A trip to San Diego (Coronado)

San Diego, as seen from Coronado

A birthday party for me and for Aaron

Followed by a Jimmy Buffet concert

I wanted to share a few photos because I really should have blogged about what we did the second weekend in March. We had a fun trip to Coronado to see the Hughart and LePore family. Also making the (eight-hour in their case) trip were the Van Curens, aka my parents and brother.

The purpose of this trip can pretty much be summed up in the three photos posted above. It was the Van Curens first time to see Coronado (or San Diego) since my aunt and uncle moved there in October. Aaron has visited San Diego a few times in recent years to see his friends Rob and Mary (who accompanied us to some of the weekend's activities), but I am not sure about my Mom and Dad. None of the three of them had been to Coronado at all, as far as I know. We had visited San Diego as a family in 1981 or 1982, and as far as I know, that's the last time my parents had been there.

Don and I have visited more often, including trips to Coronado in November to see the Hugharts, and in March 2011 when the Lepores first moved there to see them. When we went in March of last year, we had made enough previous trips to San Diego, we were able to tell them where many things of interest were. San Diego itself can be reached easily from our house in less than 2 hours, Coronado in less than 2.5.

But back to this trip. We had to go from San Bernardino, where I interviewed for a job that is temporary, but will hopefully last until after the November election. It's with the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters. I am still waiting to find out at this point, March 21. Don't expect to know until next week. It took us three hours. When we got there, my parents still were 1 or 1.5 hours away.

Once my parents arrived, my Mom and Aaron met us, and Aaron's friends Mary and Rob, at a restaurant in Coronado called Peohe's. This was my second "special birthday dinner." Don and I had already done another special birthday dinner in Palm Springs on March 3, but Don had of course thrown in his obligatory concern that this was too expensive. My parents show no fear in this regard. My mom was the one showing no fear this time, because my Dad was getting over a bad cold, and was too sick to join us for many activities.

Because Aaron also had recently had a birthday, this was his special birthday dinner too. In fact, the restaurant staff kind of messed things up, at the end. After doing 100 things right.

We had ordered one desert for all eight of us to share. For some reason, the restaurant decided to give HIM the desert with a candle on it instead of me. Most of our table objected, since it was not Aaron's 50th, so the desert was moved to me for blowing out the candle and taking the first bite. It was delicious. We probably should have ordered two. I may be the only one who thinks that though.

We had another special birthday dinner the next day. This one was made by Ron, Annie and Jodi and served to us (the same people as Friday, plus my Dad, Jodi and her sons) in the clubhouse of the apartments where the Hugharts and Lepores live. It included steak, grilled vegetables, appetizers and cakes for both Aaron and me.

And after the dinner, Don and I, my Mom and Aaron and Annie and Ron went to a Jimmy Buffet concert. This was Aaron's sheer joy. I thought it was pretty cool too.

I have scrapbooked all the pictures now. I am going to share one of those pages with you, since I opted to post it on Two Peas.

Steak and Cake, the "birthday party" in photos and remembered in my favorite color, purple

Thinking of Grandma

I am playing around over at Color Stories Inspiration again today. This website challenges my scrapbooking to levels hard to reach when you are scrapping on a budget like me, but I have always been a fan of its creator, Debbi Tehrani, for challenging me to do new things. Another challenge, which for probably seven or eight years she has been posting at Two Peas in A Bucket has taken so many of my scrapbook pages from hohum to something special. I just finished one like that, and I think I will share more about the topic of that one in a future blog post.

Color Stories Inspiration is going to be less likely to help me finish up a page for my regular album. (Although it too did once.) That's because Color Stories Inspiration is much more about one photo layouts than the usual multiple photos I use in mine. You have to leave room for some fancy work, in the case of mine the vintage cabbage rose paper, the butterfly and the torn edges. My pages are simple compared to most of what you see at Color Stories Inspiration. Also, a key part of this challenge is the journaling, on one of several topics recommended by Debbi. This week, she goes to one of her favorite topics - childhood memories.

