Tag Archives: Travel

Outdoor Wednesday ~ Laguna Beach

It’s time to join Susan at A Southern Day Dreamer for a look at the outside world around Bloggyland.

Last week I didn’t participate because I was away from my computer at Laguna Beach and then Disneyland. Today I’m sharing some shots I took walking along Heisler Park off Cliff Dr. in beautiful Laguna Beach, California.

 

 

 

 

 

The most Pelicans I’ve ever seen flying together in formation!

 

 

Enjoy the beautiful world God created for us today and everyday!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

3 Hours on the Road for Family Time…Priceless!

 

My parents with Miss Hope. My brother and our cousin Tanya. Tanya is my mother’s niece.

 

My mom is one great cook. She made us a Deviled Egg Casserole (yummy), these lovely vegetable and fruit trays and then she surprised us with Vareniki on top of everything else. We were all in culinary heaven! I’m going to get the Deviled Egg Casserole Recipe to share with y’all.

 

Miss Hope, My Sil Mandy, Raiya a Russian friend of ours and my cousin Tanya. Raiya flew down from Oregon to care for my cousin Tanya who is recuperating from surgery…

I left the house at 9:45 A.M. and got home at 3:30 P.M. All in all the California Freeways were kind to me today :0)

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Here I Go Again…

Hitting the 101 Fwy to I-5 continuing south to Orange County to see my parents and say goodbye to my brother, Mandy and Miss Hope. They fly back to Texas today.

 

It sure was fun seeing little Miss in action this past week.

Before I head out I wanted to share something we saw on a menu at the Country Cafe in Ventura this past weekend.

 

Nine Juan Juan! So clever. Dear, of course, ordered it and he thought it was quite tasty.

Can anyone say…heartburn!

Have a great day everyone and think of me as the drive back and forth on the Southern California Freeways!!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Debbee’s Birthday Dinner ~ Laguna Beach

On Tuesday 19 of us got together in Laguna Beach for our niece Debbee’s Birthday Dinner. Laguna Beach is a beautiful coastal city South of Newport Beach. I will be posting many of my beach photos from this beautiful area but for now I’ll pick this one…

 

I got to Laguna Beach earlier than everyone else and ended up taking a few hundred photos!!

 

Las Brisas is an upscale Mexican Restaurant without your typical combination platters or prices that you’d find at most other Mexican Restaurants. The view is gorgeous and the food was delicious.

 

Debbee, the guest of honor. Svetlana and Cvetlana (better known as Lana G!). The 4 sisters, Lana, Ellen, Kathy and Vera. The young people Michelle, Caleb, Levi, Jackson, Debbee, and Melissa. These are some of my nieces and nephews and my grand nephew.

 

The many faces of Miss Hope! She enjoyed the chips and some asparagus.

 

 

We left the restaurant making plans for some of us to meet up at Disneyland the following day. I’m getting that post ready and will hit publish soon!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Round Robin Photo Challenge ~ See the Music!

Welcome to the Round Robin Photo Challenge. This Saturday the theme is “See the Music”

You can be literal with this one, with photos of sheet music, musical instruments, stereo equipment etc., or more abstract, showing something that reminds you of a particular song. Illustrate a Rolling Stones lyric, or photograph your favorite local band, or catch your kid practicing the guitar or clarinet! If it’s suggestive of some kind of music, it counts!

The photos I’m posting are from a trip to Santa Barbara, California and Dallas, Texas…

This sculpture was just off State Street. See the store in the background called Mozart Trio?

 

This was taken at the Dallas Arboretum.

To see more Round Robin Photo Challenges on this subject visit the Round Robin Blog.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Blue Monday ~ Peacocks

Happy Blue Monday

When I drive across Los Angeles to visit my parents I always stop at the Target in Norwalk which is at the exit I take to get to their place. I stop because the trip is long, I’ve given birth to 3 children and this is a convenient spot to stop if you catch my drift. The unusual thing about this Target is what I’ve seen and heard in their parking lot more than once…

 

There is a really cool old farmhouse next door and peacocks that live behind the farmhouse. They hop the fence and stroll about the Target parking lot from time to time making their annoying loud calls.

 

I kept asking this guy if he’d kindly fan his feathers but he was not impressed with me and didn’t feel the need to show-off!

 

I’m always fascinated to watch these beautiful creatures with their iridescent feathers.

Blue Monday is hosted by Smiling Sally who hails from Florida. If you’d like to see more blue or to join in please click here.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Friday’s Fave Five ~ Family & Spring…

 

Oh these Friday’s come so quickly when you’re living life! My favorites this week are leftovers from our time in Seattle. We came home to Southern California Sunday evening after a 3 hour delay due to a dent in a door on our original plane…We then got to fly on the Tinkerbell plane so we all chanted We Believe and clapped and then when the plane finally took off successfully we clapped louder! But this is about favorites….

