San Diego Weekend

For the last 32 years we've traveled the highways from Phoenix to San Diego.  Our car knows the way....we could do it with our eyes closed.  So many things have changed along the way, but so many things have stayed the same.
When we were invited to a destination wedding in San Diego, we were so excited to combine this happy occasion with visiting with family that live there.

One of the things I had planned for the weekend was a visit up to Temecula where their outdoor hung Quilt Show was planned for Saturday.  You can't visit Temecula without a visit to one of the local wineries.  Unfortunately unexpected circumstances derailed these plans.........too bad since adding some quilts and wine to this weekend would have just added a cherry on top to a pretty wonderful weekend.

Here is a picture from LAST year!

I've never attended a wedding that was held on the beach, so the wedding of Vanessa and Jeremy was really neat.  The weather was perfect, the food divine, and the company of friends fantastic.  I've decided that I truly enjoy weddings.  Seeing two young people who are so in love just seem to reinforce my belief that love is the most important there is. 

Mike and I danced the night away but paused briefly

for this photo to be taken.

Fun times.

After the party was over we took a walk on the beach to witness the

"Red Tide" effect. 

Awesome, amazing and not to be missed if you are near the beach.

Waves lighting up with a floresent blue light is a

sight to behold!

Here's a link if you want to read more about this beauty of nature:

http://belmontshore.patch.com/articles/red-tides-glowing-waves-light-up-the-shore

Mom and I got to spend a fun day together visiting Seaport Village and discovering a new part of the city that she has lived in for almost 40 years.
Littly Italy is a quaint part of downtown San Diego that has almost a small town main street feeling.  It is filled with the wonderful aromas of Italian food cooking, and people enjoying that food sitting in little outside cafes with their dogs at their feet.

This picture does NOT do this pasta justice.

It was REALLY good!

While we had a wonderful weekend away

we really miss those we leave behind.

We are lucky to have the ability to Skype

with our sweet girl! (s)

Miss Mia toddles in and out of our vision, stopping

in briefly to show us new treasures she discovers.

I captured this photo of Mia "airing the dirty laundry".

Enjoy the coming of fall and

remember to love one another.

tammy

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

What a weekend!

I love this picture.

Our angelic Mia never has a shortage of people

wanting to hold her.

Grandpa refused to get in line.

He insisted that grandpa's always get to go to the front!

I wish every single baby in the world had so many people

wanting to hold them!

Mike and I had the pleasure of Mia's company for a whole night!

Jenny and Rafael had a wedding to attend

Here they are all dressed and ready to go.

These two are great parents and really

deserved a night to themselves.

I did decide one thing during the 4AM feeding.....

God was very wise to give babies to young people!

I used to love those nightime feedings when my

kiddos were young.....it was a very special time.

Even tho I was tired and rather bleery-eyed at 4am this morning,

Mia rewarded my loving care with an ANGELIC smile

when I picked her up.

She is just so, so precious and words just

can not describe the deep well of love I have for that little babe.

Saturday morning dawned bright and early and it found

me moving furniture and deep-cleaning my carpet

AND

embroidering these shirts for Jen.

She is in charge of a banquet this coming week and

asked me to make shirts for her committee.

I love the way they turned out!

I had embroidered these aprons earlier this week, but on

Sat. morning I also made some micro-mitts to go along with them.

So Saturday was a great day......

some cleaning, some creating and some family time and some MIA time!

Sunday was a day of rest.....well-deserved rest!

God's Blessings,

tammy

Mother's Day Surprise!

On Saturday I was invited to spend a delightful afternoon with two of my favorite girls in the world.....Jenny and Jen. They wanted to take me out for pedicures, a movie, shopping and happy hour. We had a fabulous time. We also managed to run over to Jenny's new house to have a look around. And then there were some mysterious phone calls..............


And when we arrived back at MY house I was told that something was really wrong out in my garden and I really needed to quickly go out and look!

Of course what I found was a yardful of wonderful friends assembled by my sweet husband to surprise me for my 50th birthday!!!!!!! Which by the way, was actually 2 months ago!

How Many Times must a girl be reminded that she is FIFTY!!!!!??????





SURPRISE!!!!





Many dressed 50's style with rolled up jeans
and hair slicked back
.
Jen's grandma made her a poodle skirt for the occasion!





My dear husband and master-mind of this surprise
kept everyone's glass filled.
He bought a Margarita Maker especially for this
occasion. I'm anxious to try to make some Sonic style
smoothies with it this summer!



There was plenty of food from BobbyQ's
on the back porch.



Rafael and Jen filled plates with cake and ice cream.

Mike set up 4 banquet tables in the pool area.

It was a great night and it made me feel really special that my husband would plan this and so many friends and family came to help me celebrate. AGAIN!


Sunday, of course was Mother's Day!
So I got to spend another whole day with my family!




God has richly blessed our family with love, and laughter
and health and good times and lots of wonderful friends
and I am soooooooooo very thankful!

