The Ronald Reagan Library

 On Thursday, September 12, we hit the freeways and headed to the Ronald Reagan Library in famous Simi Valley, California. They chose an absolutely beautiful spot for this library. It sits on top of one of the rolling hills and has wonderful view of the valley below. Our mission was the Lincoln Exhibit that is closing at the end of September. In order to get to see Lincoln we had to go through the entire library. It's a pretty interesting library, so it wasn't much of a hardship. And it brought back lots of memories of when my boys were still boys and not men. I remember dropping Dan at Little League practice on the day that Reagan was shot. 

When we finally made our way to the Lincoln exhibit we decided it was well worth it. Unfortunately, I left my glasses in the car (parked a long way from the building) and only had my sun glasses. And although they are prescription I found it very difficult to read anything in this exhibit. The lighting was dark to begin with, add some sun glasses and it's almost impossible. Taking any sort of photo was also difficult in such a dark environment. I am now very careful to remember to check for the right glasses!

I liked the title of this exhibit

The young Lincoln

Scrapbook Pages

I'm not a genuine scrapbook person. I just like to put together pages of special places we've been or special people I adore or earth shattering events such as my grandchildren performing their drama camp presentation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was a wonderful production and will always be one of my special memories of them. All of my scrap book pages are produced digitally using Photoshop Elements on my iMac and all the free papers, fonts, and embellishments that I have collected from the many blogs that are floating out there. It's amazing how many talented people offer their stuff for free. The generosity is really something to think about.

The other part of making scrapbook pages digitally is that there is no mess. No glue, no scissors that I can never find, no having to print the photo three times because I can't measure correctly, and if I want to switch things around it's just "click and drag." Great fun!

And every time I turn the pages of one book or another wonderful (mostly) memories come flooding back to remind me of just how great life can be and what fun I've had along the way. Making the pages and then revisiting them from time to time is one of my favorite things.

My Visit to Shoreline

 I just returned (well, about a week ago) from a wonderful visit with my son, daughter-in-law and 2 grandchildren in Shoreline, WA. Shoreline is a suburb north of Seattle. The kids completed their two week drama camp on Friday with two productions of William Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, a 1950's Rock and Roll version by Arne Zaslove. The kids in this production ranged in age from 11 to 15 and they did a marvelous job of learning their Shakespeare lines and all the '50s songs in nine days of camp (Friday was rehearsal day in the morning and matinee at 3) and one weekend. Madison played the part of the Fairy Queen and Jack played the part of Lysander. I was so impressed by each one of these kids. We watched the dress rehearsal at 1:00, the matinee at 3:00 and the evening performance at 7:00. To tell the truth I would have gone back the next day to watch it all again. I may be a little biased but they really were great.

On Tuesday we loaded the car with food, kids, dog and ourselves and headed for the Cascade Mountains for 5 days. We stayed in a beautiful log home with views of Cle Elum Lake and surrounded huge evergreens as they are grown in the Northwest. It was a great time with lots of laughs, hugs and good food!

Titania - Fairy Queen

Lysander

Cle Elum Lake

On the first evening walk we noticed this fire burning far across the valley

The flowers that had gone to seed were as beautiful as when they were in bloom

This beautiful display of petunias was on display in Roslyn, Washington.
I don't know what they do to Petunias in this area but they were amazing.

And at the end of each day was a beautiful sunset to admire.

This is Alice. Alice loves her family and everyone else she meets. She did
not, however, enjoy her vacation at the top of the mountain. When we
started to load the car to go home, Alice sat down near the trunk of my
son's car and would not move. All she wanted was to go home!

Mission San Fernando, Rey de Espana

The second mission we visited on Wednesday, August 7, was Mission San Fernando. This mission was totally different from any mission we have visited so far. It was obvious from the first step that this mission had considerably more money to spend on its acquisitions and upkeep. The church is a replica of the former mission church and doesn't have the same feeling of the other mission churches we have visited. The Archival Center serves the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and is very formal and not very friendly. The museum is very large and quite extensive. It covers everything from a stamp of Father Junipero Serra to a room dedicated solely to statues, plaques, paintings and depictions of the Blessed Mother. This room is called the Madonna Room. The museum is filled with many beautiful things but there is no feeling of warmth in this mission.