Absolutely at the very top of my favorites is time spent with our family. Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Signs of Spring popping out all over. Beautiful apple and pear blossoms, clematis blooms, and anything pretty in pink that is blooming. Mama and Daddy duck walking over for a Spring visit…

Shopping at my favorite Goodwill stores in the state of Washington…where I always seem to find sweet treasures!  The baking dish is one of my new purchases.

Having the time to hear my son Dan’s keen sense of humor. He can really make me laugh.

Looking forward to spending a few days with our kids and Dear’s side of the family at our niece’s wedding in Cancun next weekend. I won’t be blogging for Fave Fives next weekend or blogging in general because we’ll be in Cancun.

Bonus Fave!: Getting the news that our son Josh will be down to visit us soon and that we’ll all be going to a Sounders/Chivas soccer game here in Southern California. Ole, ole, ole , ole!!

To see more Favorites from this past week visit Susanne who had lovely Spring weather and then another snowstorm oye, oye oye! Click over to Living to Tell the Story….

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Friday’s Fave Five ~ Seattle

 

So it’s time for Friday’s Fave Five and all of mine come to your from the State of Washington this week. Dear and I will be heading back to Southern California on Sunday. Boohoo.

1. Spending some one on one and one on four time with our children in Washington! Our oldest son took me to a soccer game last Saturday which was so much fun. Katie and I did some shopping on Monday and she found her strappy gold shoes she needed for an upcoming wedding she’s in. Working around the house with our son Dan. Having Easter Brunch together and Taco Night. Good times.

2. Easter Tradtions! I love Easter and it’s always fun to do the traditional things each year. This year my sister Lana G! and I even made the traditional Russian Easter Bread and Cheese topping. Ok, I keep mentioning that but it was a big accomplishment for us and now we know we can do it and we’re so excited we can have fresh Kulich every year if we want it! Coloring Easter Eggs…it’s so much fun to watch Katie get creative with the colors on the eggs. Going to Easter Service. There’s something special about Easter Sunday at church. We go to church most every Sunday but Easter Sunday always stands out to me. Repeating the traditional Easter greeting to everyone we see on Easter…Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

3. Spending time in Downtown Seattle with Dear. We had a hair appointment together and then headed downtown to have lunch at the Pink Door. It happened to be one of the sunny days in Western Washington so it was nice to walk around and enjoy Downtown! The Market and all the fresh flowers, the tall buildings, our yummy lunch and buying dessert for the taco dinner we were having later that night with our kids.

4. Fresh mowed grass! I really enjoy mowing the lawn at our home here. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as seeing a freshly mowed neat looking yard! Dear does the weed-wacking and I do the mowing. The first Spring mow is always a bit time consuming and I had to empty the bag more often…

5. Flowers! It was great to see flowers blooming in the yard when we arrived. My Lenten Rose was full of blooms which made me smile. I love the shape and colors of this plant. Seeing all the fresh cut flowers at Pike Place Market was great, too. So many beautiful varieties of tulips and daffodils. I bought a bunch of yellow with orange daffodils to bring home for Taco Night!

Thanks to Susanne at Living to Tell the Story was hosting this weekly event. It’s good to look back and think about the good times and blessings we enjoy each week.

Friday’s Fave Five!

This past week has been full of some memorable events. Seems most of these events centered around food. Makes me wonder if I should just give up on losing weight, but this is a post about favorite things so onward and upward.

Topping the list of favorites was the fact that our daughter was here with us for several days. We walked on the beach, did some vintage shopping, attended her good friends wedding, and ate a lot of good food.

Worship on Sunday was really powerful with a challenging sermon about the Holy Spirit. There was a wonderful sense of unity in the Body that was really cool.

Katie and I made a trip to Glendale Forest Lawn and it was stimulating to see so many beautiful works of art. The grounds are so well kept and the little churches are filled with beautiful stained glass.

This is the Wee Kirk O’ the Heather at Glendale Forest Lawn

One of the favorite food items this past week was this hot fudge sundae Katie and I shared at the Tam O’ Shanter after our trip to Glendale Forest Lawn. It is served with the original fabulous C.C.Brown’s hot fudge that seriously tastes like very good candy! I can’t remember the last time I had a Hot Fudge Sundae! I’m salivating just thinking about it!

On Wednesday I met my Women’s Bible Study ladies at Cheesecake Factory to celebrate Fran’s birthday. We had such a great time laughing and enjoying each others company and celebrating Fran! Ok I’ll go ahead and show you what I ate…

So anyone want to place a bet on whether or not I gained weight last week??

Please visit the lovely Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to join in the fun or to see other Fave Fives!

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

Time for Recuperating…

 

The Seagulls can relax now, Katie’s flight back to Seattle was early this morning and we were on the road at 5:30 AM. I made the round trip and was home at 7:30 AM. If I was a napping kind of person that’s exactly what I’d be doing right now. It was so nice to have Katie around here for the week and now my body will have to be eased back into something more normal for me. I hope to be able to work up a post on the wedding and more about Forest Lawn Glendale.

Hope your week is going well. Blessings…

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.