Merry Christmas from Gary & Debbie
Hello and Merry Christmas from the Wideners. Just a little letter here to kinda give you an idea of what’s been happening around here. First….where is here? Well, earlier this year we decided to move some of our business to Nevada. Since I have always had a soft spot in my heart (wallet) for Vegas…that was the logical choice. As a strange coincidence Jenn had been thinking of moving from Southern California to Las Vegas as well. Deb decided she wanted to stay in California so Jenn and I bought a little house (actually almost 1900 sq ft) and set up shop. While I keep saying Vegas actually we live in Henderson but we are about 300 yards from Las Vegas. It is basically across the street from our neighborhood. I began the several month process of moving the businesses and than started a new business which invests in real estate. Jenn and I also transferred our residency to Nevada. We are all settled in and I commute between Lodi and LAS every couple weeks. Deb is still in CA but visits often for 4 day weekends. Aside from work, we have found lots of things to keep us busy in LAS, we go to a show at least once a week (thanks to showtickets4locals.com and houseseats.com) visit the blackjack tables at MGM every couple weeks and even went to the Christmas lights on cactus display at Ethyl M’s.
Our businesses have been fortunate in that we have stayed relatively busy and have not had to let too many people go. In fact we hired three people for full time positions this year. We still see our customers cutting back but have developed some new products which we hope will be good for 2011. Oh yeah, we have two really nice houses for sale if anyone is interested. Jenn will be taking over the online business next year which include furniture, Halloween costumes, sports plaques and puppets. Las Vegas has been great for our online sales because of all the conventions hosted there. We attend a couple shows per month (some just for fun) and have made some good contacts.
The company Deb works for, Lodi Nut Company was purchased in the fall by Specialty Commodities from North Dakota. She plans to continue working for them. In addition to the Trips to Vegas, Deb still enjoys her year round swimming. With me gone two weeks per month, she has been doing things with her brother Bruce, like trips to San Francisco and kayak trips down the Mokelumne river. Deb and I are planning a trip to Alaska or Hawaii for next year.
We took a trip to Death Valley this year (during the hottest week of the year) and at the visitors center saw a thermometer which read “it is 121 in the shade.” At one point we went for a little hike and then realized, what are we doing, got back in the air conditioned car and continued on in the car. We did have fun at Scotty’s Castle. We have the back yard pretty much finished except for our spa which is being delivered next week. We also upgraded our phones when I moved so if any of you have facetime, let us know!
Over the past three years we have been accumulating lights and equipment for Halloween and Christmas displays. This is the first year we have had enough to really have anything. It was a lot of work but fun. We only had to add 2000’ of wire (yes 2000’) and 18 strands of lights this year. We have already purchased 8 more strands of lights for next year (on sale for half price) but decided not to put them up this year. We stand at about 4900 lights up this year (plus 4000’ feet of wire) and will have over 6000 lights next year.
As I said earlier, Jenn moved to Las Vegas with me. She currently works for Trader Joe’s but is also working to open a karate studio. While she continues to advance in rank, she is taking management classes from the organization she works with and teaches a couple classes per week. I still think I can take her but that is just my opinion. One of the fun things, Jenn made friends with one of the band members in Blue Man Group and we got some awesome tickets plus Jenn got her name on the reader board. Marc still lives here in Lodi and works at S-Mart. He is planning to paint his condo next year and has the tile to do his kitchen, dining room and front bathroom floors, just needs to get the energy to install it. I may even help….will see.
The pet report of course. We adopted out all the finches, including the four breeding pairs so our bird flock is down to six (down from over 40) …parrot (beau), cockatoo (sammi) three cockatiels (killer, dodo & kyle) and a grey cheek (max.) The blue crown (cody) is still lives with Jenn. We got two ferrets (weasel & zoey) about a month ago. They are great fun. They have two speeds, hyper and death sleep. The pic is of Weasel at 8 weeks old.
Well that’s our story and we are sticking to it. Drop us a line if you haven’t already or give us a call or facetime or email or whatever. Hope your Christmas is great.
Cheers! Gary & Debbie Widener
email: beaucarr@sonic.net
photos & videos: http://www.beaucarr.com