Alice's Last Day in L.A.

My friend, Alice, got a job transfer and was headed to San Francisco. I was sad to see her go, but not before we had our last harrah!

Our first stop was Galco's Soda Pop Stop! This is a store in northern L.A. and it is filled with so many varieties of interesting sodas!
Both Alice and I spent over $20 each on soda and neither of us drinks it that often! I bought mostly rootbeers, but Alice bought Cheerwine (what cherry coke is modeled after) and Ouza soda (licorice-ewwwwww!).
One of the various brands of sodas:

After Galco's we drove to Westwood to try Diddy Riese (pronounced DeeDee Reese) which is a cookie and ice cream shop with amazing prices (25 cents per cookie, $1.50 for a ice cream sandwich), but Alice and I opted for cookies.

Our last stop was the Apple Pan, a place that Alice and her boyfriend, Mark had tried before and loved. The place is just a square counter top and Alice warned me you don't get all "Sally" when ordering here. So we both had Hickory burgers and we shared fries. It was an L.A. experience for sure!

Here we are at the end of our meal! I'm going to miss my friend!

Rockport, MA and Halibut Point with Seona

Thursday of my trip back east, my good friend, Seona, picked me up and we drove to Rockport, MA to spend the day. We had lunch at a cute little "townie" seafood place and then we got to shopping, which the quaint town is known for. We also walked the coast. We were amazed at how blue the water was. This is a picture of a "gazebo" that is on a private residence. We tried to get to it, thinking it was a public area, but we were denied! After Rockport, we drove north to Halibut Pointe, one of my most favorite places in the Northeast.
What's out there?
Aw, Seona the super model:
Natural occurrences are amazing! Look at this tree trunk that was wedged into the rocks from the mere force of the waves!
Here's my modeling session:
At the end of our hike, Seona and I came across what I'll dub "Triton of the Sea":
We drove back to Beantown and had dinner at an Afghanistan restaurant. Very interesting food! We had a really fun day!!!

Twin Power! Bridesmaid's Reunion!

Tuesday morning, Jamie, Kaitlyn and I drove back to Cambridge, where I stayed the rest of my trip. I stayed with my friend, Christy, who lives there with her husband and her twin boys, Ivan and Alexander.


I hadn't seen them in a year and I was amazed at how big the boys are--they are almost two!!!
Christy and the boys and I went for a walk to Harvard Square. The boys were happy to go! They are pretty happy boys!

While we were on our walk, we ran into Kim Hazekamp and her mom, who was visiting from New Jersey. I hadn't seen Kim in 8 years probably. It was a great visit before we were on our way back home.

One of the nights I was there, Christy, Tracy and I went to dinner. Christy, Tracy and I were bridesmaids in the wedding I was in last year.
It was a lot of fun catching up and the food was great!

Squam Lake Hike

Labor Day, Jamie and I had a day on our own. Kev stayed with Kaitlyn at home and Jamie and I drove to the Squam Lakes region. We went on the "Rattle Snake" hike which was a lot of fun! It was a very light hike, with a few challenges, but nothing too bad.

I love scraggly trees!
After our hike, Jamie took me to Walter's Basin for lunch. The restaurant is named after a fish in the movie On Golden Pond. Lunch was delicious and the company was great! It was nice to have some time with Jamie...nice girl time!

Hopkinton State Fair

Sunday morning, while staying in New Hampshire with the Coleman's, after church we drove to Contoocook to go to the Hopkinton State Fair. We got there relatively early and didn't have much of a line to contend with.

We had a great time visiting the various exhibits, like the biggest pumpkin:
We also visited the "amnimals," as Jamie would say.Here's a few pictures from the end of our time at the fair:

When we left, the line was out of control so we were happy we came early!

New England Aquarium

Friday, September 3rd I took a red eye flight to Boston. I was blessed to have an empty seat next to me and the guy at the window seat let me scrunch in a little ball so that I could get some sleep! It caused a crick in my neck, but I was at least relatively awake when I arrived in Boston the next morning!

