Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Our first Family Trip!!!

During my family leave, we took our first road trip as a family. We decided to visit our friends, Mark and Esther and their beautiful 1 year old daughter, Amelia. Dominic, our son, was only 3 weeks old at the time. They live in Chico, California. Since we were already going that far into Ca. we decided to go to Yosemite and then to the bay area to visit my dad and Dominic's grandpa. We decided to take our time and come back when we wanted to. No time limits at all.

So we headed out on a Monday and began our open ended trip. We spent a few days in Chico visiting with Mark Esther and Amelia. We had a great time with them and they were very gracious hosts. This was the first time we saw their daughter. We had not seen Mark and Esther for 4 long years. We realized we were being bad friends. We will not wait that long again. Amelia was a lot of fun and very interested in Dominic. She was just learning to walk and was very entertaining. It was a very nice visit. We will not wait 4 years to see our friends again.

Now it was off to Yosemite. Neither of us had ever been to Yosemite before. We were very excited to see all the beauty it had to offer. We had our hikes all picked out before we got there. We love to hike. We stayed in one of the cabins in Yosemite valley. The cabin was located in Curry village. we were very close to everything we needed staying there. We decided to bring our breakfast and lunches with us and eat dinner there at one of the restaurants. That worked out well for packing the food. there was a lot less to worry about. Dominic was a great traveler. Sleeping most of the way, sometimes 4-5 hours at a time. We missed a turn or two on the way but we finally ended up at entrance to Yosemite. We were very eager to see the beauty of the park. We began driving down the road to the valley and were a little unimpressed. We made it through the first tunnel and were blown away with the first siting of El capitan and Half Dome. Words can not describe the beauty of this valley. We arrived in late May. A great time to go by the way. The weather was perfect and the many waterfalls were spectacular. We spent a few days hiking all around the park with little Dominic strapped to the front of us. He slept most of the time while we hiked. We hiked about ten miles while we were there. Keep in mind, Molly had given birht to Dominic only a few weeks before all of this hiking. People were blown away that she was doing so much so soon after giving birth. Everyone was very inpressed. We got a lot of attention because of how small Dominic was. We are training him to be an outdoor kid.

It was hard to leave such a beautiful place. We finally left and headed down to the bay area to visit my dad. We longed to be back in Yosemite when we saw the brown hills and smoggy sky of the Silicon Valley. We were there to visit family so we braved it for them. We arrived much earlier than we had planned so had to kill some time. We drove around for a while taking Molly on a tour of my boyhood homestead. It was interesting to see how it had all changed in the last 25 years. We had a great visit with my dad and his wife Ruth. They fed us well and made sure we were comfortable. The next day we went and visited my aunt Janan and uncle Harry who live in Campbell. They were very excited to meet Dominic. We had lots of fun with them too. We spent a few hours with them and then decided to go to Santa Cruz. We both love the beach. It was not very hot in Santa Cruz so we drove a long the coastline. We stopped at a popular surf spot where they had a surf contest going on. We watched the contest for a while. I missed hanging out in Santa Cruz. I spent a lot of time there as a kid and teenager. We headed back over to my dad's house for a nice dinner with my dad and Ruth and my step brother Daniel and step sister Canela. A good time was had by all.

All in all we had a great trip. We had a great time with our visiting and sight seeing. We highly recommend going to Yosemite sometime in your life. It is impossible to describe it's beauty. Everywhere you look is like looking at a postcard. We still talk about it and can't believe we had not been there before now. I lived in the bay area most of my life. I had no idea that such a beautiful place like Yosemite was just 4 hours away. We will be going back next year for sure.



Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Little baby Dominic Joel Bermea has arrived!!!!!


As of April 26th, 2008, I am a Daddy!! Our son was born on this monumental day. Molly did great before during and after the delivery. She is so strong. She started having contractions on saturday, the 26th, morning. I was out at the race track in the morning. By the time I got home it was time to start timing the contractions. I wanted to stay home for a few more hours so I could watch the hockey game that was on. We made it through two periods of hockey and decided we better get to the hospital. They have a nice plasma tv in the delivery room so I did not miss much of the game. We arrived at the hospital close to 2 pm. We made our phone calls to our mom's and Molly's good friend Jen. Jen is a delivery nurse at RVMC. She was a great help.

