Archive | October, 2023

Never Enough Toomans

31 Oct

As mentioned we have had 2 additions to the grandkid list since 2020, Our daughter Nikki and her husband Jake had 2 kids, William and Evelina Tooman. William is 2 years old turning 3 in January. Evie just turned 1 in August.

Finding out that Nikki was pregnant was fun also. Nikki and Jake had arranged to have their wedding photographer take family photos of each of the families and then a big group shots of all of us at the end. Just before the group photo Nikki and Jake produced a sign board that they told Elli to hold. We thought nothing of it, and the picture was taken. Then Nikki says “Elli what’s the board say?”

Elli turns the board and reads “Baby Tooman arriving January 2021” She then looks quizzically at the sign and then at Nikki. It takes a moment and then everyone finally realizes what Elli had just read and we got just a little excited. I was ecstatic, because I knew how much Nikki wanted to start a family. Little did I know that this would be the Tooman method for announcing pregnancies.

Our grandson was born during the joys of COVID-19 down in San Diego. Following his birth our daughter and her husband refused to tell us his name. Saying, “We will tell you when we get home.”

We were all obviously very curious, why the secrecy? We wondered. All I knew is that he wouldn’t be named after me, because I didn’t want my grandson to have to go through life with nobody being able to pronounce his name.

I grew up hating being called Lenny or little Lenny, and when I became an adult I couldn’t stand that everyone seemed to mispronounce my name as Leo-NARD! Not something I would ever wish on my grandson.

Well the big moment came the day they came home to their house, where EVERYONE was waiting. After Nikki and Jake climbed out of the car they opened the backdoor of their Jeep, reached in and pulled out their newest addition. Turning to us all they said, “Everyone, please meet William J. W. Tooman”.

I admit I cried, they had outsmarted me. William was named after me after all! They had just chosen to use my middle name. The amount of happiness and joy I felt when they said his name, can never fully be described. Needless to say I fell in love with him immediately.

By the time of Williams second Easter, Nikki was pregnant again. Her and Jake had already decided on the baby’s name. Again they decided to not tell anyone, instead they turned it into a game.

Every year we hide plastic eggs around the backyard, and let the kids go searching for them. We normally have a golden egg, that will have something special in it. Well this year Nikki and Jake declared that the finder of the golden egg would be given the privilege of telling everyone the babies name.

So the hunt was on. The kids went crazy looking for the golden egg, nobody could find it. Finally the girls were successful and Nikki gave them a board that spelled out her first name, EVELINA. The name was perfect.

They are developing into such fascinating and lovable characters. William has turned into quite a vehicle guy. Can’t get enough of trains, planes and automobiles. Every time I see him he wants to know where Papou’s car is and if nearby, he has to go ‘drive’ it. While ‘driving’ my car William likes to order me into different seats in the car. So I am constantly moving from the front to the back. Every once in a while he actually lets me ‘drive’.

Evie right now is busy exploring the world and is constantly on the move. Since she started walking she never wants to sit still. She is also terribly fascinated with our cat and is constantly wanting to pet her. Needless to say the cat isn’t too keen on that idea.

They are changing everyday and at least for this moment in time, they love their Papou….

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Boy have I been negligent.

25 Oct

3 years, I can’t believe I’ve been away from this that long. While I would love to blame this on being too busy, or suffering some horrible injury, the truth is I just didn’t think about it. Which looking back seems pretty careless of me.

So let’s see, where to begin. Like most people there is good news and bad news. Fortunately the good news far exceeds the bad news. So let’s get the bad out of the way first. Top of that list is my sister Bobbi passed away this year. She was probably among the kindest people I know and also the luckiest. I will talk more about her in a separate post.

I had previously been diagnosed with AFIB and had a cardiac ablation in 2021, which seems to help. Boy, I just wish I could cut back on all the meds I have to take. Although I shouldn’t complain, they are keeping me around so I can enjoy my grandkids.

Which leads me to the good news, I currently have 2 additions to the grandkid lists William and Evelina. William was born in January 2021 and Evelina in August 2022. They both are amazing kids and a joy to be around. To make this even better news our youngest daughter and family moved from San Diego to San Luis Obispo. While it was going to happen eventually, the fact that they moved up here in 2021 was awesome. Who would have thought one could be happy for a rental property to be infested with rats? Which is another story for another time.

hopefully I can do a better job of posting from this point forward. But only time will tell…

Annular Eclipse from Albuquerque 10/14/2023

25 Oct

For his birthday, my son-in-law Ron, wanted to witness the Annular Eclipse. I was totally on board with this desire. In 2017 I was lucky enough to witness a total eclipse while staying in the Grand Tetons. While that was amazing, the opportunity to view an annular eclipse seemed to good to pass up. While the total eclipse covered the sun completely, I thought seeing an eclipse where it would look like there was a hole in the sun would be pretty amazing as well.

So after a little research we decided to head to Albuquerque, New Mexico. As the drive was only 14 hours we decided that between the two of us it was the best way to get there as it allowed us to bring the camera gear we wanted.

We left on the 12th and planned to get to Albuquerque by around midnight. The trip started out poorly as Ron had ordered a solar filter which should have shown up before we left, but didn’t. So while I drove, he went online to order an inexpensive replacement that could be delivered the next day to our hotel. Our drive took us through Bakersfield, and up towards Tehachapi where we unfortunately were delayed for over an hour while they cleaned up the freeway from a truck fire, where the truck in question burned down to just pieces of the chassis. Because of this we ended up not getting into Albuquerque until 2 am. Fortunately since we had planned a whole extra day before the eclipse, we were able to just relax and not have to worry about this delay.

We spent the following day scouting locations and visiting the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History. This turned out to be quite en amazing location. Besides exhibits highlighting the Manhattan Project, it also had exhibits about the Japanese and German efforts to develop the Atom Bomb. Better yet they had a B-29 and B-52 bomber among their airplane exhibit area behind the main building.

While there Ron gets a notice that his replacement Solar Filter was refused by our hotel. Now the earliest he could get it would be the following Monday. So since plan A and B didn’t work we would now need a plan C, if he was going to photograph the eclipse.

We chose Petroglyph National Monument as our viewing site. So the next day, we arrived early at the park and managed to find a parking spot perfectly situated for our viewing.

View from Boca Negra Canyon

While I was able to take these photos using my Canon 6D Mark II, a 150 -600mm Tamron lens and the solar filter. Ron was still needing to come up with a way to take his own pictures.

We talked about sharing my lens and filter or just letting him take the photos from my camera. Fortunately another opportunity presented itself. While setting up our cameras a park ranger that we had talked with the day before happen to pass by and offer us solar filter viewing cards which provided a single strip of material that you could hold up and view the eclipse with without having to wear the cheap eclipse sunglasses. Turns out the strip was just large enough for him to use a camera filter.

Ron’s final eclipse solution

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