This line of Graphic 45 (the cabbage rose paper) is one I initially purchased to scrap Grandma's 90th birthday. So it, and butterflies make me think of her. Also, with Easter coming around again, I knew that on my cousins' Facebook pages, I would see a photo of Grandma from two Easters ago holding great-grandsons Wesley or Wyatt. Sure enough, on Wendy's Facebook, I found this great photo of her and Wyatt, and an added bonus, she is wearing my Mom's red jacket. (Grandma was always cold the last few years of her life.) I needed more red on this page. If you are a scrapbooker, you understand. If not, just trust me.

Part of the journaling on the page focuses on how Wyatt is a special great-grandson. He is the youngest of her relatives that she ever met. Wyatt now has a younger cousin (and Wes a younger brother), but unfortunately, she was too sick to meet Bradley. My hope is that while Wyatt, Wes and Bradley are too young to remember, the rest of her great-grandchildren who have met her will remember the kindness and class she exhibited throughout her life.

If you want to know all about that, scroll all the way down to my first entry. Or just know that this woman loved people. I know all of her children and all of grandchildren know that. That's Uncle Don, Mom and Annie, and me, my cousin Debbie, Aaron and my "little" cousins Chad, Jodi and Wendy. This also includes Matt and Mandy, two grandchildren she acquired in 1981 when my Uncle Don married my Aunt Sandy. I am pretty sure Debbi's children, Chris and Katelyn, also know how much their great-grandma loved them.

My Grandma has several more stepchildren in her family besides Matt and Mandy. The rest are through my brother and me, as we both became stepparents instead of natural parents. It is my sincere hope that John, Pamela and T.J. experienced that love from her. They spent a good deal of time with her when Aaron was their stepfather, and I believe their lives were enriched from it.

Unfortunately, my stepchildren will be in the same situation as my little cousins' little children. Not because my stepchildren are little, of course. But it is because Josh only met my Grandmother one time, and Holly never did. It is my hope that Josh remembers enough from that one meeting to know I had a fantastic grandmother. It is sad that Holly will never know. Except that the premise of my blog has always been that I want to love my own granddaughter (Holly's daughter Abigail) the same way I was loved by my Grandma. That's a tall order, but I will do my best, always!

Thoughts a day after I turned 50

Yesterday I reached the milestone most of the world's grandmothers have reached - many of them before they become grandmothers. I am now a half-century old.

I had high hopes for a big celebration, but Don and I did the best we could. We incorporated some of the things we had been hoping to do for almost a year in the process.

My dream was to have a birthday party in Palm Springs, which would have included the show put on by Sandy Hackett's Rat Pack and the dinner at Davey's Hideaway. We did in fact go to Palm Springs to do those two things. But by ourselves, and for only about six hours.

My parents have elected to come here next weekend to celebrate my brother's 47th birthday (which is Wednesday) in San Diego with me, Don and the Hughart/Lepore family. We will be doing a nice dinner Friday night somewhere in San Diego or Coronado, and attending a Jimmy Buffett concert at San Diego State University on Saturday night. They spent the days just before my birthday attending a water tour from the Bay Area to Reno, and unfortunately, coming down with bad colds.

And there wasn't anyone else, even here in Riverside, who wanted to go out to Palm Springs. We really don't have close friends here in Riverside. I wish I had been able to let my friends in the Victor Valley know of my plans, because I think with sufficient advanced notice I could have more strongly encouraged their participation. But I couldn't get Don to commit to any of this until the middle of February. We made a reservation at Davey's in the middle of the last week in February, but even on Saturday morning we had to have a frustrating conversation about how much I was looking forward to an enjoyable meal at a restaurant that would be a step up from Old Spaghetti Factory.

