Suspicions keeps running through my head...

This morning I woke up with "Suspicions" running over and over in my head. I'm sure that's happen to all of you before...you just can't get the song out of your mind. I quickly looked up Elvis Presley on ITunes to listen to the song (the only cure for getting it out of your head) and found that his version was NOT the version I had running through my head. The Handsome Husband and I combed Itunes and lyrics.com and then I went to YouTube and while watching the Elvis version, the American Graffiti Album popped up and there was a version by Terry Stafford. So I listened and the clouds parted and the sun shone brightly and my desire to hear this song was satisfied. So I thought, I would share it all with you, since I went to all that trouble...

Windows in Venice, Italy

One of my favorite photos.

These were some of the great balconies and windows that we saw in Venice, Italy. I love the textures, colors, and shapes.



You can just feel the "lived in" nature of these pictures. Personality explodes from them. So beautiful.

Weird Statue

What's up with this statue? It was right outside our hotel in Barcelona. I don't quite get the sexy giraffe thing. Different, would'nt you say?

Pretty Picture

I just thought I would share this pretty picture the Handsome Husband took in Spain.

Handsome Husbands Birthday

Friday, August 21st was the Handsome Husband's 51st birthday. He is loving, affectionate, sensitive, smart, athletic, generous, and compassionate. He loves his family, his harley, working out and riding his mountain bike.
On Friday night, Shawn and Marlene took him to Roy's for his birthday. He loved the extra touches at the table that Roy's did to celebrate his birthday.
They had these "Happy Birthday Bob" flyers in all the menus (at our table), confetti on the table and when he received his birthday dessert, the plate said, "Happy Birthday, Bob". They then took the picture of us above and gave it to us. Nice! By the way, the food was excellent! After dinner we went to the movies and saw Inglourious Basterds (I know I'm spelling it wrong, they spelled it wrong) a Quentin Taratino movie. It was very graphically violent. The story is much more than what is portrayed in the trailers and Brad Pitt was funny, but it did not center around his character. I would not recommend this movie unless you are not squeamish and don't mind violence, killing and you always wanted to see Hitler and the Nazi's get dished to them what they dished to others. I had to cover my eyes and look away many times! But, I can't say I disliked the movie, it was interesting and funny in parts. It kind of reminded me of a Guy Richie movie in the way it all came together.

He can be a goof on occasion! Likes to show off the big guns.

On Saturday, after moving Katie into her new apartment, we went out to dinner at Inka Mama (we had two delicious dishes to share, they were so yummy!) and then had cake at home.

Happy Birthday, Handsome Husband!

Alyssa's birthday

Sunday was Alyssa's 23rd birthday. Her and Greg came over for dinner and a quick trip to Disneyland. Alyssa now lives in Irvine and is only about 10 minutes from our house-YEAH!!! We bought Alyssa a Disneyland pass for her birthday and here is the hot tip-buy it at Costco! At Costco you save $70 overall.

We had creamcheese chicken enchiladas and yummy chocolate cake.

We then headed to Disneyland. D-land is doing construction at California Adventure, so the parking was unreal. We were herded down Harbor Blvd. and parked over by the employee parking lot in the old strawberry field now conveniently paved over into a parking lot. We were then BUSED, not shuttled, over to the park. Above is Katie, Delaney and making his Janie's World debut: Levi (Delaney's new boyfriend).
Greg and Alyssa in front of the castle. Churros were in order after waiting over an hour to process our passes.

Levi and Delaney in front of the castle.

Katie

Happy Birthday, Alyssa!

Happy 23rd Birthday, Alyssa! Alyssa is kind, giving, generous, caring, loving, serious, responsible and beautiful. She makes all of us proud in every way possible. She is a wonderful daughter and an awesome big sister and a loving wife!

Alyssa, age nine, with her sisters on Mother's Day.

Alyssa age two on board the Oceanic on the Disney Cruise.

Girona, Spain

On one of the afternoons that we spent at the beach, we decided to drive into Girona. It is about a 30 minute drive from our hotel. After a miscue from Garmin GPS on finding the old town center (ending up in a neighborhood in front of someones house, who happened to be on their front porch) and finding parking, we finally found our way to the old medieval town. I loved this fountain. It is the second time I"ve seen plants growing on the fountain. I loved it.
Let me just say, it was worth every wrong turn down one way streets that we made! It was everything the handsome husband was looking for. It was very medieval and it was very picturesque and clean. We loved it. It was one of the highlights of the trip.

The castle wall that runs the perimeter of the historic old town. You can walk along it.

Inside is a rabbit warren of tiny streets filled with restaurants and shops. Loved it. It is built on a hillside and we climbed a lot of stairs.

View towards the church and castle. Everytime we turned a corner, we were in awe.

You could walk all through the castle passageways and on top of the turrets and walls.

I could just imagine these torches lit at night lighting the streets.

Platja D'Aro, Spain

For the last couple of days of our vacation, we stayed at the Hotel Jorge in Platja D'Aro. It was a beautiful resort on the Mediterranean. The hotel grounds were gorgeous and we had two beautiful coves to frolic on. The hotel rooms were super clean, but were just utilitarian. I was very disappointed. The walls were paper thin and the shower was tiny and went back and forth from hot and cold. But, we had a beautiful sea view and an enormous balcony. The public areas of the hotel were awesome, just not the rooms.
This is one of the coves. We didn't really hang out here, we liked the other side better. The other side was less crowded.

The guard rail was missing in a lot of places along the path. There was just a tiny homemade sign that read, "pay attention to the missing guard rail". If this was California, the whole trail would be shut down for months while they fixed it.
The sand was not as fine as the sand in Cal., but it was great for laying out on. It moved and conformed to your body super easy and made for a comfortable base to put your towel.

Checking out the water upon arrival

I loved the water. It was the perfect temperature, cool and refreshing. NO WAVES!!! This is what I liked best. Because it is the Mediterranean, it has a lot of salt and it was so easy just to float and bob in the waves. I loved it. It was not crowded. We began everyday at the beach and stayed until about 2pm. Then we would go in, shower up and head out to sightsee.

The girls found this little black cat on the first day and loved him up every chance they got.

Venice, Italy -Day 2 (last day)

The winged lion, the symbol of Venice at the entrance to St. Marks square.

After breakfast the girls sat out on the hotel's dock waiting for us to finish and begin our day.

We walked over to St. Marks Square where the Doge's Palace is. We were scheduled to take the Secret Itineraries tour. Inside the courtyard of the Doge's Palace.

Entering through the Gold Staircase. We took the secret itineraries tour and this was the last place pictures were allowed to be taken. It was super, super hot that day and we did not take any water into the palace with us. Big mistake. It was about 30 minutes longer than it had to be (we had the slowest speaking tour guide in existence and she wasn't nice to top it off). We all felt dehydrated and had to go back to our hotel just to recover. I thought at one point Katie was going to pass out. The tour was interesting, especially the bits about Cassanova, but it was not riveting. (probably because all I could think of was how we needed water).

More of the Doge's Palace.

Right outside the Doge's Palace is St. Marks Basillica. We did'nt go in because the line was over 2 hours long and we were not feeling good as I mentioned above. But it was beautiful on the outside.

You can really see the asian influences from when Venice was a thriving port between Asia and Europe