High Tea

A friend told me about a fun local tea room, so a buddy and I rounded up our grandgirls and headed for Thousand Oaks. 

Tranquility Tea was everything we'd hoped for and more. 

The girls loved trying on all the hats (there had to have been a hundred of them) and the assortment of fancy tea cups, saucers, plates, glasses and cutlery on each table was amazing.

And the food? Oh.My. Fresh orange and cranberry scones with clotted cream and lemon curd. A selection of finger sandwiches - caramel apple and Brie; Black Forest ham and cheese; curry egg salad; almond chicken and more. And the desserts - chocolate cheesecake, tiny apple spice cake, truffles . . . I'm going to dream about their food tonight! 

The two hours flew by - the girls would happily have stayed hours longer.

We're already making plans to go back at Christmas time.

Disney!

You've heard 'it never rains in California', right? Riiiiiiiight. Unless you're going to Disneyland, and then it pours . . . .

PopPop, bless him, came prepared with waterproof ponchos for all.
 
The girls didn't let a few sprinkles dampen their spirits (ha!), especially when they discovered our first stop was the Anna & Elsa store in Downtown Disney, 
 
where they both had their hair, nails and make-up done.
Leanne loved the blue nail polish

Then we were off and running . . .ok, off and standing in lines.
Our chauffeured ride down Main Street.

In the past, when we've been here in the rain 

the lines have been short and we could almost walk onto the rides. 
 
Not today. 
 
While the lines weren't awful, we waited at least 30 minutes for every ride.
 
Fortunately, the rain tapered off noon-ish
 
and the rest of the time we had sunshine and temps in the mid-70's. Perfect.
 
This was Leanne's first trip to Disneyland. 

She wasn't a big fan of the Haunted Mansion (she's "never ever going there again, not ever") but Big Thunder Mountain was a huge hit,
Princess Snow-Leia

as was Small World (Pop gets a medal for going on this one to please the girls - he hates it)
 
and Autopia. The not-very-clear picture of Princess Elena-Leanne chauffeuring PopPop around in a fancy car is definitely a keeper.
Leanne almost burst with happiness when we stumbled upon a Real Princess.
 
We hit the park a little after 9 am and left around 8 pm. 

Pop and I were dragging after 11 hours 
Bubble wand for Leanne 

but the princesses were still laughing and dancing as we boarded the bus to our parking lot.
 Leia had her heart set on getting a "weapon!"

Celebrating our anniversary by taking the little girls to Disneyland was one of the best ideas we've ever had. 
 

I wonder how we can top it next year . . . . .

Pre-Anniversary

Celebrated our anniversary a day early with lunch at one of our favorite spots.

Then we packed up the California little girls, made a quick detour by the Disney outlet store (because Leia has outgrown the 5 billion princess dresses we already own) …

and headed for our hotel in Orange County. Tomorrow- Disneyland!!

My New Sewist

Leanne and I are working on making her first rag quilt. I'm cutting the squares and she's sewing them together with giant X's.

 

She started on scrap fabric; I explained sewing corner-to-corner, cutting the thread, and sewing c2c again. She got it on the first try.

Her first 5 blocks look great - and she's doing this freehand, eye-balling the lines as she goes. 

Pretty sure my first 5 weren't this neat. 

The girl's a natural and I'm one proud grandma.

More To Spoil

So excited!

Bunk Beds

Leia: Look Granma, I made a bunk bed for my babies.

And so she had. There's not enough room for them all to sleep with her, so she gave them their own pillow and blanket, arranged them with their friends, and tucked them in for the night.

I love this kid. 

New Shoes

Found these at Target and couldn't resist.

I think she likes them. (Yeah, I know. She likes ALL the shoes.)

Remember . . .

Remember the Fancy Forest quilt? 

It's done! Ish.

Thursday it goes to my long-arm quilting pal. I'll add the binding and glasses (!!) once I get it back.

 Officially Jac approved.

Remember the antique folding chair I was so excited about finding in Colorado?

Found the perfect fabric to re-upholster it on clearance at my new local quilt shop. 

Still hunting for the perfect trim though . . .

Date Night

We saw Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood - of "Whose Line Is It Anyway" fame - on stage tonight in T.O. and I don't remember the last time I laughed this hard.

Totally improv, totally wacky. Laughing at the blindfolded, barefoot, mousetraps on the floor skit made my face hurt. I loved them on TV but they are even better in person.

Quarter Mania

First we cooked - 

Lemon Zucchini Bread 

which turned out super yummy (note: no lemon zest in the icing next time. . .)

Then we quartered - 

 Using PopPop's special watch repair hammer to smack the coins into place.

Leia is hooked; she came over before school today and first thing she grabbed was her quarter books.

Leanne is not a fan, at least not yet. I think she - like me - has a hard time seeing the tiny lettering on the coins. I'm planning to break out my super fancy, super special magnifying glass next time she's here and see if that helps. If not, maybe we'll put these away for a year or two until she's older . . .

 

And then Jac entertained us. Just like the great-grandmother she's named for, Jac loves her anybody's shoes. 

Quarters and Bubbles

While we were in South Dakota, I noticed the National Parks are now featured on US quarters, similar to when each State got its own quarter design back in the '90s.

I liked collecting the State quarters, and thought the girls might get a kick out of it too, so off I went to Amazon for a set of books for each of the older girls.

Leia and I sat down today with her books and the box of loose change Pop and I collect each year. An hour later, she'd made substantial inroads in both the State and National Park books. And she loved it. I'm so happy!

On that same trip, I found a woman selling beautiful hand-welded bubble wands she'd made. How could I pass that up?!?

Leia and I made a big batch of bubbles - 12 cups water, 2 cups Dawn liquid, 2 tablespoons glycerin - to try them out. 

Success! And Leia now has a new favorite exercise program - jumpin' and kickin' to the bubbles. Think it will catch on?