Family Goodbye

October 21, 22, 23, 24, 2008 - Tuesday - Friday

Spent Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday with daughter Vanessa and my Grandsons Blake and Cade. And, as a special bonus, got to also have dinner with my "little" daughter, Chelsea, Wednesday night.

Just hung with them.

Being the morning person I am, I got to take Cade for his 4:00 AM feeding each day I was there and spend the morning with him while everyone else slept in.

It is so easy to forget how little little babies are. And how helpless and innocent and happy they are, too.

So here are a few pics of the fam for the road.

Here's Cade

And Blake (Who Loved "Driving" My Motorhome)

Really, how happy can a person be?

Blake & Lucy

The Little Family

(Unfortunately my son-in-law, Brian, was on a business trip.)

The Sibs

My Precious Baby Daughters and Blake

Vanessa, Chelsea, Blake

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Just before leaving I had the opportunity to get in one last tennis game with Ferdinand.

Ferdinand is a great guy I just ran into at the park one day. We get together whenever possible when I'm in San Clemente.

He is a heck of a good player. Young and athletic.

Think about this. He used to play PROFESSIONAL BADMINTON. Yes, PROFESSIONAL!

If you want to talk about quick and fast, plus unbelievable hand/eye coordination, go find yourself a professional badminton player.

I don't generally like to share my Tennis Secrets To Success with guys who may read this and use my Secrets against me. But here is probably the BIGGEST OF ALL. Ferdinand told me this. Pay attention.

When Ferdinand was playing badminton, at one point he moved to and lived in China to get the worlds best coaching. He said his coach was an old Chinese gentleman - a badminton guru. Ferdinand and the Coach barely spoke the same language and tried to communicate in English.

One day in practice Ferdinand hit a shot out of bounds. The Old Guru Coach took him aside and in patient, quiet, broken English said, "Ferdinand. This is a simple game. There are only 2 kinds of shots. Those you hit out. And those you hit in. Only do the second kind."

So there you go. You can thank Ferdinand for that piece of advice.

Only do the second kind.

We had a great workout, a really fun match, and 2 close sets - a 7-5 set and a tie-break set. All on a gorgeous San Clemente afternoon.

And, right next to us there was a clinic with beginning boys and girls maybe 7 or 8 years old. I envy them learning so young and having so long to enjoy the sport. But I can promise you that during that hour and a half or so they were not having any more fun than me.

What more can you ask?

Here's Ferdinand

"Only Do The Second Kind"

By the way, this picture is after our match. Notice he is not sweating. I can assure you, I was.

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So I won't see the family now until around Christmas and then right after that I'll be heading down to Palm Springs for January. I'll miss them. But we'll keep in touch through this blog and emails and IM's and cell phones and, the greatest invention yet, our webcams. Again, I say, thank goodness for 21st Century technology.

Next Stop - Bakersfield, California