Staycation Travelogue 10/29/10

On Friday, we scratched my sister's shopping itch. We shopped some local favorites before ending up at the Americana at Brand. Lunch at the Cheesecake Factory... too stuffed for cheesecake! Then we admired the dancing fountains.

I was a bit upset that my sister was seeing this beautiful outdoor mall for the first time and yet there were all these cranes and cherry pickers there. It occurred to me that they were putting up Christmas trees! OY! It is that time already!

And sure enough they were... but hey, that tree's kinda naked...

We soon realized... they were ADDING BRANCHES! To a LIVE tree!!

These guys were on the ground keeping everything organized:

All the branches were skinned where they would be attached to the tree. They were treated with a fire retardant and a green dye! (Oh, the joy of a real fake tree!) Each branch also had a row number on it.

The guys in the cherry pickers would come down and pick up dozens of braches and then hammer, saw and screw them into place.

 

After a little more shopping, we headed for home but had to stop for milkshakes from In-N-Out. We've forgotten about Halloween but there we found Robert, who had to make his costume for school. He went dressed as his favorite burger joint and won the costume contest. So naturally mom took him out for a burger to celebrate. You would have thought that the folks at In-N-Out would've been so impressed with his ingenuity, they might just comp him a burger or a shake at least... but noooo! (Bad move In-N-Out!).  But Robert was so cute... I just had to share him with you! 

Staycation Travelogue 10/28/10

We hit Laguna Beach for shopping and lunch and a little ocean-side skygazing.

On the way home, we found ourselves not so happily stuck in traffic on the 5. After an hour, we stopped and decided to explore Downtown Disney. Other than a lame design for handicapped parking... why do they always ASSuME that handicapped people are mobile by wheelchairs? In reality, most handicapped just require closer parking. Downtown Disney gets an F on that design... but the rest was SO inspirational. Everywhere you looked was something interesting and my head was flooded with bead ideas!

Every fountain resembled giant flowers. The wrought iron was glorious! But these candied apples really caught my eye!

I Was Made to Love Her

There was a strange glowing orb in the sky this morning... something we haven't seen here in EIGHT days! Miss Loubel May was scratching around on the porch wanting to work on her glorious tan as she is so apt to do in the morning but the fall sun would not  cooperate and shine on her softy rug.

I got busy and swept off the new sunny spot and shook out her rug and carefully placed it where the morning sun would accommodate her needs.

The princess was happy indeed!

Rainbow Over Luken's

With all the strange rain storms this month (very early in the year for So.  Cal), we've had some incredible rainbows over Mt. Luken's.

Sorry it's not bigger... shot with my cell phone.

Mabel and the Mister

Our hiking buddies, Hank and Sue, have a new brother - a tiny chihuahua! This is so remarkable because Hank and Sue are Rhodesian Ridgebacks and each weigh nearly 100 lbs! Their mom saw the pup at our favorite neighborhood thrift store. All kinds of people were holding him high in the air by the scruff of his neck. She said it was worth the asking price to know that no one would ever hold him that way again.

He's gone through many names in the past week. I can't even remember them all. But some highlights are: Henry (the "grown up" version of Hank!), Baxter, Dexter, Junior and his mom is calling him "The Egg" at the moment. I personally don't think it fits so I've resorted to calling him The Mister  or Mister Man.

We got to babysit one day last week and I thought you might like to see the highlights.

Mabel Lou meets the Mister

"Umm... that's MY bed Mister!"

Somebody actually pouted a bit while Mister Man was visiting!

Mister made my mom just glow!

After a while, he got tired. It seemed all he needed was two soft "pillows."

Mabel, Mister and I all curled up on the sofa for a little nap. All was well. Unless, I took my left hand off Mabel Lou. Then, I got "the look!"

We had a great visit and hope to babysit again!!!