About Family & Friends

How lucky we are.
So many fun activities & gatherings with family and wonderful friends throughout the year.

Hover over each picture to see a brief description.

So many smiles... Thank you for making us happy!

          

Remembering Shuma Schmidt (the "Goober")
March 27th, 2008 to October 20th, 2018

Shuma was trained as a Canine Companion by Justine when Justine was in 7th grade. He was an exemplary student.
But it turned out he had a rare neurological disorder that occasionally made peeing difficult. This kept him from graduating,
and he joined the Schmidt clan instead.
One of the nicest, calmest dogs ever. Scared of mice (really!), but incredibly loving to everyone he met. We all miss him.

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Finally, we all worry about our contribution to Anthropogenic Climate Change, so we track our household's carbon
footprint each year. We're making steady progress from a high in 2005, and 2018 was another record low.
  Progress is largely due to reductions in air travel by Steve & Lisa.
Plus we have 100% carbon free electricity through our electric utility SVCE (Steve is on their board),
and we continue to eat less meat, bike more often, and drive our two EVs as much as possible.
We hope to make more progress by getting rid of our remaining gasoline vehicles and switching off natural gas
appliances to electric equivalents, like an induction cooktop and heat pumps.  It keeps getting easier.

Graph of
          Schmidt Household GHG emissions

Emissions factors used
1 kWh of SVCE electricity = 0.0 lbs CO2e                                   1 therm of natural gas = 13.5 lbs CO2e
1 gallon of gasoline = 20 lbs CO2e                                       1 passenger mile of air travel = 0.5 lbs CO2e
1 CCF (748 gallons) water in Bay Area = 2 lbs CO2e     1 passenger mile of train travel = 0.25 lbs CO2e
1 serving of Beef = 12 lbs (and 1 CCF of water); Cheese: 5.4 lbs; Pork = 4.8 lbs; Poultry = 2.8 lbs CO2e

Main - Justine - Eric - Lisa - Steve - Final