Visiting California

I just returned home from Southern California.  I was there for about five days before Laura and Emily joined me.  I was able to keep myself plenty busy before they got there.

At first, I thought I would just enjoy being pampered at the hotel.
Their Bistro served Starbucks White Chocolate Mocha and this oatmeal dish every morning.
This was much better than at home where I have to make my own oatmeal
and it never looks this pretty.  I actually took this picture to show Mike in
hopes of conning him into making it this way for me at home.  He said no.  

Then I felt I should get out more so I went shopping.
I was actually looking for the entrance to Joann's fabric store when I discovered
a See's candy store.  See's makes my favorite candy- orange and dark chocolate wafers - for a short time every fall.
I was shocked to find they still had some available for sale.  I was very happy.  

After eating all that candy and Starbucks coffee and oatmeal, I decided I
needed to exercise.  The first night I walked around the hotel but the next morning
I discovered Wilson Park.  Wilson Park has everything- a walking track, tennis courts,  horseshoe throwing,
roller hockey rink, a baseball field, a tree house and on two mornings a week a farmers market.
The best part about walking around the park besides the weather was all the people watching I
could do.  Over the week besides watching other walkers and their dogs I saw tai chi and kendo sword classes, Mommy and Me exercise classes, and tennis games.    

However, I was actually in Southern California to visit my family.
My brother invited me to walk near his house on Saturday morning and then
join his family for breakfast.  Of course, I went because I wanted to spend quality
time with him and his family but hanging around at the beach was an additional point
in his favor.  

My visit was not all fun and games.  I actually came to organize a Thanksgiving dinner for the Spilsbury, Peterson and Jerome families.  Eli volunteered to help make the butter cookies for Thanksgiving Day dessert.  I gratefully accepted his help because I knew he had been making these cookies with Aunt Kathy for years.  Turns out Kathy never even gave him the rolling pin.  So I include this picture to show Kathy that he is now an expert at this part of making butter cookies.  While Eli and I worked on the cookies, Sela was busy making jewelry.  Here she is polishing the stones she needed.

Eli and I made a lot of butter cookies.  I did not tell him I had doubled the recipe until we were about half way through.  My philosophy is that you can never have too many butter cookies.

To make it up to him, I made Taffy Butter bars as a snack but I messed up the recipe which is pretty hard to do.  The Spilsbury's kept telling me they still tasted fine but I think they were just being nice.

I enjoyed all this time with my California family but we were all still looking forward to Laura's and Emily's arrival right before Thanksgiving.  That is when things got even busier.