My friend, Melissa, picked me up from the airport. We drove back to the Back Bay where she lives and walked to a restaurant for breakfast. It was a bookstore/restaurant combo place and the food was pretty good. Afterwards, we went back to Melissa and hung out until Jamie and Kev came to pick me up.

Jamie and Kev, and their 4-month old, Kaitlyn, came and they had a great idea--let's go to the New England Aquarium! Here they are, the happy family:
The sea life was amazing! This turtle was HUGE!
After the aquarium, the four of us walked to the North End and had Italian food, of course! We went to Strega, which was a place none of us had been to before. It was delicious!

KHC Baptism and Luau

The end of August, King's Harbor Church had it's annual Baptism and Luau event. It's a potluck and there is great worship music and then people gave their testimony. This year was special because Sachin, a new guy in my bible study, decided to get baptized.

Kathy, a woman in my bible study, came alive at this event. She was so happy for Sachin! She made a fresh lei for Sachin to wear, which was really nice. Sachin wore it well!

Sachin was the first one to give his testimony, out of 40 people. Most testimonies were short but sweet!
Once the baptees (?) was done sharing, everyone moved to the lagoon to get dunked! I tried to take pictures but they didn't turn out. It was nice to see Sachin baptized!

Dinner at Acapulco with family

During Erika's visit, we met up with my dad and my brother and his son, Thomas for dinner. We met at my dad's favorite place, Acapulco.

Here are some pictures of the kids while we waited to be seated:
Sebastian running around:
Laurenie:

At first Rebecca was trying to cover her face with her jacket, but she's really just a plain ol' ham!

We also had along with us Ruby, my fairly new great niece (daughter of Samantha Wales, my brother, Todd's child). Erika fell in love immediately and her kids also really loved the baby, who was only 3 months at the time.

Here's my nephew Thomas helping stir the 15 packets of sugar into Erika's tea (I am not exaggerating...look at the remnants of sugar packets on the table):
Thomas is concentrating so hard! LOL

Sebastian's 5th Birthday

I meant to post on this event right after it happened, but I guess better late than never!

My nephew, Sebastian, turned 5 on August 10th. My sister and her family were in town for Jenn and Andy's wedding, so they had Sebastian's birthday party in California. It was so nice to be able to attend! The party was at Scotti and Rich Steip and it included myself and my dad as well as the Steip family.

The birthday boy: Sebastian's parents got him a pedal car, so he took it out for a spin.

Rebecca also tried to drive it! The wheel was stuck so that is why she is concentrating so much!

Ross Smith (friend of the family) was also there. He had fun with the kids:

The 5th birthday is the official "gum" birthday since you can't chew gum until you are 5 years old. Bubble Tape was the party favor. Here's Sebastian about to try his first piece (Kaylen is looking on):
Dinner was delicious and so was the cake. Sebastian had specifically asked for a cake that was shaped like a building and that had Spiderman swinging around the building and my sister actually found a cake that did that!

We all sang to him and he blew out the candles before we retired to the living room to watch him open presents.

I got Sebastian 3 gifts. The first one he opened was an Incredible Hulk action figure. He thought that was okay...you could tell he thought "I could play with that" with a satisfactory smirk.

Next he opened the two shirts I got him. I wish I had gotten a good picture of the look on his face--he looked like he was going to cry! He is definitely different from his sisters who love to get clothes! I redeemed myself when he opened the big gift, which was a huge Iron Man action figure that has rockets and buttons to make Iron Man talk. I believe he says 19 different things. I breathed a sigh of relief. I like to be the one to get the best gift. Who doesn't?

All in all, Sebastian seemed to have a great birthday!

Wow, it's been a month!

Wow, it's been a month since I last blogged. I think that is a record for me! Life has been a bit busy! I know, I know....excuses, excuses. But it's true! Work was super busy right before I went on vacation and then there was the vacation....more to come on that soon!