Fashion Nonsense

Boys!  They have no fashion sense.  Everything they wear has to have superheroes or Disney characters on them.  Tried to convince Jacob to get these cute swimsuits with matching rash guards and hats...there were friendly sharks, VW surf wagons and starfish, but no!  He had to have Disney Cars.  Here he is proudly modeling his new outfit.

He loves to browse Toys R Us catalogs and tell me what he "needs."  So I was teasing him by showing him Disney princess toys, Hello Kitty and My Little Pony.  He wouldn't hear of it!  We are going to take him this week to the little local waterpark so now he's all set.  We are having a big warm up with temperatures in the 100's by the weekend.

Sorry for my lack of posting and visits.  Sitting still really bothers me.  I see my doctor this Monday so I'm pretty sure I'll get the microdiscectomy surgery since it's been 5 long months with no improvement at all.  I gave it the old college try with physical therapy so at least I feel like I didn't just give in to the surgery without giving other things a shot.

Jacob's Equipment

Jacob looks forward to any home improvement project or the weekly lawn mowing session.  He comes prepared...

It is so cute watching him follow Jeff around.  Whatever piece of equipment Jeff is using, Jacob uses too.  He wears his hat, goggles and work zone vest.  I really need to take a video of this.  He's just as helpful with my chores.  He knows how to take apart and clean my Roomba and Scooba and likes to vacuum with my cordless vacuum. Also loves to help with any gardening and watering jobs.  Today he had a big magnifying glass and I asked him what he was doing and he said, "Looking for clues!"  I am not kidding... he is like the boy version of Shirley Temple!

We don't have the best weather forecast for our upcoming Memorial Day weekend.  I like to go to Fiesta Hermosa at Hermosa Beach but it's predicted to be overcast at the beach.  Hopefully we may get some clearing in the afternoon and we can still go.  Happy Memorial Day!

Moore!

I was so concerned about my friend Sindee who lives in Moore, Oklahoma where the tornado struck.  We've been internet and blog friends since 2002 and she hosted Elliot during his Oklahoma visit.  We exchange Christmas cards so I had her exact address and I was google mapping the path of the tornado and saw that it was very close to her home.  In fact, the elementary school that was leveled and where children died was only 4 miles from her home according to what I saw on the map.  I knew she worked in an elementary school but didn't know which one.  She was finally able to post Monday evening to say that she and her family were safe.  She rode out the storm in the bathroom of her elementary school (a different one than the one that was leveled) with her scared little charges.  Her husband and son took refuge in their storm cellar.  Their house was not destroyed but suffered a lot of damage,  She posted quite a few photos of her house so I took just one to post here to show you.  (Hope you don't mind Sindee.)  I told Jeff that I think a brick house must've helped.  I don't know much about tornadoes but I know that much from "The Three Little Pigs!"

I have to say that between the shootings in Connecticut and the tornado in Oklahoma, I am very proud of teachers!  They are so brave and shelter the children as if they were their own!  They cover the children with their own bodies!  How brave is that!?!

Kim has started a meme called Wednesday Chatter.  I don't have the logo or the link, Kim, so if you could let me know about that I'll link it up properly.  In the meantime, I linked it to your blog.

Wednesday Chatter:  Decorating the Home. Do you have a favorite room? What style is your home/apartment/flat? Share!

My favorite room is our living room.  I'm very happy with the way it has come together.  I literally look at it every time I go up and down the stairs.  We rarely use that room so it stays pretty much like what you would see in a model home or magazine.  It's the room I change seasonally.  I have pillows for the sofa and loveseat from Pottery Barn and I change the covers for summer, autumn, Christmas and spring.  I also change things like candle centerpieces on the coffee table, console table, server and entryway organizer.  I'll see if I can find a photo that I've already posted... Here's a photo from fall.

I would say our style is traditional.  To me, that's like dressing classic.  Traditional things never go out of style unlike trends like Southwest for example.  The big Welsh Cupboard is English Country style and I mix that with more modern touches from places like Pottery Barn.

Wild & Wacky Venice

Jeff and I took a Sunday drive down the coast to Venice Beach, my old stomping grounds.  I went to Venice High School.  Venice, California has canals like in Venice, Italy and you may have seen them featured in some movies or the television series, "Californication."  Venice is the number one tourist stop in Southern California.  I guess it beats Disneyland because it's free.  Over the years, Venice has changed from rundown buildings and homes to million dollar homes and upscale businesses.  Still, it hasn't lost it's weirdness factor.  I remember taking Justin and Jessica there when they were young and they thought it was like visiting a different planet.  There are lots of street performers, tattoo parlors, piercing salons, booths selling arts and crafts, palm readers, people who will tell you an insulting joke for $1.00, let you kick them "below the waist" for $10.00, and the list goes on and on.  I took this photo of a Medical Marijuana Clinic where they had a young guy and girl dressed in green scrubs urging passersby to come in and get a prescription for $40.00.  They barked, "Walk on in, fly on out!"  The weird guy in the black bikini photobombed my shot of the clinic.  He's wielding a plastic bat but was harmless enough.  He asked for a dollar and took it well when we passed.

