…summer in the city…walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head.”
I’m in Southern California for their most recent heat wave with red alerts and warnings being issued left and right. Temperatures over 100 degrees are about 25 degrees above my comfort zone! When I get home on Tuesday to the cooler Northwest I’ll fill you in on all the hot doings down here.
Hope your days are moving along nicely.
We are flying to Southern California for a wedding on a Blueberry Ranch Northeast of Santa Barbara. We meet up at LAX (Los Angeles International Airport) with our daughter Katie who is flying from North Carolina. Our flights arrive 30 minutes apart. We’ll head north to our hotel and then on Saturday go farther North picking up Josh and Laura who are flying into Santa Barbara and on to the wedding we will go.
On Sunday we will trek across L.A. headed east to visit with my mom and pop before we fly home on Sunday evening. A whirlwind trip covering many miles on the 101 Fwy and interstate 5. It will be nice to be with my family and friends at Caleb and Marie’s wedding and have a visit with my mom and pop before we all head home on Sunday night. Katie will head back to North Carolina just in time for Andrew’s return from a month long training. As a dear friend of mine has coined…”Life is Rich”!
The photo above was taken by my sister Lana on Thursday night at the apartment. My niece Melissa was celebrating her birthday with my mom and enjoying strawberry cupcakes! A very special birthday to remember…
I’ll be sharing lots of photos of the newlyweds soon…
My computer will not be traveling with me so I’ll check in with y’all on Monday! Have a lovely weekend!
The days here at home are short for me before I take off to Canada for our book launch so I’m going to try to capture the beauty of our time celebrating with family and friends in Southern California in my next few posts. There will be a lot of photos because a lot happened and a lot of people were together that aren’t together very often. So get your scrolling finger ready!
They arrived in waves to John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana on Thursday. Katie had to fly into LAX and I’m happy to report that the freeways proved smooth sailing for my drive to pick her up. We arranged a meeting at the hotel to get together with Dear’s only brother’s family. The only one who was missing was our oldest niece Jenna who lives in New York with her husband and daughter.
The restaurant at the hotel was very dark so you’ll have to excuse my photos!
We had such a good time together catching up and laughing. It was good to hug and console My SIL Christina as her mother Virginia Wicks just passed away at age 92. Chris shared some things she has come across while she and one of her brothers have been sorting through Virginia’s papers. You can read about the amazing roll Virginia played as a publicist and in the jazz world in particular by clicking here and here. She was also one of the Goldwyn Girls and was featured on one of the covers of Look magazine in 1954.
Our beautiful nieces and sweet grandniece and more shots of our families together in the past year…
No matter how much fun it is to go away and enjoy family and friends it’s always good to come home again.
Josh, Laura and I flew back to Washington from John Wayne Airport today and it is so good to be home again. We came home to sunshine and clear views. I’ll be sharing all about the celebrations we enjoyed while we were in California soon. In the meantime the lawn needs mowing and I need to catch up with the laundry. What’s happening at your house?
…from my postcards. Because it snowed this morning in Milan and the weather is overall cold and wet I have some spare time on my hands today and decided I’d go back to sunny Southern California and continue on my posts from my niece Debbee’s shower. Later today a postcard will pop up from the opera house so I thought my interlude title for this post was appropriate.
The shower decor…
My niece Michelle hand made these cute little jar candles for each guest to take home.
Fresh flowers from the L.A. Flower market that my niece Melissa arranged in several different containers.
The gift table…
Niece Jessica made the shower cloud with rain drops…
Michelle or Melissa or both of them made this ribbon banner.
The main ideas for the shower were from Michelle and Melissa and they called on family and friends to gather up the items needed to pull it off. Many hands contributed to putting the ideas into the final result. Working together with my family is always a fun time. Thank you Michelle for opening your home to us for this special event.
2 more days in Milan and then we make the long trip home. Hope y’all are doing well…
My niece Debbee’s shower was so lovely. The embroidered pillow Katie and I traveled to Canada to purchase from Winks Home Garden & Gifts was a big hit.
