All in Orange County

October 6

This is why I don't want to leave Southern California - the Pacific Ocean. We went to dinner at The Beachcomber restaurant at Crystal Cove State Park on our anniversary. The scenery and weather was outstanding. We had a great dinner on the patio with an awesome view of the sunset.

October 7

I haven't taken very good care of the garden. However, this rose bloomed very nicely even while ignored.

October 8

For the longest time, I always had low blood pressure. Last year, it started creeping up. The doctor put me on a low dose medication and now it is under control. I had him check our monitor and the systolic is about 10-15 points too high. So this reading is very good.

October 9

Another totally random thing. This is in the new Woodbury shopping center near the Wells Fargo bank and the LA Fitness building.

October 10

The best thing about my new work location is that is closer to Dennis' work so it is easier to meet for lunch. We have always loved Zov's in Tustin and when we found another Zov's in Newport Coast, we had to try it. Our salads were tasty, but the service was slow. The fountains nearby were really cool.

October 11

Lucy was bound and determined to get to the ice in my glass. She darn near knocked it over, but she did get to lick the ice. I put a handful of ice into her water bowl. I hope she appreciated it.

October 12

Dennis had a hernia repair today. The nurse put the 'hat' on him, but didn't get his hair covered. And it was lopsided. I thought it looked funny.

37 Down, 15 To Go

September 29

I was looking for a photo for the day and loved how Lucy looked through the screen. She spends a lot of time on the windowsill watching the birds and wishing she could go outside and try to get one.

September 30

Years ago, we tried to keep the vines off of the brick wall. In the past few years, we have let the vines get the better of us. These are from plants on the other side of the wall.

October 1

Instead of throwing away the extra hangers, I keep them to recycle at the cleaners. I am a little behind, we have a box full in our closet.

October 2

The first fall leaf from our liquid amber trees.

October 3

The first step to putting out holiday decorations, is to get them out of the closet. So far the wreath is on the front door, the hanger is hanging next to the oven and the witch is downstairs waiting to be put outside. The cat is still in the same location.

October 4

I was looking over my head at work, and thought the heating and A/C vent looked interesting.

October 5

This was homecoming weekend and the first IHS game we have attended in quite a while. I was too far from the field and the flash doesn't reach that far.

Erin Moves to Her College Apartment

September 22

Erin and Cecilia fell in love with this table and chairs at Ikea. The set was $99 and they thought is was a bargin and it fit in with the color scheme for their kitchen. However, the table was a bitch to put together. Dennis and I together couldn't do it. Cecilia, being much more flexible than either of us was able to do it by herself.

September 23

I had to laugh at the trash pile in Erin's apartment complex - Corona, coffee and Fruit Loops

September 24

I was making Erin's bed and wanted to move her nightstand so there was room to move the bed. The nightstand was very heavy, so I opened it to find out what the heck was in there - thinking it would be a stack of old magazines. Imagine my surprise to find this in my 19 year old's bedroom. When she gets home in November, she will find empty bottles in the place of her full ones. I wonder if she will say anything.

September 25

At the beginning of the baseball season, Steve put this post-it on the Dodgers schedule assuming they would be in the playoffs. The Dodgers season ended on a very dismal note, and Jim quietly moved this post-it to the Angels schedule. They made it to the playoffs but didn't make it past the first round.

September 26

The district had all summer to re-seed the playground. Of course, they waited until after the school year started to do it.

September 27

These are on Jeffrey near IVC, but there is no construction going on in this section of the road.

September 28

I love this sunset. I took this photo from the upstairs bathroom window through the screen. I love the colors and the shadow of the streetlight.

More Random Stuff

September 15

So, for about 10 yards, there is no construction on Jeffrey. Gotta love it. This is the overpass over the I-5. A project to put Jeffrey under the train tracks has begun, and there is new construction going in north of the 5, so there is a lot of
road work going on right now.
September 16

Sunday at the grocery store. Usually, I don't run out of room in the tiny trunk of my Mustang.

September 17


September 18

On our Grand Canyon trip, we heard many stories of the people who have run the river and have interesting stories associated with them. JP told us about the newlyweds whose honeymoon was a trip down the Colorado and they disappeared. This book is the story of that couple and the searches for them.

September 19

Our first, and probably only Ducks game this year. I won a pair of tickets and they were in the second row from the top. The nice thing about these seats is that you get a complete view of the ice. The bad thing is that the rows are so close together, Dennis' knees hang over the seat in front of him. On this night, there was no one sitting in front of him so there was no problem.

September 20

I always dread jury duty. This time, it was call in. I called everyday and each time was told to call the next day, until Thursday. Then I was told my service was done and I did not have to call in again. Yeah - a week of jury duty and I did not have to show up in court.

September 21

Lucy is the queen. There are those in the family who think she needs a cat friend. I guess it is time to start making some phone calls.