Molly was dialated to 6cm. by the time she was first checked. The nurses figured since this is her first baby it would take a long time to deliver. Molly was alert and still smiling all the way up to 7cm. At about 5pm the contractions got harder and she began to do her breathing and focus on her pain meter. Thanks to Jen Nidalmia for that great birthing tool. Jen Nidalmia is a midwife and the wife of my friend Randy. Molly went from 7-10 cm. very quickly. Her water still had not broken. When Molly was fully dialated, the nurses still thought it could be hours until the baby was delivered. Molly has always been an over achiever. At about 5:45pm Molly's water broke and she was ready to push. The only problem was our Dr. was out of town and the on call Dr. was in surgery. The nurses asked her not to push! Molly was ready to push so she did not wait long to do so. The second on call Dr. showed up just in time to see the baby moving down the birth canal. Molly pushed so well that in less than 15 minutes from her water breaking Little baby Dominic was here. He was born at 6pm sharp.

Everyone from the nurses to the Dr's were very impressed with how Molly was able to push. It was a very fast delivery. We were at the hospital about four hours and our baby was with us already. I still can't believe how fast Molly was able to deliver our first lovely child. She never ceases to amaze me. Thank you Molly for taking such care with our boy. You are an awesome Mother.

Dominic came out and had to be intibated to get him breathing strong. After a few minutes he was in mom's arms. He was very alert and curious. He was also very strong, like his mom. He could already lift his head off of Molly's chest. Most babies sleep a long time when they are first born. Dominic was up for at least 4 hours visiting with all of his family. We had about 15 people visit us the first night. It was a lot of fun. It was great that Molly delivered in the early evening and not in the middle of the night. We were able to leave the hospital the very next morning. Once again due to how strong Molly is and how quickly she is able to heal. We checked out at 11am and brought baby Dominic home for the first time.....








Saturday, April 5, 2008

Roxy Ann Hike and Bike and Dan's Birthday!!


This Sunday March 30, Molly and her family and I went for an adventure up Roxy Ann. Roxy Ann is a 2.5 mile uphill hike in Medford. Molly her Mom and brothers all hiked the trail up the mountain. Keep in mind that Molly is 8 months pregnant! She is crazy. Molly's dad, Dan, and I decided to ride our mountain bikes up it for an extra challenge and some muddy fun. The weather was mostly sunny with snow falling over the valley. It was a great vantage point to see the snow drifting through the valley. When we left my house in Central Point, it was snowing. It is not common to snow in the valley in late March.

We arrived at the base of the trail and the sun was shining on us. The hikers began their ascent and Dan and I prepared for the big climb. After we were clothed properly for the ride we set off up the trail. It was a difficult first few hundred yards. I have not done any mountain biking for several years, let alone a significant climb like this one. Dan, on the other hand, rides about 50 miles per week. He is quite studly, for an old dude. As we past the hiking party we were getting into a groove and peddling steadily up the hill. We got about a mile up and I suggested we take a downhill muddy single track back down to the main trail. Then we could climb back up and catch the hikers. The trail we found was steep narrow and muddy. Lots of fun! We made it down with not much trouble. We ended up very muddy and that was fine with us. Our brakes and tires were stuffed with the sticky mess. At least the brakes worked well enough to slow us down on our steep descent. It was a blast. It was my idea to go down the track and then go back up to meet the hiking party. So, I was the only one to blame for the pain I was feeling as we were making the climb back up. It was a lot tougher than I had thought it would be. I was getting a little too cocky thinking I could climb back up as easily as before. It was much tougher the second time around.