The show and dinner were the only presents given me so far by human beings. God gave me a nice present though. My pastor had an alter call on my birthday, and I believe there were close to 200 people who responded. This includes one person I once considered a friend, but who clearly turned out not to be one. That person and I normally do not attend the same service, but he and his wife did attend the 5 p.m. service on my birthday. He is rededicating his life to the Lord, and I pray that those who are still his friends will give him the support to grow into the person God wants him to be, as well as the other 199 or so who made decisions.

And for me, I pray that I will act in a way that reflects a half-century of maturity, and 29 years of a personal relationship with the Lord.

As for the cupcakes, they were my gift to 47 other people. I took 48 of them to the weekly barbecue Sandals holds before the 5 p.m. service. The first 48 cupcake lovers in line (one of which was me) got to sample my cupcakes. These are the second bunch of cupcakes I have ever taken to Sandals. The first bunch won the "best cake" award at a cupcake contest we had in November.

I'm a Grandma and a grandaunt

I wanted to let you know of a recent addition to my extended family. Since I have been a little negligent with this blog, the newest of my mother-in-law's great-grandchildren has actually been here for about a week. So, without further ado, may I introduce to you:

Sherman Kent Hess Jr.

Lil' Sherman, born Feb. 23 at 8:15 p.m. weighing 8 lbs. 15 oz. He is, of course, our nephew Sherman and his wife Ana's little boy.

For my mother-in-law, that makes (the way I am counting them), 10 great-granchildren. I am not counting the grandchildren of her stepsons, Glen and Dale. If I knew the names of Glen's children, I would. Dale does have one grandson, named Joshua Porter. Dale has two sons, Dale Jr. and Andrew.

I mention that because of the coincidences. If you know me, you probably know that the Joshua Porter we usually talk about in our conversations is not Dale's grandson (even though the boy lives in our community.) It is our own son, Josh.

And the Andrew Porter we speak of is usually not Dale's younger son, but the boy on the right in this photo:

Jed and Andrew Porter

These two boys are two of Brian's five grandchildren, both sons of Paul. Andrew is the oldest at age 7, and Jed is right behind him at 6.

Aidan Porter and Kaia Coleman

These are two more of Brian's grandchildren, Danielle Coleman's children. Aidan Porter is 6, falling in between his cousins Andrew and Jed. Kaia, who just turned a year old in January, is the next-youngest after Sherman.

I don't actually have a picture of the next addition to our family. Her name is Briana, and she is David's granddaugher, Neesa's daughter. She is about 4 or 5 years old, the oldest great-granddaughter. 

Kiera

The next-oldest great- granddaughter is Kiera, who is Ana's 4-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. She's a very big part of Sherman's life, and Nancy loves having a granddaughter along with two grandsons.

You can see Nancy and Kent's older grandson, Kristan's son Eddie, in the corner of the photo of Kiera. Here is a better photo of Eddie.

Eddie

About a month after I posted most of this entry, I learned my nephew Paul actually has three children. His daughter Jade was born in 2010, and shares a mother with Jed.  For reasons I don't know, while Jed has lived with Paul for more than three years, and with Andrew's mother for most of that time, Jade remained with her mother until April 2012. I do have a picture of Jade, but until a custody battle is resolved and/or until I take my own photo of her, I'm going to hold off posting it.

These nine little kids are my grandnephews and grandnieces.

The other great-grandkid is someone very special to me:

Abigail Cronin

Although Abigail is just 1 year old, she falls near the middle of the pack. Andrew, Aiden, Jed, Briana and Kiera and Jade are older than her. Eddie is just 12 days younger than her, and Kaia is also 1.

Sherman Jr. isn't going to be on the bottom for long though:

Abigail is a big sister, to a little one who will be arriving in September.

The Ellen Porter Hall

Did you know there is an Ellen Porter Performing Arts Center? I have known this for maybe 10 years, ever since I first came across the idea of "Googling my name." The website for this performing arts center at Westmont College in Santa Barbara used to be one of the first things that came up. I always wondered what that place was like. I think from 2002 to 2011 we might have driven through Santa Barbara once or twice, never with time to drive up into the hills and find Westmont College. But this year, on our way back from Cayucos on Jan. 2, we did have the time. We snapped a few photos of me at the building, and on our way off the campus saw this sunset descending over the college's athletic field. It's an Ellen Porter sunset for sure.

