On March 8th we became new first time grandparents. Our son Justin and his wife Natalie had their first child, Eliot Reed Strom. They are living in Zurich this year but the Swiss are stingy with citizenship so Eliot will not have two passports. For those of you thinking of having a baby overseas, I recommend Switzerland. They keep the mothers in the hospital for at least 5 days for a normal birth. They fed the parents gourmet food and they felt they were in a first class hotel and didn't want to leave. Of course, now they are home trying to figure out schedules and getting into the swing of the parenting thing.

Susan and I will be visiting Eliot and his parents the end of April. We can't wait.

On the inn front, we have been busy with a lot of advance reservations for the spring. Our new innkeeper Dixia, a French import who also speaks Spanish and Italian, is a great addition to our innkeeping family. It's always great to have someone view the business with new eyes and ideas.

I am sending out monthly newsletters with specials and upcoming events. You can subscribe on the web site. I will also try to find a way to post them on the blog each month.

Whale Festival

Yesterday we had another successful Whale Festival in Mendocino and at the Whitegate Inn in particular. We had about 250 people visit us for some excellent wine poured by Cole Bailey Vineyards and the best food around. We served dates wrapped in bacon, rugelach, baked brie wrapped in pastry and stuffed with cranberry or carmelized onions. We also had extravagant fruit trays and other goodies. People said we easily had the best spread in the Village. The weather also was perfect, bright sun, no clouds and balmy tempertures.

The weekend was also special because some of our favorite repeat guests were visiting, Larry and Pam Youngman. They brought two other couples with them and we all enjoyed each other. Larry is as much into wine (or more so) as I am and I always look forward to sharing his new special finds. Tonight it will be my turn to try to wow him with my special wines.

The new web site is being very well received though more than one person thought my innkeeper Katharine was my wife Susan. We are all like fmaily here but that is going too far.