California Trip

We arrived in California on Saturday and the flight was very uneventful, which is what you want with air travel these days! Don sat in first class and I had a very roomy seat in the regular class section at the exit row. We even had a proper lesson on what to do if an emergency required us to open the doors. So with an uneventful flight our service was not needed, but we still had plenty of room to stretch out our legs. Don sent back half of his lunch to me (the attendent said "I'm not suppose to do this" as if she'd get fired and thrown off the plane at any moment, I guess throwing it in the trash is much more acceptable.) Anyway, Don was very careful to only eat half and then share with me. That's a very thoughtful husband. When we landed, we found our hotel, a very nice Hilton (Don's company is paying) and then went to the nearby Macy's to purchase our wedding gift for the wedding we're attending this coming week-end. Then it was back to the hotel and early to bed, with a three hour time change it was about midnight eastern time.

The next day, Sunday we hit the road. We boiled down our choices of activities to a Salsa Festival up in Oxnard, CA or going to the LA zoo only a few miles from the hotel. We decided on the Salsa Festival and headed off. It was nice. Definitely a cultural experience. Lots of hispanic flavor with a live salsa band and lots of folks dancing. There were lots of hispanic style vendor's booths scattered around and then an official salsa sampling tent. For $5 one could purchase 10 tickets and a small back of nacho chips to try the participants salsa. Don did just that and he loved it. One salsa was is favorite, made from very fresh ingredients that meant we'd have to keep it refrigerated so we didn't buy any to bring home. Then we had real mexican tacos (different from those in NC because the meat is not ground up, more like small stew beef). Then we headed out and drove over to the beach to follow the Pacific Coast highway back down to LA.
We got to Malibu and saw signs for an art festival. So from the Salsa festival to a very high end art festival, we stopped.

I'll have to post pictures later (Don has the SD card that we used) but here are some of the links to some of our favorites.
My favorite and someone I've admired from the Fiber Arts magazine was Myra Burg (click to view her artwork) Her work is amazing and she was so friendly and very interesting to talk to. I'd love to have some of her work, but my budget won't afford that now!

Then another artist that we both thought was neat was this guy, Dale Talley (click to view his work, then click portfolio). He makes very quirky, whimsical, and fun looking furniture art. I've got a picture of Don sitting on a really unique bench (not shown on his website.) I'd love to have the bench at our house to have folks come over and have their picture made sitting in it. It's hard to look at it this guy's stuff and not smile.

So pictures to follow. We finished the Art festival, didn't get anything to eat since you have to buy food tokens, and I hate that system. We were about to get some kettle corn, but the sample didn't impress us so off we went. We drove down to Santa Monica and the crowds and traffic was awful! My goodness, cars all over the place. I guess I don't need to complain quite so badly about our crowded lake.

We then got back to our hotel and went to the bar for appetizers. Don is an Honors member with Hilton since he stays so much with them during the year. It's nice to travel with him, especially when he's on business. His status with USAirways got him the first class upgrade (forgot to mention that, it wasn't that he bought first class for himself and not for me.) Since he had to do computer work, it made sense for him to sit in first class, and no sense neither one of us enjoying it, and he did after all send back half of his lunch, a sandwich and fruit.
So here at Hilton we get a free breakfast buffet each morning and a free appetizer in the evenings. The first evening we sat and listened to a live Jazz band and had mini burgers. (We're getting our cultural fix of music this summer, Missouri - blue grass music, then Jazz and a Salsa band here in CA.) Last night we had gourmet potato skins with a choice of toppings, ours was gorgonzola cheese with bacon, and BBQ glazed chicken wings.

After waiting a couple hours while Don did some prep work for Monday morning's work, we went out for dinner. We came across a very nice open air type mall in Glendale fairly near our hotel. It was very nice, sort of like Birkdale for those familiar with that shopping area. Only more upscale shops, but still a Barnes and Noble, and a spectacular fountain that I absolutely love! I love fountains anyway and this one was computer programmed to shoot out various combinations of water sprays. Then about every 1/2 hour our so a special show comes on with a very elaborate water spraying configuration, special lights and music. Really impressive! We ate at the Cheesecake Factory and that was a first for me. Don made sure that we were outside and on the fountain side. That really made it very special! It was funny though, we were both not very hungry and couldn't finish our food at all. We did save room to split one of their delicious cheesecakes, for us a chocolate coconut cream slice.

Ok, so if you've made it this far, you've got to be ready to quit reading. I promise pictures later.
Today, Monday, Don's at work and I'm mostly staying up in the room watching a Sign Language video to get CEU's for upcoming licensure renewal in NC.

Oh and a footnote. The zoo or Salsa festival decision turned out to be a good one. When we got back after dinner and turned on the news it turned out that there had been a fire in Griffith Park next to the zoo and everyone in the zoo was evacuated. So while the zoo wasn't touched by fire and it's reopened today, Monday, it was a very good decision not to go there after all!

Easter 2008

Ok, so I've received complaints (mostly from one person, Mom) about not seeing any new postings of my granddaughter from Easter. There were lots of cute pictures and it was hard to pick just one or two which I'm sure most readers would prefer. I knew there was a way to create a slide show and post a link on the blog, but it's taken me this long, about a month, to figure out how to make that work. YEAH!!! I got it to work. So for those of you who use slide shows often, go ahead and click. Those not so familar with how it works, here's what I know. While you were reading this this paragraph, hopefully the pictures were scrolling on there. That was them loading on. Then a green arrow appeared and that's what you click to get it started. The pictures will be small, but if you double click the pictures I think it will appear bigger. I added captions to help give the pictures a little flavor. Don't worry if you can't read all of that, it's just for fun. Ok, I think I stalled long enough. The green arrow should be there by now and enjoy. I hope it works for you! If not, send me an email and I'll see if I can help you through it.

Valentines Day Flowers

My husband has found the key to my flower preferences and also the key to lasting appreciation. He buys me orchids. I have always preferred living flowers rather than the cut variety and with the orchids they last a very long time. I have a rather large orchid collection, (Fay knows, she helped me gather them in when she was here and we were having a surprise freeze.) Orchids thrive off of neglect I think, because I really don't do too much with them. There's a baker's rack in my kitchen where they stay for the winter, and then when summer comes they all go outside to spend the time under the trees in the shade. Thanks to my good husband, they do get watered automatically for 30 minutes everyday and I'm sure they are thankful to him for that, because otherwise the water would be sparse. (We're on a private well system for those concerned about our drought and water restrictions.)

Sorry for the rather dark picture, but the others had terrible shadows and I was busy with other projects, so not enough time to photograph them again at this point.

The purple one to the left is one of the new ones that he gave me this Valentines, well actually a week before. It is one just like one that continuously bloomed for almost 2 years, it had flowers the entire time. He was very happy to get his money's worth out of that one. The small yellow ones are 2 of the ten that my mom bought me two years ago at the Southern Spring Show that comes to Charlotte every year. Ten small orchids that didn't even have pots. Just picked out and put into paper bags as I remember. I came home and potted them up myself and have watched them carefully. Now after only two years they are blooming. There is a third one that is getting ready to bloom, purple it looks like. The other big orchid on the right is a repeat bloomer. Don gave that to me for some previous occasion and it's blooming again. It's always a big deal for me to have an orchid bloom again. And especially this much. It's yellow with magenda strips so it gives it a peach color. Very nice. Plus, now my husband gets the appreciation for his thoughtfulness all over again. So much better than cut flowers.

Then also for this valentines he gave me this as well.

It too is an orchid, Cymbidium I think it's called. Very showy, but the blooms don't usually last as long as the others. I took it outside to photograph in natural light.