Interest 1  Raising a happy, healthy and successful child, who grows up to be a happy, healthy and successful adult. Melissa is thriving in  school. She  finished  the second year of Kindergarten  (K5), during June 2007 and began  First Grade during August 2007. She is completely bilingual and speaks both  English and Spanish fluently. In K5, she learned how to read and write in Spanish. In First Grade, she is learning to read and write in English, which is the second language of most of her classmates. All of her teachers have wonderful things to say about her, on her report cards.

Interest 2 Increasing our family income. Lanny's retirement income is in U.S. Dollars and we have lost approximately 60% of our purchasing power, due to the very weak Dollar, during the past several years.  

Interest 3 Replacing the roof on our  house, in the most cost effective way possible.  With the exception of the roof, we are very happy with our  house and the location.  We have been living in this house since March 2004.  We had minor repairs made to the roof, at the front and rear of the house. The repair at the front was very successful. In the Master Bedroom, we continue to have bad leaks, during heavy thunderstorms.

Interest 4 Animals: Dogs and a 43 year old Parrot.  We have two medium size dogs. One is a Samoyed,  the other is a German Shepherd.  A former neighbor gave Pilar a Toy Pincher and we now have seven (7) of those. 

Interest 5 Astronomy - Pilar has been interested  in Astronomy for many years. She has an  8" Celestron "Star Hopper" Dobsonian telescope. Our  home is only 15 minutes from our former home, but the air here is  much cleaner, which is a big advantage for astronomy and probably  for our health too. She is using the KStars Desktop Planetarium program in the KDE Desktop for Linux, for her Astronomy interest.

Interest 6 Amateur radio - Lanny got his first amateur radio license at the age of 12.  His HF transceiver needs repair and he hopes to be back on the air in the near future.  

Interest 7 Lanny has become  interested in raffles. He's won nine (9) in the superstore where we shop in Cali. The first was during September 2002, and the most recent was on 15 May  2005. Included were: 2 computers, a 34" TV (32" in the USA and Canada) with a  Home Theater, and a  Refrigerator.  On 24 December 2006, Lanny won a 3 wheel battery powered Prinsel motorcycle, made in Mexico, for Melissa, in a store in our  town. The probability  of winning the lottery is very small, but these raffles are a much easier way to be a "winner". If you do not participate, you will never win! The raffles in Colombia require that one purchase a product, but many of the  purchasers do not bother to participate.

Interest 8 Cooking - Pilar is a gourmet cook. 

Interest 9 Travel in Colombia and the USA.  Our best vacations have been to Orlando, Las Vegas, Dallas/Ft. Worth and a very unexpected side trip to Southern California, to visit family Lanny hadn't seen for 39  years. 

Interest 10 Studying  (Pilar - University courses),  (Lanny - Linux).  Pilar   was taking Distance Learning courses from the Universidad del Valle ("Univalle"), but she dropped out, due to the construction of our new house. She has an excellent G.P.A.  When Lanny opens a book about Linux, he always learns new things.

Interest 11 Gardening - Pilar is very good at this. She has a "Green thumb".