Celebrating A Couple of Birthdays

This weekend we celebrated two birthdays!  Alyssa and the Handsome Husband.  Due to circumstances beyond our control, we were not able to go to the White Party in San Diego, so we decided to have our own white party. Of course, since we were at home, I decided to mix in some gold on the tablescape.

Ugh, I hate seeing pics of myself. 

The birthday boy and girl.

Favorite pic:  Greg and Alyssa

Family pic

We finally learned home to use the timer on the camera so we could get this family shot. 

I picked all the roses in my backyard!  Seriously, I'm lucky they were all in bloom so I didn't have to buy any flowers.

In my yard, I have Iceberg and Bolero roses.  I love the coolness of white in the garden in the summer time.  HH likes lots of color and I like the white.  I do have some color, but he wants me to add more.  Its like the Christmas lights on the tree, I like white; he likes color.  We alternate every year between white and color.  

Katie and Gus (it's hard to get Gus to smile for pics). 

Greg and Aslan

I've Been Gardening

This is what happens when you look at Pinterest too much.  You get motivated and you spend lots of money.

 Back in June, I was bitten by the gardening bug and I picked the hottest week of the year to work in my backyard digging out grass.  I must remind you that my backyard gets full afternoon sun.  With the temperatures in the high 90's I tried to get the hardest manual labor done in the mornings.

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 I manually dug out all the grass, yes, with a shovel!  I then dug the holes and planted my three rose trees.  They are a beautiful white rose called Bolero. (Shown towards the end of the post).

Next I edged, filled the flower bed with new soil and planted boxwood along the edges.  I then added Alyssum.  This brightened everything up.  I went to go buy this edging from home depot.  They've carried it forever, until now.  They no longer carried it!  I went all over the place trying to find it.  Finally, I had to take the edging from around my fountain to make the border and buy a similar and complimentary border to put around my fountain.  Luckily, it looks good.  

 I ordered the urns and pedestals from "The Enchanted Home" and had to wait 5 agonizing weeks for them to arrive.  Yesterday was the big day, it was like Christmas when I saw those boxes containing the  urns arrive.  Now, it would have been great if I had stopped here, but now I had to make my garden more uniform.  I can just tell you I have gone boxwood and alyssum crazy.  I'll show you the other side soon.

Here is my new rose, Bolero.  It has a slight pink tinge in the picture, but not all the flowers have this. 

Along my back fence, I planted all the blue green balls of ornamental grass.  I decided to go with this instead of the boxwood because I already had this border in the curved sections.  It looks really great. I'm happy with it.  

Casper's Wilderness Park

Two weeks ago we went on an easy hike not far from our home, out off the Ortega Hwy.  We went to Casper's Wilderness Park and hiked a 2.8 mile trail.  The admission fee to this park is $5.00 and it is beautiful.  There were camping and picnic tables.  I think we are going to buy an annual pass, as we have already paid $15.00 in parking and entrance fees.  

The trailhead was located by this wonderful old windmill, it (the trailhead) took us a little while to find, but once we did, it was a really easy hike.  This area has a lot of empty horse stalls and the trail head was behind them.  We only saw 2 other people and they were riding their horses. 

 The trail alternated between open meadows and walks under oak and sycamore trees, we also crossed a creek bed a couple of times.  The creek was, of course, dry.   The trail was soft sand which made for a little more effort in the walking, but it wasn't hard.  Do yourself a favor and pack a picnic lunch for the end of your hike.  There were a lot of pretty little spots under the trees and although I saw some cars, we didn't see any people.  It was a nice quiet space.

 I've joined a website called trails.com at the cost of $50.00.  You can go on the website and put in a zip code or choose any area in the United States and it will give you all the trails located in that area and information about them: easy, hard, length of hike, what to expect trail wise, scenery, directions, change in elevation, costs etc.  It has become a great tool and we have found things close to our home and in areas we are visiting.

 Its great to be outside moving, enjoying nature and bonding. 

Happy Birthday, Lance!

 My brother in law, Lance, celebrated his 56th birthday yesterday.  His talented wife, Cindy, made this cute banana pudding cake. But, that's not all...

Lance jumped out of an airplane to celebrate with his beautiful daughter, Emma.  Wow!  What a way to celebrate!

I don't have an actual pic of the jump, but I saw an incredible video.   Happy to report that they are safe and sound and had the experience of a lifetime. 

Various Going's On

I thought I would catch you up on some of the things the kids have been doing.  They are getting to the point where they take vacations and do a lot of things without me along to take pictures.  I have to beg, borrow and steal to get pics of them.

 Greg went to Beijing and Bangkok as part of his Executive Masters Program at Pepperdine University.

 Alyssa met him in Thailand (thankfully, after getting a new passport, last minute because her dog ate hers).  They traveled throughout Thailand for two weeks.

 One of Alyssa's favorite things was the elephant camp where they showed the elephants doing their work and taking baths.  They fed and rode them.

Upon leaving the elephant camp they floated down the river on this raft.

 Katie got her first professional job.  A great job with lots of room for growth. She had been a camp counselor after graduating college( and deciding she didn't want to be a teacher) and is now apartment hunting in L.A.   She is currently commuting 1 1/2 - 2 hours each way, but loves that new paycheck!  Katie also went to the USMNT soccer tournament where the US vs. Guatemala, but I have no pics.  She said it was really fun and super patriotic (which she loved).

About 10 miles from our home is a trail called Holy Jim.  We've heard a lot about it but in 21 years, we've never gone to see it.  I'm not sure why; we didn't really know where it was I guess.  On Saturday, we decided to go.  Boy, were we in for a surprise.  We had no idea that the 8 mile road leading to the trail head was 4 miles gravel and 4 miles 4x4 dirt road.  It was quite an adventure.

When you first arrive, you must walk 1/2 mile past cabins before the real trail head begins.

It was very beautiful and lush for a So. Cal. hike.  Lots of trees which means lots of shade for hiking.  You climb 2,300 feet in 1.7 miles.  

This was the little water fall at the end, nothing more than a trickle.  We were talking to someone that had been there 3 weeks before and there was a lot more water.  This was one of the most beautiful hikes, I can't believe it was right in our own backyard!

4th of July Tablescape

 Our 4th of July plans were cancelled, so I went ahead and put together this little tablescape.
My kids all have other plans, so Bob and I will probably go on our own adventure (hike).

 I made these U.S.A. letters last year.  You can buy plain paper mache ones at Joann's and you just paint them and add paper, decoupage and add flair.  They are really easy.

 Fun navy striped straws in the Anthropolgie etched glasses. 

I bought the tall stars a couple of years ago at TPA.  Its like HomeGoods.  

The placemats are from C Wonder and the chevron runner is from Amazon.com.  I just googled navy chevron runner and it came up.  I don't remember the company.  

 I made these little name place card holders from flags, buttons and firework stick from Michaels last year. I shredded some red scrapbook paper to put in the bottom and there is some florist foam in there for the toothpics to go into.

 My napkins are from several years ago,  They used to be a deep navy, I'm surprised at how washed out they are now.  They are from Roger's Gardens.

 I hope you enjoy your 4th of July.