October/November/December:

Back from Australia, we joined a consultation with our fellow Bahá'ís at a meeting called a "Cluster Reflection" meeting at which it was proposed by the two youth who have been running the children's class at Hamiltion (see the entry for Jan/Feb 2010) that they use our house and invite some of the many children in the area here for classes. At Hamilton, the classes continued to be held outdoors in rain or shine, because none of the parents had taken an interest in them, and were using them as baby-sitters while they did laundry or whatever. So for two weekends in late Sept and Oct, Sherna and I, the two youth, their parents and a few other friends walked around our immediate blocks meeting neighbors and inviting them to be part of a neighborhood class. Since then, every weekend an average of 5 or 6 local children, and 3 or 4 of their mothers, plus a couple of Bahá'í families have been arriving on our doorstep every Saturday at around 10.30 am for a morning of love, laughter and learning. It has been really sweet and we think Margaret Tutu Hough must be thrilled and supporting it from the "other side". The mother's sit at the table and learn in English what the same quotes, prayers and stories that the children are learning. They are all from South America and of Catholic background, although we have also had our Muslim Saudi Arabian tenant join us a few times which has been fascinating. Some days we've had over 20 people in the house. A funny little side note, is that this winter it has rained practically every Saturday morning so the youth running the class are so glad to be in a nice warm house - on really cold grey days we even light the fire! :)

July/August/September

On 28 July we headed off for Australia and Vanuatu to catch up with Bryn's family for 3 weeks. A couple of weeks after our return on 21 August, Bill Hough went back into ICU and on September 22nd passed away

March/April/May June

Spent much of the time in and out of Kaiser Hospital in Terra Linda as Bill Hough continued his battle with Luekemia.

Gave up on the little blue Nissan and had it towed away and donated to Charity. Bonnie, Sherna's sister put me in contact with one of her co-workers who's father was about to donate his 1995 Suburu Legacy wagon, so had a look and offered them $500 for it which they accepted happiy. A new alternator got rid of the terrible noise and it has been doing great.

Jan/February 2010

Used our camper van as a mobile children's class room for the few little boys who continued to show up for something to do that was different on a Saturday morning in Hamilton estates, Novato. El Nino weather conditions continued to cause good rains, making the heated and dry van a nice attraction for the little kids.

Continued work on the house. Finished and painted Tutu's room and moved into it - finished and painted our old room, and our long term house guest, Cem, moved into it. Advertised for, and secured tenants for the new apartment downstairs. Got rid of heaps of furniture from the garage that we had been saving for the new apartment, but didn't need since tenants had there own. Started to clear the garage. Ordered replacement engine and transmission for the little blue Nissan - but it got lost in snow storms on the East Coast and after 3 weeks the company refunded our money. It had taken 3 months to find the engine and transmission - the only one in the US for a 1988, 4wd, 5 speed manual, throttle body injected, 1.6 L , 4 cyinda Nissan Sentra - and they lose it in a snow storm!

Decided we needed a winter break and headed for Costa Rica in Feb for a week. See http://deamer.org/CR