Hoot Owl Baby Hat

Another fun baby gift!

New baby blanket edging

I thought this edging turned out really nice. For a little baby girl I know that is on the way.

Puppy Hat

I just finished making this puppy hat while watching the Westminster dog show. Is that appropriate or what? It's supposed to be newborn size, but I think it's a little big. Well, babies do grow right? It's my first try at the pattern. I like it!

Peterson Automotive Museum

 We went to the Peterson Automotive museum while we were in California. I had been once before and really enjoyed it.  There were some different exhibits this time.
Here is one of the first RV's and 5th wheel trailers! The trailer is permanently attached.

 This car won at the huge national low rider show. It was so cool looking. Can you tell how low it is?

This was last years winner. Isn't it cool looking? It has about 10 carots of crushed diamonds in the paint. It was named Elvis after his love of caddy's.

 Can you see the crystal decantor in the back and push button phone and ash tray up front?

 bling on the logo

 This was one of the original paint colors from the company. I thought Penny would like it.

 This was an original parade car, used by Truman and Nixon. It was enourmously long.

A modified barbershop hot rod. It reminded me of those beach blanket movies.

 Just a really cool car. It's French.

 This skeleton motor cycle was done by an artist from Chicago. It was cool.

 One of the original batmobiles.

Herbie!

Getty Villa HIghlights

 One of the things that Geoff and I did when we went to California was go to the Getty Villa. I have been to the Getty Museum several times, but never to the Getty Villa. It's in Malibu, and is in a beautiful setting where it looks over the ocean.
J. Paul Getty built it to show off his Meditteranean collection of art. It is all figurines, statues, mosaics, sculpture, no paintings.
What is amazing to me, is how old a lot of the pieces are and what good shape they are in. A lot of them are from anywhere to 500 BC to 500 AD.

I thought this guy was just fun. He was part of a group of small figures called comic actors.

This guy reminds me of someone I know!

 This lady is lfe size. And if you look at her, you see she has bird feet and a tail!

 Leda and the Swan.
















Hercules. You can see he is holding a lion skin and a big club.

 This is a drawing of womeone defeating a Hydra!

 Small lion figurine

 This is a trophy they would give out for a chariot race.

 Quite the hairdo on this lady. And an amazing piece of sculpture

This statue is missing pieces, but it is a wounded warrior and he is trying to pull an arrow out of his back.

 Geoff at the Getty Villa.

 Someone important.

A muse. She looks like she is musing.

The outside amphitheatre at the Villa. You can see the ocean in the background. A cool place! Free to get in, you just have to go on line and make a reservation.

Cell Phone Grammy Shots

 I don't get very good photos with my cell phone. This is a zoom in of the Grammy stage. The floor in front around the circle is where all the celebrities were sitting. Between that ramp in front of the stage and the stage was a "mosh" pit where people had to stand through the entire show, about 4 hours! Ugh.








You can see my hand holding the program here, so it gives you a better idea of just exactly how high up we were!

The 2011 Grammy Awards

Well I made to the Grammy's! It was a fun weekend. I will write separate entries about some of the things we did. This is the Hyatt Regency in Century City. This is the  view from the balcony of Geoff's room. My room actually ended up with the better view. It was a very nice hotel with nice rooms.

 Fancy beds and linens. And of course it costs to do anything. Nothing is included.

 Nice Bathroom fixtures.

 The view from my room! I was on the 17th floor.

 You could see all the way to the ocean. I wasn't in the room long enough to enjoy it though.

Geoff had to sign a waiver that we wouldn't take photos at the Grammy's. Although lots of folks were taking pictures with cell phones. My cell phone doesn't take very good photos, but I did take a couple. This is in the lobby of our hotel as we were leaving. Looks like we are ready, huh? I had to hand on to Geoff so I didn't fall off of my heels.

Geoff looks handsome as usual.

 Me

Geoff says these are the excruciatingly correct shoes to wear with a tux. Little bows and all. They cost a fortune. We were very close to the roof of the Staples Center. They gave us a nice thick glossy program. The tickets were also very nice souvenirs. We found a place to park and started walking. There was a lot reserved just for limos. It was funny to see so many altogether. We weren't allowed near the red carpet. The celebrities were way down on the floor. And while you could tell there were people in nice clothes, you really couldn't see who anyone was. The celebrities were pretty unruly. They kept telling everyone to get their seats and they kept milling around. Every commercial break, they were up too. When someone would get up and you watched where they sat down, that was the only way you knew who was who. There was a big screen on the side. We would look at the stage and then the screen, back and forth.

