Snake in the House!

I was talking to my friend Linda on the phone and noticed a snake crawling in the kitchen.
The floor tiles are 18" square, so it's a small snake, but none the less it is in the house!

I tried to coax the snake out the back door, but he made a run for it.
It didn't turn out too well for Mr. Snake!

Check out the Kiefer wedding photos

The wedding photos are now available for viewing at: www.pictage.com/1048910

New Phone - Samsung Galaxy SIII

Since Jackie is now on Jonathan's phone plan, I decided to upgrade my HTC Android phone
that I've had since December of 2009, to the new Samsung Galaxy S III.

The Samsung Galaxy S3 comes fully loaded with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich,
4G LTE, a zippy dual-core processor, and a strong 8-megapixel camera.

This phone is lightening fast! 

I especially love the camera features, front facing camera and zero shutter lag when taking a picture. The phone also has the Smart Stay feature. This camera feature comes in handy when using Google Maps. The Maps will not go in to a sleep mode if you are looking at the phone. Even if you don’t touch the display for an extended period of time, the GS3 won’t go into standby so long as it senses you’re still looking at it. Neat feature, but kind of creepy that your phone knows you are looking at it.

The screen display is 4.8 inches and it is super slim at 8.6 mm
I got the phone in Pebble Blue - not White.

Guess I'll have to sell my HTC on Craigslist.

Trip to Napa

Last week Doug had a business trip to California. He had to visit 3 different sites. His last site visit was in Oakland, California .... not to far from Napa. So I flew out of DFW on Thursday evening after work. Doug picked me up at the San Jose airport after he got off from work. We went for a late dinner at Dave & Busters in Milpitas.

After dinner we drove to the Hampton Inn in Hayward where Doug was staying. On Friday I worked remotely from the hotel, while he went to work at the site in Oakland. For dinner, we went to Buffalo Bills Brewery in Hayward for some burgers & local microbrewery beer. The pretzel rolls for the hamburgers were awesome!

Saturday morning, we checked out of the Hampton Inn and drove up to Napa Valley.

Our first stop was Paraduxx Winery.

 Doug checking out the size of the grapes in July.
Our last visit to Napa was in September 2011 when they were harvesting the grapes.

 The grapes are just starting to turn color.

We are wine club members of Duckhorn Winery and Paraduxx Winery is a "sister" winery so we get complimentary wine tasting for up to 4 people. The normal fee for a wine tasting for 2 and tasting platter is $40 pp...but ours was free. BONUS! Below are a few photos from our visit to Paraduxx.

We enjoyed this tasting outdoors under the shade trees.

Below are our 12 glasses of wine (6 different wines) and our food sample platters of assorted crackers, cheeses, roasted almonds, fig cake, meats, duck pate and fresh raspberry preserves.

After the tasting we bought a bottle of our favorite of the day. The 2009 Paraduxx - Napa Valley Red Wine - C Blend.  The C Blend was crafted from a heavier core of Cabernet Sauvignon fused with some Zinfandel.

After this tasting, we headed in to St. Helena for lunch. We stopped at Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen. We thought we were in for a home-style type of cooking but were pleasantly surprised with a very interesting menu. Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen combines a classy supper club with the flair of a speakeasy to create an upscale eatery.  Doug had the Achiote Roasted Pork Tacos with pickled onions and two types of salsa. I had Crispy Flatbread with Caramelized onions, local cheeses, garlic, chives with a balsamic glaze. We shared a side of french fries (dutch style).  The lunch was fabulous.  I wished I had taken photos of the food, the presentation was awesome as well. We will definitely be trying her other restaurant Mustard's Grill in Nappa, when we visit next time.

After lunch we drove to Duckhorn Winery.  Again we did the complimentary tasting and food sampler. It was very warm this afternoon, so we decided to enjoy this tasting indoors. I didn't take my camera in to this tasting...so....no photos...sorry!

We left the winery and took the scenic trip to Vacaville, CA via the Silverado Trail. It is much less hectic than Hwy 29 through Napa. We arrived at the Hampton Inn in Vacaville and decided to take a two hour nap. We both were wiped out with all of the heat and wine drinking.

For a late dinner we headed to Freebirds and then went to Baskin Robbins for an ice cream cone.

Sunday morning, we drove to downtown Sacramento to visit Total Wines and More. It is a store that has opened up in Dallas recently and has some GREAT prices on wine. There are lots of locations in California..so we thought we'd check out the prices for some of our favorites. We ended up purchasing 6 bottles of wine at low prices, plus an additional discount of 10% for buying 6 bottles. We were prepared and had brought our wine shipment boxes with us and packed them in our suitcase.

We arrived home on Sunday night with all 7 bottles of wine in tact! YAY!! Plus free shipping as both Doug and I have the benefit of free bags on American Airlines now.  See all our souvenirs below:

The only bad part of this mini-vacation, was arriving home on Sunday night to a house that was 89 degrees. Apparently our new air conditioner, installed in April 2012, was not working properly.  The fan was working but not the compressor. Local temperatures were 105-105 while we were gone and our a/c unit had over heated and burnt some necessary wire.  Luckily I'm married to quite the handy man and he was able to get it running before the night was over. The a/c repairman was called on Monday morning and hopefully he can get to the bottom of why our unit is overheating on Tuesday.

Shingles?

Doug has had a rash for a few days now. The rash started on his left side and has moved around to the left side of his back.  We think it is probably shingles, since it seems to be all in a line on the left side of his torso. His other symptoms he describes are tiredness, body aches, headache and he thinks he might have had a fever for a short time yesterday. He mostly states like it feels like he has a cold in that area of his body.

The doctor has given him Triamcinolone .5% (a corticosteroid cream) to apply to the affected areas and Valtrex 1GM to take orally twice a day.

The rash is very itchy, but he's not having the stabbing pain usually associated with this disease.

Boston Concert

Can you feel that? Oh no, wait, it’s more than a feeling. Yes, that’s right — while work on its long-delayed sixth studio album continues, Boston is returning to the road for a summer tour.

Boston is an American rock band from Boston, Massachusetts that achieved its most notable successes during the 1970s and 1980s. Centered on guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter, and producer Tom Scholz, the band is a staple of classic rock radio playlists. Boston's best-known works include the songs "More Than a Feeling", "Cool the Engines", "Walk On", "Smokin'", "Don't Look Back" and "Amanda". They have sold over 50 million albums worldwide, including 31 million albums in the United States.

Last night, we attended the Boston concert @ the Verizon Theater in Grand Prairie.
This was a present for Doug's birthday last month.
The concert was awesome!!!

WELCOME

My previous blog ran out of space for photos. I deleted two years worth of posts and it still would not let me create a blog entry....so I've created a new blog.

http://www.the-kuklenz-familyv2.blogspot.com/

Welcome to my new blog, I hope you are enjoying all the stories!