21 December 2012
Vacaville, California, USA
The Hardwicks have had another very
good year. We spent a week at Lake Almanor
and hiked in Lassen
National Park with our
oldest son, James, and his family. We
spent many days watching Kooper’s baseball games, flag football games, and
wrestling matches, and Marley and Elaine’s soccer games. Kooper’s baseball team won their division and
he was awarded MVP of his football team.
Marley played on a competitive traveling team and Elaine coached another
traveling team. Betty helped with
management of the youth soccer team Elaine coaches and Jim ran in a 5 K race
with the team. Betty and I still drive our grandchildren to and from school, soccer,
baseball, wrestling, football practice, and 4H meetings. The two were also 4H clothing and textiles leaders
again. Their girls won several ribbons
at county fairs and dress reviews. Marley
was busy with rabbit, cooking, and dog training projects too
Once again Jim planted a large vegetable garden in
Elaine’s back yard. We planted black
eyed peas, pole beans, summer squash, Tahitian winter squash, lemon, Armenian and
striped serpent cucumbers, cantaloupe, tomatoes, okra, eggplant, peppers,
basil, and cilantro. Oliver started
several varieties of tomatoes, eggplant and peppers in his greenhouse. Jim tilled and weeded. Marley’s rabbits provided us with copious
quantities of manure. Matt took charge
of the irrigation and we had good yields of most crops.
We visited my sister, Barbara and her family, husband
Stan, son and daughter-in-law Scott and Angie, grandchildren Logan and Brenna,
in March in Calaveras County and they visited us in Vacaville a couple of
times. Betty’s sister Terry visited us a
couple of times, and we attended our 50 year high school class
reunion in Selma
in April. We saw many old friends we had
not seen in decades, and visited relatives in the area. We visited our oldest son, James, and family,
Barbara, Adam and Alison in New
Jersey in July.
We spent most of our days there with our grandchildren, Adam and Alison watching them play tennis and soccer, and we visited several farms where we picked berries.
Jim took cousins Louise and Lowell
Smith to his cousin Harold Wilcox’s funeral in Salt Lake
City in January, and had a good visit with the children and
grandchildren of Louise and Lowell
Smith, Kenny and Margaret Wilcox and Harold and Helen Wilcox. Jim also went on numerous day hikes throughout
central California, and played golf a couple of times with old friends, John
Duffy and John Geibel. Jim went on two raft trips on the
Rogue River in Oregon and one trip on the San
Juan River in Utah
with relatively new friends he has met since he took up white water sports. He also went on a backpack trip with youngest
son, Oliver, in the Emigrant Wilderness, and spent a few days hiking in the Warner Mountains
of NE California. We had a great
visit and Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family at our house. Jim and Betty visited with old friends Jack
and Bonnie Ames in Castroville and cousins Mike Huckabay and Peggy and Lou
Rudolph the day after attending a Christmas play at the San Juan Bautista
mission with friends, John and Anita Mitchell of Palo Alto.
We celebrated Marley’s 15th birthday at the Suisun lighted
boat parade aboard Rob and Nancy Forest’s yacht which Elaine helped Rob and
Nancy decorate for the parade.
As you can see from our
active life, we are enjoying our semi-retirement.
Best wishes for good health and happiness to y'all.
Jim and Betty Hardwick
