend we went hiking at Point Mugu with our friends Rachel and Robert Harrington and their son Jacob. It was supposed to be a simple 1 1/2 hour hike, but the weather was so nice that we just kept on going, and before you knew it we had gone 6 miles and spent 4 hours on the trail. All of the kids, including four-year-old Nik did great and there was no complaints from anyone. Marion and I came home sunburned and ready for a nap.

This weekend all of our fruit trees are starting to bloom. In order, the pictures are of peach blossoms, apricot blossoms and plum blossoms. The pink peach blossoms are the most beautiful, but I'm jealously watching every bloom on the apricot tree, hoping for a huge crop of fruit again this year. I don't know what those things are they sell in the store that look like apricots but taste like glue, but they can't stand-up against the intense, sweet flavor of ripe apricots fresh off of our tree.