Mostly the Grand Canyon

September 8

Even thought the Grand Canyon is in the desert, every once in awhile, we came to some greenery. Here we were walking back to the raft after visiting Phantom Ranch. There is a beautiful, shaded river that runs through this area. It was over 100 degrees here and there was a bar! We each had a beer and wrote postcards.

September 9

Just another beautiful spot on our journey down the canyon.

September 10

We took many hikes to waterfalls. Some were easy and short, some were long and arduous. At the bottom of each was cool, clear water for playing.

September 11

Deep canyons, colorful walls, interesting shadows


September 12

Dennis and I were among the last to get back to the raft after this hike.

September 13

It was our last day and I hadn't taken a photo of our bathroom. It was always is a spot with privacy and often with a beautiful view. We used the river to pee and this for everything else.

September 14

Erin went shopping for fall decor while Dennis and I were gone. She is so sweet. She did not take it to school with her, so we get to enjoy it for a while.

September

September 1

This beautiful church is in Orange and I love the old fashioned look it has. I was walking from the Friendly Center's Street Fair booth back to my car. I had finished my shift on a very hot September day. Dennis was at the booth for the entire duration of the fair. I only had to spend one four hour shift.

September 2

There were thunderstorms in some parts of Southern California on Labor Day weekend, but we did not have any rain at home - just some pretty awesome clouds.

September 3

I have been participating in a scrapbook challenge using the Designing with 2007 calendar, so it seemed appropriate to take a photo of the calendar. So far, I have kept up by doing at least four layouts each month based on one of the calendar pages.

September 4

If Jim would put his laundry away, Lucy wouldn't be able to sleep in it and get cat hair on everything.

September 5

Dennis and I took this little plane from Las Vegas to Cliffdwellers Lodge in Marble Canyon. The flight took about an hour and the plane didn't get very high so we could see lots of the Nevada landscape. Fortunately, we were in the back row and Dennis didn't have a seat in front of him so he could stretch his legs. He was the only person on the plane who could do so.

September 6

Navajo bridges crossing the Grand Canyon. The near one is for pedestrians and the far one is for vehicles.

September 7

This trip was absolutely wonderful. Around every turn of the river there were more beautiful sights. We took so many photos that the battery in the camera died before the end of the trip.

Will I Make it?

August 25

When the kids were little, they loved Boboli pizza and I hadn't made it in ages. The kids love pepperoni and olives, Dennis and I eat pepperoni and tomatoes. I use Boboli crust and sauce and some toppings - pretty easy dinner that everyone enjoys.

August 26

Rain in August in Southern California! Granted it wasn't much, but it was enough to get the patio furniture a little bit wet.

August 27

Dennis and I were thinking that maybe Lucy thought she was hiding and thought we couldn't see her. I think she wishes she could be an outside cat.

August 28

This was an experiment. I put the camera on a box on the shelf outside the kitchen window so that it wouldn't move while the shutter was open. I think it would have been a nicer picture if I had used the big Nikon camera instead of the little Canon.

August 29

I did not use the zoom to get this photo. This flag is near the Irvine Auto Center and is huge! I loved the way it looked against the sky and clouds. It was taken at 6pm on a very pretty evening.

August 30


August 31

Another day when I didn't find anything interesting in my daily routine, so I took a photo of the top of the air conditioning unit. There was a brief time this summer when it ran day and night. Overall, though, we didn't use it that much this summer.

The 31st Week of This

August 18

Dennis and Jim relax on a Saturday afternoon. It is highly likely there was a baseball game on tv. It was very nice of them to allow me to take their photo.

August 19

I really liked the way the shopping carts looked all lined up so neatly. My habit is to do the grocery shopping on Sunday afternoons. Dennis came with me on this particular trip.

August 20

I know this collection of cardstock is really small compared to some die-hard scrappers, but I am happy with it. There are so many shades of each color, sometimes it is hard to find the perfect one. If I had more, I think it would be even harder.

August 21

Another sign that Steve is home - his guitar and amp. The amp stayed home, but the guitar went back to Tokyo with him a few days after this photo was taken.

August 22

My guys outside of Claim Jumper the night we celebrated Jim's birthday. His birthday is the 28th, but Steve was leaving to go back to school on the 24th, so we had to celebrate early.

August 23

This is the last photo we took of Goofy - it shows where his paw was shaved for the IV he had at the vet. He had lost so much weight, they were giving him fluids and appetite stimulants to try to get him to start eating again. We brought him home because he had eaten. Unfortunately, he did not eat at home and a few days after this we had to put him to sleep. His face was so sad when the doctor took him from the room. It was almost like he knew what was coming. We had him for 15 years and it was so hard to watch him waste away and also hard to tell the doctor that the time had come. We will miss him.

August 24

This is in the international terminal at LAX. I thought it made a very cool photo with the sun shining on it.