Labor Day Weekend

We had a nice relaxing weekend and were able to get a little bit of "everything" in!

Saturday - We went to a celebration party for our friend and neighbor Francesco!

He is from Italy and he became an American citizen!
It was so great to see someone so excited about becoming an American after working so hard to go through the proper process. Congratulations Francesco!!!

Then we had family over for a BBQ that evening...

Sunday - After church we headed to San Diego and went to the Torrey Pines Gliderport. Check out their website here - http://flytorrey.com/cms/. It makes for a great afternoon visit!

Then we headed into La Jolla and strolled around and ended with a drink at George's.

Monday - We stayed around the house all day. Daniel prepared for his work presentation and I did some crafting for an upcoming party...

All in all it was a great weekend!

Palm Desert Weekend

We met the Damato's and Thomas family in Palm Desert this past weekend!

We had a great time being together, cooking, shopping, helping the kids scrapbook and relaxing by the pool.
We even had a special birthday dinner celebration for Marie!
We wish we could do this more often...
God has truly blessed us with awesome friends!
Click on the photo to see more photos of the weekend get-away...

Grace turns...8!

We can hardly believe it! Gracie turned "8"!

She had us over for a birthday celebration dinner complete with her favorite ice cream cake.

We love you Gracie and pray that God blesses you this coming year...

Click on Gracie's photo to see more photos!

A day at home...

We spent the day at home today...

We needed to do some things around the house and get caught up bit! Daniel did the "outside" things and I did the "inside" things...

One of Daniel's outside things was to check on our little "garden"...we have 2 baby tomatoes and a new flower bud starting!!!

We also enjoyed having our neighbors - the Shumate's - over for dinner!

A Fabulous "50th" Celebration!

My friend Barbara turned "50" on Saturday!

She hosted a Fabulous "50th" Cuban Birthday Bash!
The party was complete with great Cuban food, libations and salsa dancing!

We all had a great time...and doesn't she look Fabulous (she's the one in the red dress)?!?!

Dan In Real Life...

No, not my "Dan"!
Well, actually I prefer to call him "Daniel" even though he is known as "Dan" on the East Coast...:)

We rented the movie called "Dan In Real Life" this weekend.
It is a Blissfully Funny and Touching film as quoted by Peter Travers, Rolling Stone...and we agree!

If you haven't seen this movie yet, you need to!
Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche and Dane Cook are great in it!

My "Daniel" says - where the movie takes place reminds him of the lake house where he would spend summer vacations with his family...
What a great memory!

For the link to the movie click on the poster.

Fresh Fish

Daniel's friend at work caught some fresh YellowTail and gave us some to cook up. (Thanks Dave!)

We found this great recipe online and it turned out to be a great meal! Click on the photo of fish dinner for the recipe...

If you don't have time to make the salsa you can use pre-made mango/papaya salsa from Trader Joe's (that's what we did)!

Lights...Camera...Action!

Daniel and I are making some "strides" in the Entertainment business and I thought I would share them with you here...:)

I think my true calling is to be in a sitcom - but for now I am starting with Scrapbooking Memories TV on PBS and Daniel is of course "behind the scenes" in Post Production!

I am just kidding of course (I think)...

You can watch the video clips of me here:
http://arcsoft.com/scrapbookmemoriestv/index.asp

Daniel was interviewed and quoted for the first time in a Hollywood Magazine - American Cinematographer - June 2008! He is loving his new gig and the people he works with. To read the article, click on the magazine cover. When you get to the site click on "Preview" and then flip back 1 page. The article starts on Page 82!

Crystal Cove

We spent the afternoon at Crystal Cove! It was a great beach find...

We met the Damato's and the Thomas's there. Despite the cooler weather we had a great time!

The beach is part of a California State Park and has these great cottages you can rent. The rental information can be found at http://www.crystalcovebeachcottages.org/.

A lot of movies were filmed on this beach including Beaches...

There is a restaurant right on the beach called BeachComber and at the top of the cliff a Ruby's shake shack! Very fun!

Last but not least the beach even has tide pools where the kids found crabs and sea anemones, etc.

We will definitely be coming back to this beach soon!

After the beach we all headed inland for dinner...we sang Happy Birthday to Johnson and called it a night... Great friends and a great time!

Dave Chavez

Or dear friend and neighbor Dave Chavez passed away Monday.
Dave had a heritable condition called Marfans.
http://www.marfan.org/nmf/GetContentRequestHandler.do?menu_item_id=2

He has a wife, Tammie and 3 young children - Mariah, Baylee and Brett.
I spoke with Tammie today and she told me about his last moments...so very sad.
We are very saddened by this and our hearts are heavy for their family.
Please pray for them during this difficult time.
Thank you,
Lisa

2nd Sunday of every month

Every 2nd Sunday of the month is the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena!
We haven't been in years (since we were dating) and so we thought we would check it out again.

I love searching for a little "treasure" or vintage find...

I ended up finding some German glass glitter for crafting and some cute square table cloths for an upcoming party...

We'll go again in the Fall...when the weather is cooler and we can wake up early, grab a latte and search again for a good find!

Things To Do...

Today we slept in and then spent the day doing things around the house and random errands.

Some of our stops were...
Trader Joes - for those new lowfat popped potato snacks - the best ever!
Oil change and car wash - I love a clean car that smells like pina' colada!
Then we spotted the best thing ever coming into town...that's right...a Bob's Big Boy!!!
We can hardly wait. It's such a treat when we go to Burbank together and we go to the original Bob's...and now we're getting our very own!

I Delight In...today!

Working from home!
Trader Joe's...they have the best snacks

I Delight In...today

My husband coming home with a gift for me - those sunglasses I really wasn't go to buy myself...

Finding out that Jen made a family blog too! Such fun to blog together and figure this out.

Connecting with long lost friends on Facebook.

Aquafit!

The 4th of July

We had a great 4th of July! We spent the morning at A&A Rapo's and joined in the Studio City neighborhood parade. Lilly rode along with the parade on her bike and we joined her by foot...

It was a complete party with a hoola hoop and dance contest - where Lilly placed 4th out of all the other dance contestants - Go Lilly!

In the afternoon we all joined Gina and Bradley on their boat in Marina Del Ray and went for a ride, had a BBQ and then watched the most spectacular fire works show I have ever seen out in the marina! The weather was beautiful and we all had a great time!