Oh no!!!!

Not snow! It’s much too early. But I guess the snow season is upon us. Pretty to look at, not fun to deal with. Too bad it’s Halloween night and the little ones are looking forward to “Trick or Treating.” It’s cold and nasty.

My Favorite!

This morning, I boiled the butternut squash I had and whipped it into a pie – it’s my favorite. My mom used to make these in the fall using squash from her garden – and always made a couple for Thanksgiving. The secret is to put in a lot of mashed squash and only use cinnamon for the spice! When Bruce ran an errand this morning, I had him stop at the grocery store for whipping cream. Gonna be a great day!

New Day, New Filling!

Yesterday I finally had my broken tooth repaired. And even though Dr. Nick tried to talk me into a crown - stating that a crown would be better, stronger - he agreed to just fix it with a filling. And he did an excellent job! Thank you, Dr. Nick!

Gee - I've now given up wasabi peas and pop corn. I hope that is enough!

Tomorrow night (or is it the next night) is when the kids hit the streets in their costumes. Thank goodness, our street is off their radar. No one comes! Well, maybe just one of the grandkids.

I Don’t Think I Mentioned . . .

That before we left on vacation, we bought a new washer and dryer. I had been checking out Consumer Reports, prices at stores, and general appearance of the machines before making my final decision. I decided on a pair manufactured by Samsung. We had planned for a Saturday delivery after we got back from vacation; but the day after we got home, I had a call asking if I wanted the appliances delivered that day. Of course I wanted them. I still had all our laundry from vacation waiting to be done. Delivery men arrived about an hour later - and took away the old pair. Bruce spent the day hooking both appliances up – and they are gorgeous! They do a great job on the laundry, too.

I love appliances with lights and buttons. These even play a tune when you start them!

Seattle . . .

One thing in Seattle that we didn’t check out was their Underground Tour. I did manage to get a photo of the glass skylight on the sidewalk. The tour will take you under the city streets to a time after Seattle's 1889 fire.

The following links will explain these lights and how the fire started - Seattle Underground Tour and Bill Speidel's Underground Tour.

Back Home and Settled In!

No more trips planned until next year – maybe around April. I’ve gone through our pictures – from Las Vegas to Seattle – and have ended up with over 2,700. But don’t expect to see them all posted here! Blogspot would kick me off their site! Our time in Seattle was spent taking a tour of the city; visiting the daughter of my long-time friend, Shirley; going to the Space Needle; Farmer’s Market and lastly - we took a drive out to Mount Rainier.

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Our flight back home was almost five hours for the first leg. We had two more flights after that. Bruce thought he'd avoid not being able to sleep in his seat by taking a sleeping pill. However, it never kicked in and he was wide awake for the whole trip. We finally pulled into our driveway just before two in the afternoon of the 19th. We were exhausted.

Today is a big day for our house guests! They are moving into their new home! I can't wait to see how everything looks with their furniture, etc. I might even post a few pictures. Also today, Bruce is busy working on the snow blower. Can't get ready too early, I guess. You never know when you will get hit by a major snowstorm. Smoky stays inside pretty much these cooler days. Talk about a soft life.

Leaving For Home Tomorrow!

That's the 18th - flight leaves late, so it will be the 19th before we are actually home. It's been fun, but I'm looking forward to seeing my Smoky. Hope he hasn't fallen in love with Rob & Shannon and out of love with Bruce and me!

I've taken over 2,000 pictures and I still have today to go. We'll be on a tour of Seattle for three hours, then maybe hit a few of the high spots ourselves by driving around.

Once we get home and I get organized, I'll upload some of my favorite pictures. But in the meantime, I took this picture this morning.

Now in San Francisco!

We’ve covered a lot of territory since my last post. Going back to Los Angeles, we took Starline’s Hollywood Homes Tour. We both decided that although the tour guide was great, there wasn’t much to see. Most of these homes are hidden either by a huge closed gate or high bushes or trees. We did get a great view of Tom Selleck’s home, also Paul Newman’s and Kirk Douglas’ homes. From there we did two other tours, from this tour we weren’t any smarter. Tour guide was hard to understand as he pointed out different clubs and supposedly famous places. The second day, we took another tour – this one took us through downtown LA – buildings are awesome.

From LA, we stopped in Pacific Grove after driving up the coastal highway. Ocean and shoreline are beautiful, but if you look at the other side of the highway, you see brown hills and areas with severe soil erosion. I mentioned to Bruce that I wondered if I poked the soil with my finger, would it all slide down on top of me?

At our B&B, we settled in for the night. Our room was quaint, with some antiques – nothing like rooms where we’ve stayed before.

It even had a gas fireplace. In the morning, instead of staying for breakfast, we were off – heading for San Francisco. Since this trip was about 125 miles, we veered off our route from time to time. Eventually we did get to the city – saw the Golden Gate Bridge and the crooked Lombard Street. Amazing! Of course we drove down it.

We have a full day planned for our first full day here. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

Pacific Time?

We finally seem to be adjusting to it.  Next week and back home, we’ll have to get our regular schedules back.  Nothing is easy. 

Leaving Las Vegas, we found my cousin’s house without getting lost – thank you Garmin.  And we found our motel easily in Hollywood – it’s a cute place and we would definitely stay here again (if we were coming back this way) and would recommend it to friends for their stays.  WI-FI connection is low so uploading even a few pictures takes forever.  When we get home, I’ll get a few of our favorites picked out and post them.  This is our sixth day of vacation and Bruce and I have taken over 1,100 pictures.

Second Day in Vegas!

Today we spent the day at Caesar’s Palace.  What a beautiful place – so much to see and do. 

We’re in Vegas!

Yes, we are! Day two – but let me go back a few days. How I hate that when I see a TV show or a movie write at the bottom of the screen - “Two Days Earlier” etc. On Monday, we were at the airport with time to spare. We caught our flight to Albany and were sitting around trying to figure out what to do for the next three hours, when Bruce came up with a fantastic idea – why not try to get us on an earlier flight. Off he went! About 15 minutes later, he came back telling me to hurry up, he had changed our flight – we were now on a plane that was that was ready to leave. This would cut off about three hours traveling time. At our next destination, Bruce did the same thing – got us an earlier flight. In all, we were in Vegas five hours earlier than originally scheduled.

We found the rental car agency and have a brand new Honda Accord for our road trip. It’s been parked at the hotel garage for the past few days, but tomorrow we pack it up and head for Los Angeles with a stop first in Beaumont to visit a cousin I haven’t seen in a zillion years.