The Bob Hope Memorial Garden is located here. Both Bob and Delores Hope are buried here as well as one of their sons and Mrs. Hope's mother. It's quite a lovely little garden. The story goes that when Mr. Hope was ill and his wife asked him where he would like her to bury him his reply was, "Surprise me."

The West Garden

Entrance to the mission church

The wine cellar entrance

The wine cellar - just a little dusty.

Bob Hope Memorial Garden

Bob Hope

And thus our visit to the Los Angeles area missions has ended. Our only other southern California mission is San Diego. With as much time as we spend in San Diego we can't quite figure out why we have never visited this mission. After San Diego it will be the Central Coast ~ San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, Slovang, Lompoc and San Louis Obispoa

Mission San Gabriel Archangel

California Missions...

Between 1769 and 1823 there were twenty-one Spanish missions established along the coast of California. Each mission was designed to be about a day's journey from the next. The first mission was established in San Diego and the 21st mission was in Sonoma. Our goal is to visit all 21 missions. On Wednesday of this week we visited the mission San Fernando, Rey De Espana and Mission San Gabriel Archangel. These two missions are about 30 miles from each other in the greater Los Angles area but were established many years apart. The Mission San Gabriel was the 4th mission and established in 1771. Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana was the 17th mission and established in 1797.

These photos are from the Mission San Gabriel. It is a beautiful mission and great fun to visit. After exiting the gift shop we passed by the fountain and into the Campo Santo Cemetery. From there it was through the church, the winery, the corridor with interesting tools, and the gardens. A very beautiful mission, well restored, well kept, very interesting and most welcoming.

The Stations of the Cross were made in Talavera, Mexico

in 1939

 The church is the oldest of it's kind south of Monterey, Ca. The pulpit, on the right, is original. The main altar was made in Mexico City and brought here in the 1790's. 

These grape vines were planted in 1925.

This Crucifix was in the center of the gardens of the cemetery of the priests.

The walkway to the building where the wine was made.

At one time San Gabriel Mission was the largest winery in California.

Along the outside corridor there were many old tools.

Notice the hole at the bottom of the door for the cats to go in and out.

Gabrieleno Tongva San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians kiiy (house).

Mission San Garbiel Archangel

San Gabriel, California

Accross the street from the mission was this charming park called

The Grapvine park

Terra Cotta Horses

While visiting the Bowers Museum last week, we came upon these terra cotta horses from the early Ming Dynasty. A couple of years ago this museum had an exhibit from China of the Terra Cotta Warriors and it was great! I did get this picture of these two terra cotta horses (there are three but one is hidden). The lighting wasn't great and there were some distractions in the photo (an exit sign and an electrical box) that I managed to eliminate. Thank you Photoshop Elements! Then I discovered this UK company that creates these effects "Actions" that work in Photoshop Elements or the full blown BigBoy Photoshop. From them I downloaded, FOR FREE, this amazing action that turned my horses into this beautiful photo with bends, shadows, frames and everything! The company is PanosFX.com if there is anyone out there reading this who might be interested.

Day Trip!

There’s a lovely little museum in Santa Ana ~ The Bowers Museum. We’ve been there several times and have always enjoyed it. Yesterday we traveled there to see the exhibit “Gems of the Medici.” Lovely stuff but “NO PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWED!” This has not been the rule with other exhibits we have visited but for some reason it is not allowed anymore. Ho hum. Charlie Canon had to stay in the bag and was not particularly happy about it! I did get a couple of nice shots outside but rather disappointing not to be able to capture the “Gems.” We also visited the “Tsar’s Cabinet,” an exhibit of dinnerware belonging to the Romanovs. Then there were was art of the Headhunters of the South Pacific and some very beautiful Chinese Art. And of course after that was dinner at The Olde Ship, a pub in Santa Ana. And all of this made for a lovely day except for the traffic. I have no idea where all of these people can be going but there are obviously too many people in California and they all own cars. It’s approximately 70 miles from Hemet to Santa Ana and the majority of those miles is freeway. We left Santa Ana at 4:15 pm and arrived home about 6:30 pm. Makes me just want to stay home!