I thought we would catch the hikers a lot sooner than we did. When we finally did catch them, we were at a rest stop with a very full port-a-potty. We won't go into that story. After a short rest for some water and a Gu pack for energy, we were off on our separate ways again. The hikers ran across a big Southern Oregon Blue backed Monkey, very rare at this time of year. The hiking crew went up on a narrow uphill trail to reach the summit and Dan and I took the main trail. We met up with them close to the top where the trails merged back into eachother. I was so proud of Molly for making all the way up. Both groups found some snow on the way up. There was still some residual snow left over from a previous storm. It was a very beautiful hike/ride to the top. Once we reached the top we got a chance to relax and have some snacks and refuel. The views from the top are spectacular.
Great views or what?

The hikers and the bikers. Great fun was had by all. Sadly this is our last weekend of hiking with the Molly Monster. She is now having to rest until "D" day,delivery. So no more hikes for her. But once lil Dominic is here he will be seeing all of the beauty that Southern Oregon has to offer. Thanks family for a great hike and Happy Birthday Dan... my new mountain biking partner...

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Great time to buy!




We are already seeing end of year type incentives for our current 2008 vehicles. It seems like we just received our first 2008 vehicles only a couple months or so ago. The manufacturers are giving great incentives on our current inventory. We do still have a few 2007 Mitsubishis and Volvos in our inventory. As you can imagine, these vehicles have been drastically reduced in price.




We need all kinds of vehicles for our customers who want pre-owned vehicles as well. So we are paying what we need to to get nice trade ins to fill our pre-owned inventory. We have seen a drop in rates as well. Seems like the banks are aggressively seeking auto financing at this time. We have more than 20 banks and credit unions that we work with. So please feel free to call on me if you would like to entertain the idea of upgrading your current vehicle. Thank you for viewing my blog and I hope to hear from you soon. John

Friday, February 29, 2008

2 Months and Counting!!!



Well we have officially hit the 2 months until baby time frame. We have our baby classes this weekend. We are very excited to go to the birthing classes. We are realizing that we have to buy a lot of baby accessories. We are going to Target tomorrow to shop for car seats and strollers. We are registering for the baby shower too while we are there. We still have a lot of work to do on the baby room. We figure that we have at least a few months left to get it ready. We still don't have a crib yet either. The plan is to get Molly's old crib from her parent's house. We are hoping it is in good enough shape. Molly is still doing great. She is still exercising and staying active. She is very strong and unlike anyone I know. She is a Monster.



We are planning a fun trip up to Portland at the end of March to go to the Zoo and OMSI with some very dear friends, Hollee and her daughter Lillee. That should be a fun trip. We will be up there for a few days and plan on seeing it all. They have a Dinosaur display at OMSI while we are there. We are taking Lillee with us and she is going to be 10 in April. She is very excited for the trip. She has never been to the Oregon Zoo before. We are hoping that it does not rain while we are up there. We will make the most of it if it does though.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

SOIC- Southern Oregon Impreza Club




A few of us here at Southern Oregon Subaru have started an Impreza club. We know there are a lot of Impreza tuners in the area. We are hoping to get a solid group of us and eventually set up some driving events. We already have about a dozen of us in the club. Most of us plan on racing out at the autocross course out at the Raceway here. Should be a lot of fun. We meet every Monday night at Sonic at 7:30 p.m. All Impreza's welcome. Hope to see you there! Check out our temporary website and give us some contact info so we can keep you informed of club events.

The latest adventures of John and Molly!



Thank you for visiting my blog. I hope to keep all who are interested up to date on my life and my business. We have a lot of exciting things on the near horizon. Including our first child expected in late April. It's a boy!! His name is Dominic Joel Bermea. Molly, my lovely wife, has been a real trooper through her pregnancy. She has continued to stay active and has had a very event free pregnancy. No morning sickness or anything. She is amazing!


This is us in Rome. We were there in Dec. 07 and had a wonderful time. We did a Volvo Overseas Delivery and were to travel through Europe for a couple weeks. It's a great way to buy a new Vovlo and travel to Europe. We had a great time and great weather for the time of year we went. Feel free to call me if you have any further questions about the Overseas Delivery program.