out and about

enjoying the rain, this has been a super rainy winter and i have loved every second of it.
 

we took a trip down to Oceanside yesterday, there is a lookout stop along the way. the hills were all green with the beginnings of wildflowers, some orange and yellow. i have said it a million times but winter is the best time to be here in california, i just love the green when we get it.

 

we met up with friends and spent the day chatting about guitar lessons and ukulele's and then headed over to the "making music museum" which was very interesting to me. i have the background in piano, but even after just a few months of guitar lessons, i am fascinated by guitars now.


i see guitar books in my future


for daddy


the kids had fun and i was impressed with how well behaved all the children who were playing instruments were, even with display guitars being handed back and forth


we visited Los Cerritos Wetlands on the way home, i missed a cool art show with wetlands photos on display. just completely forgot to go last night, ugh!


oh well, so more guitar practicing today, lessons and then house cleaning i guess. boy, weekends sure go by fast around here.

santa catalina

 
golf cart adventures




we took a tour of avalon via golf cart and one of the best treats was the visit to the wrigley memorial and botanical gardens












we drove around and around for 3 hours and saw the gardens, the casino, divers diving, kayakers kayaking, cute houses, luxurious pads and eucalyptus groves to die for. i highly recommend a golf cart drive when visiting avalon


this house rocks and has the killer pool!!




the folks who live here are soooo dang lucky, i just can't say enough about how lovely our winter trip to catalina was. if you are ever in the los angeles area, forget the city and take a fast boat to santa catalina for a real treat. for all you locals, forget about that expensive trip to the mediterranean and check out avalon in the winter, best and cheapest time to go and well worth it!

glass bottom boat, sorta

so we thought the glass bottom boat was what we would do but we ended up choosing the sub ride, it was sooooo fun, a real highlight of the trip

 

 

food on the dock while we waited to board the sub








much better than the sub ride at disneyland






it usually takes every cent we have to go on these vacations, so rarely do we splurge on all the adventures most people go on without a thought...(remember our hawaii trip when we literally ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches the whole time and spent all our money on the rental car only seeing free things) well, this was a pleasant splurge and i have to say i really enjoyed myself. seeing fish swarming around you while underwater was just a fantastic thing and i am inspired to snorkel and dive now (we'll see about that!!) i also learned that sharks don't like kelp because they can get caught up in it, good to know!


unfortunately chris' grandmother passed away this weekend so i have had moments of mixed feelings. she has not been in very good health for some time now so i have worried she was suffering. her passing makes me reflect on my own life a bit, knowing our time here is so short. bittersweet at times, this trip.

valentines day on the enchanted isle

collecting valentines from the beach

 

 

catalina tile is everywhere, so gorgeous


i love how the casino reflects into the water in this photo, the sun is setting behind it


we have been checking out all the cool houses here, i have learned a lot about the history of avalon from a book i purchased at one of the museums. i never knew the wrigley family owned the island or that most of it is protected (awesome!) from development. the only problem with that is that house prices are crazy here, a decent house is in the millions, a tiny cottage runs about 600,000... pretty neat old places but i am sure they all need lots of work to keep them up. i wonder how the people who work in the restaurants and small shops can afford to live here? hmmmm...


a fixer upper for me


there is a mix of craftsman style houses/bungalows (my favorite), victorian and simple beach shacks (love these as well). i am happy to see older houses restored into hotels and apartments rather than being torn down for boring modern buildings. there is also a spanish hacienda style here which is lovely.




artists seem to flock here (no doubt its a wonderful place to paint and create)




yes i love it all....stay tuned for a few of our adventures...coming up!

avalon

 
photo heavy post because really, what can i say that is better than this?






just a sneak peek..more to come!

island valentine

 
so we are off to catalina island this weekend, we leave tomorrow. chris and i went there on one of our first dates ever and we haven't been back since. thats like 15 years or something! growing up i had a good friend who would take me with her on the family sailboat several times during the summer. as a parent now, it freaks me out a bit but we were all really good swimmers. we would row the dinghy around avalon bay all by ourselves for hours and hours. i don't know how we managed to never get in trouble or collide with any large boats. i am so glad i reconnected with that friend recently and she had a couple photos posted from our trips back then. such fond memories!


the girls have only seen catalina this way, from the shore and we have even seen it from the mountains on clear days. can't wait for them to have their first real boat ride (hope all goes well with lizzies stomach!!) it looks like the weather will be amazing! i will take lots of photos! happy valentines day everyone! i am super proud of both my girls who hand made all of their valentines over the course of several weeknights, with only a few complaints that it was harder than buying from the store, but they did it anyways. feels good! see you when we return!

"secret" beach

so i learned a valuable lesson last week, when after several months of communication with a blogger i loved, i found out the hard way that you just can't predict how people will react. when someone has a blog that has picture after picture and post after post about the beach, their flickr pages littered with wonderful trips to the beach... you would think if you inquired where the beach they loved might be that they would just tell you... well you would be wrong. instead you would get a response about how what makes a beach attractive is unique to an individual (?????) and that this very special beach is their very special secret so you better "google" up a beach for yourself. ok, i live on the west coast, this person lives on the east coast. i am not hopping on a plane anytime soon and taking over their special beach... so i decided to go to a beach near me today and just relax a little.

 

 

wouldn't you know there are colored rocks here on the west coast too? amazing! emily loved the beach glass




the girls had fun making a color wheel with their rocks and since there is a "no collecting" rule here, we left our design for the tides to take back out


lots of people made nice comments about our rock collection and design, it was a fun winter day here after the rain, laguna canyon was green, skies were blue and the air surprisingly warm






and one more shot of a super cool pad with a super cool view


if anyone is curious, i was at LAGUNA BEACH today, probably the most gorgeous beach in southern california and public, so please enjoy.