My newest among favorite scrapbooking websites, Color Stories Inspiration, helped me get this together. So did this sketch from another favorite scrapbooking website, Page Maps.

The sketch I also used, with only three photos, for our quick trip to Refugio Beach we took before driving up to this college. (I don't have that layout scanned, at least not yet.) Even though I knew long beforehand that I would be using this sketch for both, it took "My Building" much longer to come together than "Refugio Beach." I wanted to use at least the small strip of ledger paper I have here, as it is very pretty with the mauve column dividers you see a hint of here. I also like the argyle pattern, which is on the reverse side of the column paper. But while I was able to mix pattern papers from two different lines on Refugio Beach, doing so from the same line was stumping me here.

CSI to the rescue! I could stick with the greys and purples of the ledger/arglye paper, but what if I somehow added pink, turquoise and red? And what if I "distressed" a page. (This background paper has what is known as a distressed look, that is it artificially shows signs of aging. I added to that by rubbing ink on the right corners and on the drywall tape on the left side). And what if I had stripes in straight and not-so-straight lines?And what if instead of just saying "Me at the Ellen Porter Performing Arts Center in Santa Barbara," I told you why I even decided to go there? (Of course you know I would tell you the story behind the photo without prompting from someone elses's website!)

And what if I used a 10-year-old scrapbooking product called Magic Mesh, like Fi Kenward, one of the CSI design team members had? Nope, I could not. Scrapbook products go in and out of style quickly, so generally once you use up any stash of a product you have, you can't get more. Such was the case with my supply of Magic Mesh. But what about drywall tape? I actually get to spend some time "chatting" with members of the design team on Fridays, and member Shaunery Wharton suggested drywall tape as a substitute.

So there you have it. Drywall tape inked red (the color of my departed Magic Mesh, and one of the necessary colors to qualify for the CSI challenge) on the left. The cute little bird I cut out of the ledger paper on the right, along with turquoise and pink hearts, the jewels and brads I pulled off the heart I had cut down to make the turquoise one fit (see my previous blog entry) and a purple flower with a pink button center. A much prettier page than I had before!

Some cards I made recently

Three times a year, I go crazy with card-making. What's driving my insanity? The Stamping Board at my all-time favorite scrapbooking website, Two Peas in a Bucket, presents a series of challenges to create cards using various techniques and supplies. (I normally spend far more time on the Scrapbooking board than the stamping board, but I like them both.) The stamping regulars are currently winding down Winterfest 2012, which was my inspiration for five new cards.

A challenge to use a background stamp in a new way, and another challenge to combine punches with stamping inspired this card, which I will be sending to Ana Hess as soon as her son is born! Because I have an aspiring star in my family (Don Porter), I have quite the collection of star stamps. This one has lots of stars on it, so if I want a starry background, I reach for it. I also have a star punch, so it was easy to add a few more stars to the card.

Two Peas stamping board also issues a bunch of challenges every October, and calls them Stamptoberfest. During Stamtoberfest 2011, we were challenged to "reverse" stamped images by stamping them on opposite sides of white tissue paper. I did that, but my angels never made it onto a new card at the time of Stamptoberfest. But, when a new reverse challenge, coupled with another challenge to use buttons and bows on a card, appeared on Winterfest 2012, I had a very major head start on my 2012 Christmas cards. Expect to see a card very similar to this if you're on my Christmas card list.

