Weekend Recap: Ojai Style

Saturday was full of errands and an impromptu invite to a Jafra party where we soaked our feet and played with make-up.
Sunday was full of playing with my sister and one of my favorite little towns: Ojai.

If you find yourself in the area, you must must must visit Bart's Books. Full of twists, turns, corners, and sunshine.

A trip to Ojai isn't complete without Strawberry Shortcake from Boccali's, to share.

Images by me. Please don't use without asking first.

Weekend Recap: SNOW!

Friday was rainy and cold; I stayed inside as much as I could. I've been offered full-time at work, which means this was the last Free Friday before I add another day to my regular work week and I was as lazy as I wanted to be (after having lunch with the hubs and running some errands, of course...).
By Saturday morning, the rain and clouds had cleared and my morning walk with the dog displayed glorious snow-covered mountains in the distance. On Friday night, I almost convinced the hubs to  drive 3 1/2 hours to my in-laws' house so we could wake up to snow on Saturday morning but the pouring rain discouraged us from making the trip. So I had an itch to find it. And find it we did!
Here are a few pieces of our adventure -

Middle Lion Campground:
(The hubs just about gave me a heart-attack when he jumped onto a rock in the stream with my camera dangling from his shoulder while I hollered (from inside the truck, where he couldn't hear me), 'Put it over your head! Over your head!!' Beautiful picture, though, so I guess it was worth it...):

Rose Valley Falls:

We started to hike up to the Falls but there was so much (freezing cold) water in the streams that Sammi couldn't cross them - and we didn't trust ourselves to carry him across. If you have the chance, it's worth the short hike to view the falls from the pools below.

Not too far up the road: Snow!

We took the newer Samurai to try it out. I love the pattern of white on black.

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

While the hubs made his own tracks in the mud...

I found little tracks in the snow... Who do these belong to?

 You can tell which way the wind blows...

Grey mystery 

I was tempted to explore again today but we had lots to do at home. If the snow is still gracing the peaks in a few weeks, we may head up there again but until then, it's normal life for me.
How about you? What adventures did you find this weekend?


All images by me (or hubs). Please do not use them without asking first. Thanks.

Weekend Recap: In which I bake (twice!) and iron something.

Remember that recent incident with Costco and the Kitchenaid? Apparently, the hubs did some research and found that, even without the mail-in rebate, the price was a pretty good one. So he went back and bought me the mixer!! We're calling it an early Valentine's present and the color only makes it more appropriate - it's red! To match our kitchen.
I. Love. It.

To break it in, I decided to start with something quick-and-easy and you just can't argue with a double batch of Ghirardelli Triple-Chocolate Brownies. I know that some people wouldn't really consider this "baking" since it involves a mix but jumping into 'sourdough bread from scratch' with the machine right out of the box seemed a bit over the top.

Don't worry - I'm not about to turn into one of those bloggers who cooks and bakes all the time and then documents it for the world one step at a time. Just thinking about taking a picture of each and every ingredient as you add it to the mixing bowl wears me out. Not to mention the editing and the uploading... I have a lot of respect for those bloggers (and enjoy their recipes!) but I just don't have it in me. 
I'm also far too impatient for a blog post like that. Just ask my mom - I want to jump in, get it done, and enjoy the end result as soon as possible. And lick a beater dripping with brownie batter somewhere in the middle.
All that to say, the brownies are fantastic and I had enough faith in my new mixer to whip up some more banana bread to get me through the week. I'm sending the hubs to work with a plate-full so we don't eat them all. Having them for dinner was bad enough.

Oh, and I went to Disneyland with my mom. Again. I know, I'm spoiled.
Mickey on Small World (one of his favorite rides, I think):

I'm seriously considering creating a topiary like this one in my front yard:

No matter how many times I see them, I'm always excited when the bells chime and these little guys prance around the circle to mark the time:

Then I came home and did productive things. Like, "four loads of laundry and weeding in between rainstorms" kind of productive. And I was forced to iron the sleeves of a shirt because the makers didn't think it was important to sew the cuffs down. They flip inside-out every time. I loathe the iron. But Earnest wasn't about to help - he was too busy getting grey furballs all over the clean laundry.

And that's the weekend!
On to February!!



Images by me. Please don't use without asking first. Thanks!

Weekend Recap

In which I travel far and wide, play in the yard, and am disappointed by Costco.

Let's start with the traveling, shall we?
My mom and I had a random psychic moment this past week - she emailed me late Thursday night and before I had even read her email, I had texted her early Friday morning. We were almost simultaneously considering a day at Disneyland! After that cosmic moment, we couldn't refuse the calling and headed off early Saturday morning for a day at the park.
Oh, and we took my sister.

Toy Story Ride in 3D - it's all about the glasses.

The Animation Studios in California Adventure has some great activities! Here you can draw your own string of Mickey balloons following a pattern they provide...

Then put it in this spinny thing and watch the Mickey balloon rise and fall!

Me and my pal.

After my little excursion, the hubs and I decided to head to our local Costco on Sunday afternoon. He'd been there the day before and spotted a great deal on a Kitchenaid mixer. It was a Professional series. In red. Be still my heart.
Costco was offering an instant rebate of $40 off plus the hubs had seen a mail-in rebate coupon for an additional $40. This was enough to get us thinking about making the investment. It didn't take long for my little head to start imagining throwing cookie ingredients in the bowl and coming back an hour later to perfectly warm, just out of oven cookie deliciousness. (I know, I know... that's not really how they work...)
Unfortunately, the rebate coupons had expired and, despite the fact that there was a huge sign advertising the rebate and a whole stack of coupons, Costco wouldn't honor them. The manager we spoke with thanked us for pointing them out and then gave us a lame excuse - something about 'the manufacturer is responsible for the coupons on the shelf' and the fact that they've been sitting there for over two weeks after they expired isn't Costco's fault and they refuse to be responsible for them. I worked retail long enough to know that ultimately, you are responsible for what is on your shelf. Whoever does nightly recovery in those aisles should know to take a look every once in a while and update their signage.
Too bad for us - we didn't get a red Kitchenaid mixer.
And too bad for Costco - they could've made a sale over $200 just by honoring a $40 coupon. I'm sure that $200 is nothing to them in the grand scheme of their daily sales but their attitude just left me disappointed. They've always been so good about honoring their prices and overall customer service. I guess I caught them on a bad day.

But the hubs bought me flowers (awwwww!) -

And I got to spend several hours in the yard Sunday afternoon in glorious weather - followed by an amazing sunset. Not too shabby for a weekend in Southern California.

Images by me. Please don't use without asking first.