Hurray! My computer is fixed!

My husband is a genius! Finally got my computer back on track. Seems to have been attacked by some sort of virus. Yuck.........why do people have to do that?

This is a picture of my lovely family. This was about 1/2 hour before I had over 23 women arriving for my annual ornament exchange. These people pictured above worked thier fingers to the bone (well almost) putting up Christmas decorations, the Christmas tree, cooking, hanging outside lights, etc, etc.

I can't thank them enough..........I am so lucky to have them!

I just don't know what I would do without them!

Ornament Exchange pictures:

We had drinks on the back porch.

Jen had set up and beautifully decorated these tables.




Quite a line formed in the kitchen to fill up our plates.

Jenny had fixed a turkey earlier in the day.

I added some gravy and stuffing and my friends all brought potluck!

We had quite a feast!

We push all the furniture back so we can all eat family style:

After we stuff ourselves with great food we remove the tables and form a large circle around the room so we can "exchange" ornaments. It never fails to move me when I look around that circle of friends. Not a day goes by that I don't stop and thank God for so richly blessing me!

This year we added a game called Left, Right, Center:

On of the many highlights of the evening for me was when my daughter-in-law went to "steal" an ornament from my friend Jo, who remarked (trying to dissuade Jen from stealing her ornament) "Jen, you used to be such a sweet girl" To which Jen's mom replied "Yeah, until she started hanging around with the Baldi's"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's true..........we've corrupted her!

What a Weekend!

I started off the weekend by finishing up my last customer quilt (to be done before the wedding). I took some pictures but somehow the picture I took of the whole quilt disappeared from my camera, so here are some detail shots of this lovely southwest inspired quilt. I'll have to ask Carla to send me a picture of the whole quilt!

Friday night was of course the Halloween party at the Boojum Tree. I think that one of the things I like most about this party is that my quilting friends like to dance! We have an absolute ball! I figured that I must have lost about 10 pounds just from dancing alone, but alas the scale told me something different. Stupid scale!

Friday Night Quilters

Back row: Katrina, Cheryl & Linda

Front Row: Tammy, Kathy, Sharon & Mary

Another great thing about this party is that my whole family attends. This year Darcy joined us!

Saturday morning I went shopping with Jenny to look for a dress for the rehersal. She found a really pretty white and black dress. We went to Fry's food store to get the Coke products that were on sale. I also bought a trellis that was clearance priced for my front entry way! How cool is that? $20 was a steal! Oh! and BONUS! I took the display model and all I had to do was screw the top part back together! I already had the plants, so I installed the trellis and planted the plants that very afternoon!

In the afternoon I went with Jenny and Rafael

to thier final wedding planning meeting.

Saturday Evening I went to a Margaritaville party at Tana's house. I was a little apprehensive about going since Mike was on his way to India and that meant I would have to go alone. But I went and had a great time with the many friends who were there, some of which I had not seen in ages!

On Sunday I was up bright and early and working in my secret garden. I worked on the ground under the gazebo area, trying to smooth it out and remove any scraggling grass. We plan on doing something more permanent in that area, but really didn't have time to get it done before the wedding.

I cleaned up all the leaves, groomed all the plants picking off any dead flower heads. I completely cleaned all the unnecessay junk out of the area that we tend to store there. I powerwashed the side of the house and the furniture and sidewalks. I installed a couple more screws in the bricks so I could hang some flowers. (Major task for me! I'm afraid of the drill!) Rafael and Jenny came over and helped me cut down and haul away a bunch of dead branches from the tree and then we finished installing all of the white lights in the tree. It was a long, tiring day but the yard looks o-so-nice!

To end the Evening I went outside and sat under my twinkling tree with a margarita and had a great visit with my mom, and then with Lisa.

The weather is beautiful here now.....

Estate planning

Man o Man, last night my husband drug me to an Estate planning meeting. I did NOT want to go. I wanted to sit at home and watch Dancing with the Stars and work on beading my daughter's wedding veil. Well, I went to the Estate Planning workshop. I was not on my best behavior I'm ashamed to say. So I wasn't kicking and screaming, but I wasn't my usual pleasant self! Basically what I really wanted to do was put my head in the sand. Estate planning is not a very pleasant subject. However..........the meeting was informative and really something that needs to be done. So, grudgingly, I'm glad I went.

Finally my Living room has some color and is not longer only VANILLA! I've also finally found some curtains and some fabric to make a valance!

This is a picture of the accent wall I painted. I also painted over the green wall that I worked so hard on earlier. It just was not ri ght. The new turquoise color is great!

My kids came over on Sunday and we worked on our Halloween costumes. We are going as a group this year! I can't really say what we are going to be just yet, but we sure had a great time working on the project! I always love it when we get together with all the kiddos! Sure do love them! Brian and Jen had just participated in a kick ball game at thier church and Jenny and Rafael had just returned from, yet another and thier final bridal show!