When Positive Impressions, a store specializing in stamps, was open in Riverside, I took several card-making classes there. In one of these, I was introduced to water pencils as a means to color stamped images. A challenge in Winterfest 2012, took me and my water pencils to a new level: use them to color the background of a card. And then I happened to notice a paint can I've had for about five years, since the 2006 Sandals Couple's Retreat in San Diego. Similar colors to these, with beach images. I decided that would make a nice card, especially since my beach-themed stamps are among my favorites. Since I have a bunch of family living in San Diego, including one whose work has called him away from home for awhile, I am pretty sure one of them will soon receive this card.

I actually made this bejeweled flowery heart a few years ago. A challenge to make a shaped card, and include a stamped image on the card, inspired me to pull the heart off the original card I had made, and glue it to some cardstock that I would then cut into the same shape. While this would have been a nice card for Don to give me, I was never crazy about the original. By the time I made this card, I knew that Don had already purchased a Valentine's Day card for this year. (Last year I made one I loved so much I asked him to "give" it to me.) So this card went back into a box of cards I may give away some day. But this one has already been revised again. I pulled off five of these purple jewels and three of these pink heart brads, then cut the middle out of this heart and put the little embellishments, and the new smaller heart with the turquoise back side, on a scrapbook page. (See above.)

This is the Valentine's Day card I actually gave Don this year. I would not normally make a pink card for him, but I liked the "60s" feel these colors gave off. I was inspired to use this pattern and color scheme by another website's challenge, Creative Keepsakes. I was inspired to use this particular card design by a challenge in the "Design Garden" section of Two Peas in a Bucket.

And if you look very carefully, you will see that each of these pink strips of paper has been texturized, one with honeycombs, one with flowers and one with lace. I think if I had to do this card over, I would just use the honeycomb texture. But one of Winterfest's challenges was to use a tool called "embossing folders" to create a card. My texturizing plates are the orginal embossing folders, although people with more money to blow on scrapbooking than I have are now using much more sophisticated folders that will press a much deeper and crisper image into their papers. The challenge requirements were to use three different embossing folders, so that's why my strips are all different. The Christmas card above uses a fourth embossing folder, musical notes. I am sure now that I am into these texture plates, we will see more of the musical note plate soon. And the honeycomb plate, as honeycombs are a "trend" in scrapbooking for 2012.

I love traveling

This scrapbook page is about the fact that I love traveling. That's what this figurine belonging to Don's friend J.R. reminds me of, people a long time ago packing up and going on a road trip. I'll do that from time to time. I don't know when - or even if - I will make it all the way to St. Louis, Missouri, which is the city this reminded me of, since its something to market the city's baseball team. I have been to St. Louis before, but I don't remember. (Maybe several times, but all when we lived in Illinois, when I was five months to 22 months old.) I have been to Missouri twice that I do remember, but not to St. Louis either one of those times.

Traveling in 2012, at least before September, is complicated by a lack of funds. Don will get his first pension check in September, we have learned. And by that time, he should be underway with his second semester at Cal. Baptist University. Which seems to me would prevent him from making a long trip until semester break in December 2012.

But we can hope for short trips within California. We have already made one this year. We started out the year in Cayucos, a beach town on the central coast. That's what my parents wanted to do this year. Going back from that trip, we traveled mostly down Pacific Coast Highway until we reached Ventura. We visited Vandenberg Air Force Base, Refgugio Beach and the Ellen Porter Performing Arts Center at Westmont College. I say that we also saw the Ellen Porter sunset at Westmont College. We spent the night in Ventura at a charming yet very inexpensive motel, then explored its downtown along with the smaller towns of Oak Park, Ojai and Santa Paula. All fun!

And sometimes, we will find new things not very far away at all. This bridge is in the Santa Ana River, with one side crossing at the trail Don and I frequently hike on. But this picture is from the other side, in Riverside. We recently discovered our neighbor city's Martha McLean Park on Jurupa Avenue. It's a nice park, and if you hike all the way to its western edge, you will then be on Riverside's paved Santa Ana River Trail. Find a break in the fence that divides the trail from the river itself to hike down to the south bank of the river. If I were to go straight across the river, I am less than one mile from my own house, but this was a cool bit of travel itself.