I Love This Town!

Every once in awhile it's important for me to sit back and really count my blessings. I truly live in America's Finest City. Those that doubt this moniker have never truly spent anytime here. Our illustrious Mayor Pete knew what he was talking about when he gave the city it's nickname back in 1972 and despite the threats of earthquakes, wildfires, poor water quality and an overburdened infrastructure, there is no place I'd rather live.

I spent some time in one of my favorite spots yesterday - the Ferry Landing in Coronado. I love this place because it gives you such a great view of the city.




And I love how just sitting here in the calm of a Friday afternoon beautiful sites can appear that do such a splendid job of complimenting an already breathtaking landscape.

Ode to Summer & 2 of My Favorite Women

Love these two women, my mom and my Grannie. Grannie is mom's mom and I have such fond memories of her coming to stay with us when I was a child and cooking all sorts of wonderful things for us. Grannie was by far the best pie maker ever and there is never a time I make a pie that I don't think of her. Mom inherited much of Grannie's talent in the kitchen. Summer for both of them always meant preserving the bounty from the fruit harvest. In my childhood home we always had peach and apricot trees which meant loads of pies and cobblers. Summer also meant jam making season. Grannie's jams always made plain old toast that much better. She loved to make pomegranate, apricot and strawberry jams. Mom took up the jam making after Grannie was gone and to this day her strawberry jam is Andrew's all time favorite.


So despite the heat this weekend I decided to venture into the world of jam making and carry on the proud tradition that women in my family have done for years.



The strawberries went from beautiful specimens such as these.


To 9 jars of jam! I was a little nervous sterilizing the jars and cooking the jam. Man oh man does that stuff get awfully hot! After carefully loading them into the jars I gave them a water bath to form the seal on the jar and voila!


















Beautiful jars of jam all set to give to a few of my lucky friends and family! Already received the seal of approval from Andrew - looks like the tradition is alive and well!

And Now the Rest of the Story . . .

Remember this layout from my Christmas album?

2005

We all went to Auntie Amy’s at Debbie’s insistence for Cookie Baking Day. Not only did no one have the stamina for a FULL day of cookie baking, I ended the day by looking down at my hand only to find that the diamond from my engagement ring was gone forever. That was almost enough to make me give up baking all together

I have such awesome memories of cookie baking for my friends and family at Christmas time that I hated having this as one of my worst Christmas memories.

This just has to be one of the saddest sights I've ever seen. Look how lonely that setting looks with no diamond to keep it company?

Thankfully, Mark has put a happy ending onto the story.

Dinner was quiet and romantic just the way we like it.

And that's about it for letting all of you know how the rest of the celebration went!

30 Years - Whoo Hoo!

After 25 Years I think It's Safe

to finally get rid of the child proof covers on my electrical outlets. Last night when we were setting up Laura's new iPod Stereo dock one of the kids pulled this out and said, "hey, Mom, don't you think we are old enough to know not to stick things other than a plug in the electrical outlet?" Damn, I hate admitting they are finally that old! It was a great celebration - Belinis and hors d'oerves at home then dinner at Mona Lisa (complete with anchovies on the side - thanks for remembering your mom & dad, Lulu) and then home to have cake, mint chocolate brownie ice cream and presents. Of course, no Larsen birthday celebration would be complete without Mark playing the Beatles "Birthday" countless times. No wonder we are sick of that song by the time the end of June rolls around. Laura's card this year summed up my sentiments about her being 20. It's the last time she will ever wish that a birthday goes by quickly so she can have another one right away!

Happy Birthday Laura! Don't be so quick to leave year 20!

And I just love this shot of your proud big brother looking out for his Diva little sis!

And after all these years not much has changed - it's still the box that the presents came in that can entertain the kids! Maybe I should rethink getting rid of those electrical covers . . .

06-07-08 - It Won't Be Around for Another 100 Years!

It’s 06-07-08 and that can mean only one thing – Andrew is a quarter of a century old! Holy Moly how can that be? Mark and I certainly have not gotten any older and surely not 25 years! Wasn’t it just last week we were going to Cub Scout meetings and every Saturday was taken up with some sort of sporting event? Birthday boy is still getting his beauty sleep so I will have to wait to post the “official” birthday photo until the celebration starts later.

Onto more news. . . Had the absolute best time yesterday meeting Stacy Julian! I have totally embraced her philosophy of non-chronological scrapping that she sets forth in Photo Freedom. Love the system and love her! Her spirit is every bit as infectious in real life as it is in the pages of the books and articles she writes. It was well worth the 3 hour drive through LA traffic to get to the shop where she was speaking.

And if I may brag for a moment . . . on page 10 of Photo Freedom there is a quote by yours truly. A few of the gals at the event last night found out that I was quoted in the book and asked if I would sign their books! Totally felt like one of the authors from Warwick's

and you gotta love that this person gave me a pink Sharpie pen to sign with. Such a Diva moment for me!