There was a lot of great music and it was a great opportunity. I especially liked seeing Mick Jagger and Barbara Streisand. How awesome is that? And Mumford and Sons were a nice surprise. I didn't really know who they were. You should have heard every one's gasp when Esparanza Spalding won best new artist. There were lots of pretty clothes. Some men just wore suits. Lots of ladies had short dresses.

Afterwards we went to the big after party. It was very crowded too. And as far as I know, there weren't any celebrities there either. I finally took my shoes off and started carrying them. My feet were killing me and I was tired of having to hold on to Geoff. We stood in several lines for food and then had to stand there and hold our plates to eat. The tables and chairs were all taken. One room was set up as the Rock/Hip Hop room. Lots of noise, dancers up on platforms around the room. There was also a Jazz lounge. That was a little less crowded and nicer. We liked it better. And we found dessert there. We decided we were done and ready to go back to our hotel. There was a line to get in to get out and get our "gift bag". It was a full size bag from Morrocan Oil with full size hair care products. We limped back to the car. We passed several limo drivers holding up signs for their clients. I said why doesn't one of your signs have my name on it? One girl laughed and said, you are supposed to say, Don't you know who I am? A hoot.

We got to the car and they had stacked parked us. We were trapped. Geoff had me back up and forth and we were able to escape.

Here is the fun Sebring convertible we had for the weekend. We went for a walk on the beach.

Near the Getty Villa, where we also went.

Me on the beach! A fun life experience!

Spur Cross Revisited

I wanted to get back out to Spur Cross and try the 6 mile loop that Cindy and I had scoped out the week before. Our friend Jet and his dog, Scooter came along with us. I knew it was a little more remote area than some of our hikes, but figured we could do it in about 3 hours.
Because of other committments, we started out in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day. This little burro actually greeted us in the parking lot at the end of the day. Along with his friend the mule. The mule and Scooter came nose to nose. The mule didn't like Scooter and tried to chase him a little. I thought Jet was going to punch him.

 Any way, start of the hike, lots of happy faces, both human and canine.

 The water and area is really pretty and we even found a little patch of left over snow at one of our water crossings.

 And this hawk was really cool to see. I looked him up and think it's a red tail, but I never really got a good look at his tail, so don't know for sure. I just know, it was fun to see him.

 So the first part of the trail, is wide, flat, easy. You walk along the creek, pass folks on horseback and see pretty views.

 More happy faces. Me, Jet and Scooter. Right before Jet offered to help me go swimming.

 Cindy, Jet and Scooter.

 Jet took good care of Scooter. He even gave him a ride in his back pack later, when he thought he was tired.

 So that was about the first third of the trail. Then comes the middle third. It looks well marked here. But you can see, that the trail suddenly goes from a wide, kind of road, to a narrow path. And it is pretty rocky. In parts, you were just walking on all kinds of loose volcanic rocks. Big ones. Jet called it an ankle breaker. It was still a pretty area. And you come to two different springs. Which is a good thing, because they became significant markers for us.

 Jet hiked faster than us. I am always bringing up the rear. Here is Jet up on the hill ahead of us.

 So while Jet gets ahead and out of sight, Cindy and I miss a turn and go up a ravine instead of the trail. The going gets pretty rough and we probably go about 15 minutes out of our way. We figure out that we somehow missed the trail and back track. We find our way and Jet waiting for us a ways down the trail. We are probably close to half way now and looking for the second spring. We find it and it is almost completly covered with a nice layer of ice.

 We are so happy to find this point of the trail and so focused on the spring, that somehow all three of us lose the trail again. It was a more significant wandering this time. We get up on the hill, Scooter gets in some cholla. I slip and fall. Jet gets banged up some. It gets a little worrisome. We can't seem to find the trail. It's getting late in the afternoon, we are only about half way, it's remote and we are lost. We figure out that we need to back track to the spring, because we know that is still on the trail. It was a little hard to see the spring, but we find it and about 10 feet back up the way we came, found where the trail branched off. We were so focused on the spring that we missed it. Lots of sighs of relief to be back on the trail. But this is where it really got rocky and was slow going. Big rocks. We kept putting one foot in front of the other and eventually found the fork in the trail that would get us back to civilization. It was a relief to know we weren't going to get lost again. The theme from Gilligan's Island kept running through my head, about how they set off for a "three hour tour". We were definately going to be out for four hours. It was getting dusky, but I knew we were going to make it back before dark. And it had been a lovely afternoon after all.
Someone had made this amazing pile of rocks on the trail.

And it was back to being a road again. I don't think Jet ever wants to go back, but I think it was a learning curve for us and I would try it again. It's a pretty area....and alls well that ends well. I am sore from my fall, scratches and all. But a hot bath solves a lot of problems!