I told Jeff I should ask my doctor for a medical marijuana Rx for my herniated disk!  Can you imagine my wholesome, Harvard-educated doctor in Thousand Oaks getting a request like that?  Makes me laugh just to think about it!  Can you imagine the quality of the doctor lurking behind the doors of that lime green building?  This post has to go under my "Only in LA" category!

It's a Zoo!

Remember our peahen from a year or so ago?  Well, she's back!  I first began hearing the extremely loud honk she makes a few days ago and then we saw her walking down the sidewalk.  Yesterday morning she was in our driveway.  Here's a photo of her.

  

Just after I took the above photo, one of the many bunnies that eat my flowers showed up.

Excuse the quality of the photos.  The iPhone takes good photos but not when you use the zoom feature.  

If you've never heard a peacock, I found a very good YouTube video of one.  They title it, "The most annoying sound in the world."

While I agree that it's very loud and annoying, it's still not as bad as that rooster we had waking us up a year or so ago because that was constant cock-a-doodle-doing which began at 4 AM!

You would think we live out in the country instead of a suburb of Los Angeles!  We've had bears in neighborhood pools, coyotes in our front yard, rattlesnakes and even a tarantula once walked in our house!  There are opossums and mountain lions in our nearby hills.

He made the news for his antics swimming in a neighbor's pool

Cranes and egrets are frequent visitors, too.  This is on top of our roof.

Jeff's favorite visitor- the lawn destroying gopher!  He is in a bucket and Jeff relocated him.

And a naughty squirrel in one of my bird feeders

Happy Weekend!

We Changed Our Minds!

This was such a funny sight, I had to take a photo.  In the midst of our heatwave on Monday, the pets all wanted to go outside first thing in the morning which is their routine.  I asked them if they were sure because it was on it's way to 102 degrees.  After a few minutes, I came back into the kitchen and this is what I saw!

Let us back in!  We changed our minds!

The only one missing is our calico, Hayley.  She rarely goes outside but the two boy cats, Kalani and Hunter, love to spend the day in our backyard.  The dogs never spend much time outside... they are house dogs!  Our heatwave only lasted a couple of days and we are back to more normal warm weather. 

Last night, Jeff and I went back to Sharky's restaurant for their $2 taco and $2 beer night.  It's going on every Tuesday and Thursday in May.  We went last week and loved the little souvenirs we got from Jeff's two beers.  Cute little ponchos and sombreros which are bottle openers. 

I checked on and off all day Tuesday for a post from Annie's daughter about how the surgery went.  Holly reports it want extremely well and the doctor expects a full recovery!  Great news!

Hot Mamas

We had a super hot Mother's Day!  As I write this on Sunday afternoon, it's 102 degrees!  As I mentioned, we celebrated on Saturday and we had a really nice day with lots of good food that Jeff fixed for us.  In addition to our taco salad, Jeff BBQ'd two pork loin roasts.  You can never go wrong with those...they are always good and tender unlike a beef roast which can be hit or miss.  Ryan had a great time with Uncle Justin talking all about Star Wars.  Ryan is usually a little shy around Justin because he doesn't see him that often so it was nice they could nerd bond over Star Wars!  I neglected to take any photos but I do have one of Ryan and Jacob from Friday.  We are going to be watching them a lot more for a while because Pat started a new job.  I have found a summer program that Jacob might be able to attend but in the meantime, I'm entertaining them with fun things and a few educational things tossed in.  They are still into "The Avengers" big time so I found some coloring pages and masks online to download and print.  Here's a photo of Jacob and Ryan as Captain America and Ironman.  

Annie's back surgery is tomorrow so sending prayers and good wishes her way for a successful outcome and speedy recovery!

Mom

Kim has started a weekly meme called Wednesday Chatter and this weeks topic is Mom since Mother's Day (in the US) is this Sunday.  Typical for us, we are celebrating Mother's Day on Saturday.  Justin is driving Sarah to the airport for a business trip and since LAX is half way here from his house, he asked if we could celebrate on Saturday.  Jeff will fix us dinner and we have 4 moms coming:  me, Jessica, Jeff's mom and Jeff's aunt.  George and Robin will be here, too.  Jessica requested taco salad so we'll have that along with a BBQ of something... not sure yet.  And for dessert, Costco's tiramisu cake!  We only have dessert on special occasions.

So about my mom.  She was the quintessential mom of the 50's... a real June Cleaver!  On Wednesday, the Harris Poll announced that once again, June Cleaver (Leave it to Beaver) was number 1 on the Top 10 list of Best TV moms.  Just like June, my mom was a stay-at-home mom who always wore a pretty dress even while doing housework.  She was calm, nurturing and never raised her voice.  The only concern I had growing up about my mom was that she was an older mom.  While most of my friends had moms who were in their 20's and 30's, my mom was almost 40 when she had me.  I always worried that she was going to die and leave me but boy was I wrong!  She lived to be 90 and saw both her grandchildren grow up and graduate from college.  They loved Nana and she was every bit as good as a grandmother as she was a mother.  No one could ask for a better mom and role model.  I should scan a photo but I do have this one on my computer that looks to be from the 1930's.  She would've been too young for it to be the Roaring 20's!

