Rick spent 15 years in electronics in Silicon Valley. In 1985 we moved out of Silicon Valley into the small town of Benicia and started our own business in the swimming pool service industry. Rick worked the business full time and Mary helped while working full time for Pacific Telephone. After about five years and after 23 years with Pac Bell she quit and went to work full time with Rick in running the family business. The business grew from a small family affair to 18 employees and having trained people running the show so we have more freedom to enjoy life outside of work. We have three grown sons. Our youngest is married and gave us our first grandson in January of 2005. What a wonderful time of life! In the winter of 1999 we found an awesome 5-acre property in the beautiful rolling foothills of Northern California in an area just out of the town of Vacaville. We had always wished that we had had parents with property and animals so our boys could visit their grandparents on the “ranch or farm”. Since that was not the case, we are making it happen for our grandkids. But what kind of animals? Then while visiting family in Oregon we were introduced to the most magical creatures. Llamas. They had sheep and had gotten a couple of llamas to use as guards. Later during that same visit, we were sitting in the old Hotel in downtown Jacksonville, Oregon and what to our surprise we saw a man walking a llama right down the main street with a large red white and blue top hat and a stars and strips blanket across its back. Kids were running up to see the llama and he just stood like a rock and let them touch him. He was magnificent! Right then and there we knew we wanted LLAMAS!! When we returned home after that visit, we looked in the papers, no llamas for sale. Then we went into the yellow pages and found one listing for llamas and guess what, they were right here in Vacaville! We called and made an appointment with Margaret and Don Ricci of Stonehenge llamas and ended up purchasing our first two girls, Heartburn of Stonehenge  a beautiful multi colored medium wool and Tsunamii, an awesome traditional short wool in solid black. That was the beginning of our obsession! Four months later Rick got us two more medium wools for Valentines Day. Margaret Ricci then introduced us to the world of Llama Shows by literally signing Mary up for six events showing the last two girls we had just gotten from her. We hadn’t even seen a llama show let alone participate in one, but Mary had a blast and off we went. We have been so fortunate to have people like Margaret & Don Ricci. Margaret has been so instrumental in opening up this magical world to us. She introduced us to Cal-Ila, LANA & ALSA.   In fact, as of 2005, Mary is on the Board of Directors for Cal-Ila. Everyone we have met in the llama industry has been wonderful.   We have made such great new friends who are also obsessed with these magical creatures. Between September 2004 and May of 2005, our herd grew from four girls to thirteen girls, three geldings and three males. We even have five girls pregnant. Our first babies are due in the summer of 2005; four are bred to Kobra’s Phantom aka “Tommy”.   Both of us are extremely excited to have our first cria born on our ranch. What a magical time in our lives! In May of 2005, we went for a Saturday afternoon drive with friends and ended up purchasing a 12-acre “ranch”, which was just perfect for our heavy wool llamas.  In just three days time, we purchased a place and sold our place in Vacaville, CA.   We were extremely fortunate to sell to the first couple that looked and moved within six weeks! Now, we have plenty of room to grow our herd and enjoy our wonderful family and friends. Life is great! Our only regret is that we didn’t discover Llamas earlier in our lives. Rick and Mary