We are still running down here in Southern California. I’ll share detailed shots from the trip and shower sometime soon. We fly home tonight. Hope all is well in your corner of the world!
This past Mondayafter visiting my folks at their apartment in Brea I headed for the freeway and spotted The Hat. I enjoy a good pastrami sandwich so I decided to pull through the drive-thru to order one.
The Famous Pastrami Dip Sandwich was my choice for the day.
They don’t skimp on the size and the pastrami portion. I could only eat half.
I got my sandwich in this bag and noticed The Hat is as old as I am. It seemed fitting for this old girl born in California in 1951 to enjoy a sandwich from a company that’s survived and thrived for over 61 years in California.
I’m back from Canada and the Border Agents going and coming were very nice to me as usual. My time in Canada was filled with lots of good conversation and good food, oh my! My Dear is in Vienna right now and I’ll be interested in hearing about the food he’ll be eating. He’s there for a conference and won’t have much time for sight seeing but he does hope to see as much as his free time allows.
Have a good weekend everyone. I’m recuperating and laying low for the rest of today.
The reason I originally made travel arrangements for Southern California was to attend a lifelong friend’s baby shower. Her mother and I were best Russian buddies in our college years and onward. Our families attended the same Russian Baptist church in Los Angeles. We sang in the Russian Youth Choir and in the 70’s we were in a Christian Rock Band that toured England in the summers. Heidi sang at Dear and my wedding. Lots of history.
The theme that my friend Heidi and the new mom-to-be, Nikki, decided on was a nautical one. Perfect for celebrating the soon to arrive little boy.
Heidi and Ken have a beautiful home in the Orange Hill area of Southern Calfiornia.
This is the mother-to-be, Nicole. When she was born she lived across the street from us.
My friend Heidi and Nicole.
The food was delicious and listed on a fun Nikki Cravings Menu.
These are all my sisters with me. My SIL and two of my nieces were also at the shower.
My girlfriend Jeanie who married my cousin Jim was there, too. Our friendships intersect with a lot of people from church, the rock group and extended families.
We arrived for the shower in bright sunshine, sat down to our meal in the shade of the early evening, and left when the sun was setting…
It’s nice to be back home with Dear. I was upgraded to first class again and had a nice conversation with an ER doctor who sat next to me on the plane.
My Wednesday will be busy as I’m getting ready to travel to Canada on Thursday. I’ll be scarce till Friday. Hope all is well where you are…
On Sunday morning I met up with Cori G. from Brambleberry Cottage for some Kean Coffee and a stroll around Whimsy’s Flea Market in Old Town Tustin.
The Whimsy shop was fun to stroll through out of the sun…
It was sunny, muggy, and very hot but we persevered and managed to see most every vendor’s wares. I even bought 6 pink goblets. Hmmm…I have to pack them in my suitcase. I hope they survive.
Cori was a good sport and posed for my camera at the little chapel in the Flea Market lot. It was very good to catch up a bit with my bloggy friend.
Another fun looking shop in the the Old Town area of Tustin.
When I got back to my niece’s townhome I ended up going out to lunch with her and her fiance. They will announce their wedding date at our family gathering tonight. After lunch I was picked up by my sisters to head to a baby shower for a lifelong friend of ours. I’ll post about that tomorrow. Tomorrow I fly home and it looks like they upgraded me to first class again. Oh what a treat that is.
My first night in California my family got together for a build your own taco night.
I decided this was a good time to spring this new dessert idea on them.
Have you seen these caramel bits? I found them at Target and it’s great not to have to unwrap each individual caramel to melt them. The recipe for these treats is at Very Culinary. I used pecan pieces instead of cashews or peanuts. I wasn’t in my own kitchen when I made these. The next time I make them I’ll chop the nuts finer and the result will be prettier. They still were delicious chunky and disappeared quickly.
My parents made their first outing since my mom’s stroke and came to the taco party. It was nice to have them there and it was good for them to get out of the apartment.
The evening ended with this beautiful sunset in Orange, California.
Sunday was a full day and I’ll share later. Hope the beginning of Fall has been good to you.
