What I did on my summer vacation….
We left Motown on Thursday afternoon. We always have the best intentions to leave earlier, but we will sleep in a bit, forget something we should have taken care of and before we know it we are a couple of hours behind schedule. But no matter, we were off and running to see Frank’s brother in Bakersfield. On the way, we stopped in Fresno to drop of Socks with “uncle Dave”. He and Socks have this mutual admiration society going and they like to “batch” it once in awhile. Frank had picked dozens of plums off our tree, so we decided to drop in on the Kauffmans and the Aunts and deliver a few. It was fun to drop in on friends and surprise them. At that point we decided to head on so as not to be late for dinner at Randy and Jan’s.
We arrived in Bakersfield at about 6ish. We always have a great time with Frank’s brother’s family. We relaxed and talked and slept and caught up on Jenny’s next adventures - college away! Oh, and we ate! Randy bbqed some great hamburgers and we had wonderful potato salad and in the morning fresh waffles - what else could one ask for? We got going about 1ish down the road.
Earlier in the day, we had looked up information about one of the few remaining - or should I say reproduction- Farrells ice cream parlors. Yes, there does seem to be a couple of them around. We stopped at one in the area of Magic Mountain. It was contained in a Fun Works/ Boomers type environment - not the main attraction and you wouldn’t know it was there if you didn’t know. However, upon entering, it looked and felt very much like the old parlors. The food was fantastic. Our family had one of the famous pigs troughs and all got ribbons declaring that we had made pigs of ourselves at Farrells. The kids had a great time fooling with the player piano. (and so did we). Frank and I had club sandwiches that were filled with the most delicious fresh turkey breast and I do mean filled. It was so fun to tell the kids about going to Farrells as kids. Our Jr. High youth group went quite often on Wednesday nights. I can’t remember what we had, but I do remember always getting a jaw breaker. I also remember that one time when we went, Jodi Panto wore her pink satin jacket alla Sean Cassidy. What we remember seems so random sometimes!
We hit the road again and got into the Marriott at the John Wayne Airport in Irvine about 7:00 pm. We watched fireworks from the room for awhile and then decided we should see what was going on in the area. We headed down towards Newport Beach - big mistake. Let’s just say they could have been filming girls gone wild right there. It was wild.
Saturday Frank and I got up and discussed all of our possible to do options. The kids were excited with the decision to go to Lego Land. We took Nolan the year it opened and Haley was just a baby. We hadn’t been there since. The other people in this picture are actually made of legos. Nolan was interested to see what had changed and got a couple of sets and has been fooling with them ever since. He still has all my brother’s legos, all of his own and has recently “reorganized” all of them by shape. Haley really enjoyed the fact that the rides weren’t too fast or too scary. The weather was perfect, a little overcast but really comfortable. We stopped at a Costco on the way into the park at about 11:00 and had a nice inexpensive lunch. Nolan graciously toted waters for the family in a back pack and the only food purchase in the park was apple fries. We probably could have held off all together, but they just were too fascinating to pass up, so we all shared one.
On Sunday we went to the Crystal Cathedral. It was a lovely, very traditional service with their volunteer patriotic choir and band. The grounds were beautiful, the cathedral was amazing and it was interesting to see the lay out that I have seen over the years on tv. We often aren’t home to watch the program, but over the 20 plus years or so that it has been on we have caught it a couple of times. Haley and Nolan enjoyed the gifts they were given - candles and everyone was invited to a coffee/softdrink reception in their cafeteria after the service. After the service, we got checked out of our rooms, and drove into to Newport for a great lunch at the Crab Cooker. This restaurant has been enjoyed by our family since I was about six years old. My parents would load us up in the station wagon and take us over to the coast for the afternoon. Often we took out of town guests. Always the Crab Cooker, always the ferry over to Balboa Island and a nice walk looking at all the neat little beach homes. I can remember looking back to see Todd in the stroller and my mom pushing him along. So, it has been on my top 100 things to do in my life, to take my kids and husband there. Frank and I went a while back, but it was great to experience it with the kids. We window shopped around at the Spectrum shopping center before heading over to Dana Point.
Frank is training at a conference here at the Laguna Cliffs Marriott. One nice perk upon arriving…. Since Frank is so close to gold elite status with them they upgraded us. They don’t have a concierge level, but they offer full daily access to their spa instead. Normally a $20.00 a day, per person feature. They don’t serve snacks and drinks, but they do offer private sauna, steam room, Jacuzzi and showers with water spewing out from every possible direction! There are lockers and special robes and a special coed relaxation room with teas and waters served indoors or out in front of the fire. You must be 16 to use these special features, but after asking and signing a waver, Haley was allowed to join me today. I did her toes out by the fireplace and we realized that we didn’t have to spend $200 for a spa treatment to feel like royal highnesses. In fact, lots of the features that they offer could be duplicated right in our own backyard. I think we will.