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  Happy Mother's Day!

Roller Coaster Ride

Yesterday was a "bad back day!"  I am getting so frustrated with my herniated disk problem.  I've been going to physical therapy 3 mornings a week for 4 weeks now and I still have good days and bad days.  When I feel good I get encouraged and think I'm getting better and then I'll have a bad day, like yesterday, and I feel like there's been no progress at all.  It's such a roller coaster ride.  I do know what is bad for me and what makes things worse and that is sitting.  In fact, I think a lot of my problem may be all the time I spend at the computer sitting.  So I'm trying to limit my computer time.  There's times I think I should take a blog break but it's really not that time consuming to write a quick post and make a few visits so I'll hang in there a while longer.  I'm giving myself until June (when I see the doctor again) and if there's still no major improvement, I'll probably have to have the back surgery.  It's not that big of a deal- it's a 90 minute microsurgery procedure with little downtime so we'll see.  At least I'll know I tried my best to help it through physical therapy first.  Waiting any longer than 6 months would be bad as I could have permanent nerve damage.

Thought I'd post a quick photo of Jacob.  Jessica was at the store the other day and Jacob saw a little plastic watering can in the shape of a duck!  He just HAD to have it.  It was only 99 cents so Jessica bought it for him,  She should enjoy these days when he will be happy with such a simple little toy!  He loves helping me water, too.

Rainy Days and Mondays

We went from the mid-90's to rain over the weekend and maybe a little more expected today.  Jeff was laughing at me because I didn't want him to drive the Prius and get it full of rain drops on Sunday.  On Friday, I didn't want to drive it because of all the ashes in the air.  Around noon on Friday, the wind direction changed and all the smoke from the fire headed our way.  We had Ryan's school function and by the time we got there, you could see the ashes falling.  Ash is very bad for a car because it can scratch a car if you try and wipe it off.  It's also very alkaline so you need to use the right kind of soap to wash it.  Jeff says he'll be glad when I'm not so fussy about the car anymore.  You can imagine how I'm going to feel when he wants to load up Kanan and Cooper!

Here's a photo of the smoke heading our way

By the way, Hidden Valley that I wrote about last Wednesday had to be evacuated on Friday when the wind shifted but they were able to save the area.  It was a big job to evacuate all the horses!

Here's a photo of Ryan with his award

He's wearing pink because he was a little pig in the performance of Little Red Hen

Here's a short video of the kindergarten performance of Little Red Hen.. Ryan is a pig in the front

Ryan's reward for his special day:  a lightsaber just in time for Star War's Day- May 4th

Devil Winds

Some people call our Santa Ana winds, "Devil Winds."  My Facebook friends saw this video that I posted yesterday.  I took a video off our bedroom balcony to show you how strong these warm winds are.  I like them because they make the beach so warm but the downside is the brush fires they often bring.  Sure enough, as I pan the camera to the west, you will see a major brush fire that began at the Camarillo Grade about 10 miles from us.  Fortunately, much of the area that burned is in the rugged hillsides but there are many residential areas that the firemen were able to protect with water-dropping helicopters.  They had to evacuate Cal State Channel Islands and quite a few RVs were destroyed in a RV storage area.

Today we are going to Ryan's school.  The kindergarten classes are performing songs and Ryan is being presented the "Student of the Month" award.  Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and since I won't be here on Saturday or Sunday to say it, I'll add these wishes here...

For Saturday

May the Fourth Be With You!

and for Sunday

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Thanks to Sadie for the MoodGirls!

Joy Ride

Jeff was feeling better so we took a joy ride through Hidden Valley.  We are so lucky to live where we do. In just a few minutes, we are out of civilization and in horse country surrounded by mountains.  This is a gorgeous area and always fun to visit in the spring when there are foals and calves.  They film so many car commercials here.  If you ever see cars driving through a winding road surrounded by hills and white fences, it's most likely Hidden Valley.  Lots of movie stars have homes here... Tom Selleck, Sophia Loren, Jamie Foxx, Ellen Degeneres.  If you saw the movie, "It's Complicated," Meryl Streep's home was also in Hidden Valley.  It can be yours for a mere 10 million dollars!  Here are a few photos of Hidden Valley.

We really love the new Prius!  While on our drive, we were learning all about the navigation system and other cool features of the car.  It's so quiet and we enjoyed a beautiful sunny day with the sun roof open and listening to the music from my iPhone streaming wirelessly through the speakers.  You don't even have to plug it in... it was in my purse (along with the car keys you don't need) and the music just started playing!

HAPPY MAY!