We left Motown on Thursday afternoon. We always have the best intentions to leave earlier, but we will sleep in a bit, forget something we should have taken care of and before we know it we are a couple of hours behind schedule. But no matter, we were off and running to see Frank’s brother in Bakersfield. On the way, we stopped in Fresno to drop of Socks with “uncle Dave”. He and Socks have this mutual admiration society going and they like to “batch” it once in awhile. Frank had picked dozens of plums off our tree, so we decided to drop in on the Kauffmans and the Aunts and deliver a few. It was fun to drop in on friends and surprise them. At that point we decided to head on so as not to be late for dinner at Randy and Jan’s.
We arrived in Bakersfield at about 6ish. We always have a great time with Frank’s brother’s family. We relaxed and talked and slept and caught up on Jenny’s next adventures - college away! Oh, and we ate! Randy bbqed some great hamburgers and we had wonderful potato salad and in the morning fresh waffles - what else could one ask for? We got going about 1ish down the road.
Earlier in the day, we had looked up information about one of the few remaining - or should I say reproduction- Farrells ice cream parlors. Yes, there does seem to be a couple of them around. We stopped at one in the area of Magic Mountain. It was contained in a Fun Works/ Boomers type environment - not the main attraction and you wouldn’t know it was there if you didn’t know. However, upon entering, it looked and felt very much like the old parlors. The food was fantastic. Our family had one of the famous pigs troughs and all got ribbons declaring that we had made pigs of ourselves at Farrells. The kids had a great time fooling with the player piano. (and so did we). Frank and I had club sandwiches that were filled with the most delicious fresh turkey breast and I do mean filled. It was so fun to tell the kids about going to Farrells as kids. Our Jr. High youth group went quite often on Wednesday nights. I can’t remember what we had, but I do remember always getting a jaw breaker. I also remember that one time when we went, Jodi Panto wore her pink satin jacket alla Sean Cassidy. What we remember seems so random sometimes!
We hit the road again and got into the Marriott at the John Wayne Airport in Irvine about 7:00 pm. We watched fireworks from the room for awhile and then decided we should see what was going on in the area. We headed down towards Newport Beach - big mistake. Let’s just say they could have been filming girls gone wild right there. It was wild.
Saturday Frank and I got up and discussed all of our possible to do options. The kids were excited with the decision to go to Lego Land. We took Nolan the year it opened and Haley was just a baby. We hadn’t been there since. The other people in this picture are actually made of legos. Nolan was interested to see what had changed and got a couple of sets and has been fooling with them ever since. He still has all my brother’s legos, all of his own and has recently “reorganized” all of them by shape. Haley really enjoyed the fact that the rides weren’t too fast or too scary. The weather was perfect, a little overcast but really comfortable. We stopped at a Costco on the way into the park at about 11:00 and had a nice inexpensive lunch. Nolan graciously toted waters for the family in a back pack and the only food purchase in the park was apple fries. We probably could have held off all together, but they just were too fascinating to pass up, so we all shared one.
On Sunday we went to the Crystal Cathedral. It was a lovely, very traditional service with their volunteer patriotic choir and band. The grounds were beautiful, the cathedral was amazing and it was interesting to see the lay out that I have seen over the years on tv. We often aren’t home to watch the program, but over the 20 plus years or so that it has been on we have caught it a couple of times. Haley and Nolan enjoyed the gifts they were given - candles and everyone was invited to a coffee/softdrink reception in their cafeteria after the service. After the service, we got checked out of our rooms, and drove into to Newport for a great lunch at the Crab Cooker. This restaurant has been enjoyed by our family since I was about six years old. My parents would load us up in the station wagon and take us over to the coast for the afternoon. Often we took out of town guests. Always the Crab Cooker, always the ferry over to Balboa Island and a nice walk looking at all the neat little beach homes. I can remember looking back to see Todd in the stroller and my mom pushing him along. So, it has been on my top 100 things to do in my life, to take my kids and husband there. Frank and I went a while back, but it was great to experience it with the kids. We window shopped around at the Spectrum shopping center before heading over to Dana Point.
Frank is training at a conference here at the Laguna Cliffs Marriott. One nice perk upon arriving…. Since Frank is so close to gold elite status with them they upgraded us. They don’t have a concierge level, but they offer full daily access to their spa instead. Normally a $20.00 a day, per person feature. They don’t serve snacks and drinks, but they do offer private sauna, steam room, Jacuzzi and showers with water spewing out from every possible direction! There are lockers and special robes and a special coed relaxation room with teas and waters served indoors or out in front of the fire. You must be 16 to use these special features, but after asking and signing a waver, Haley was allowed to join me today. I did her toes out by the fireplace and we realized that we didn’t have to spend $200 for a spa treatment to feel like royal highnesses. In fact, lots of the features that they offer could be duplicated right in our own backyard. I think we will.
Yesterday morning - Tuesday we dropped Frank off at the John Wayne airport to do some training in Myrtle Beach. We drove back to Fresno and stayed the night with Dad and Beth. In the afternoon Haley and I picked up my niece, Eden and Emily and went to the Kit movie. Oh, by the way it was about 112 degrees out when I snapped this picture. By the way, the movie is darling. Totally great!
We had a wonderful dinner with Dad and Beth and spent the night. We had fun looking at the pictures of their Mediterranean Cruise. We left this morning and got home about 11:00. We've been doing laundry most of the day. The kids have some friends over tonight so they can decompress and catch up.
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