Southern California, now Back to Reality!

Wow gals. I have been gone awhile! It has been almost a full month without a blog post? Crazy. I wanted to try to blog from Newport Beach but my ipad wasn't cooperating and we had very little connectivity. I guess that was good. Frustrating though when you are used to it. We went to cute little Solvang on the way down. Good old abelskivers for breakfast. Like eating home made donuts yummy! And fresh raspberry jam, too.

and cute mermaids. Then to Newport and the beach house. Love to spend the morning at Mother's Beach looking out at the boats...I mean yachts.


I sat there each morning and stitched up my Blackbird Designs cross stitch that I would like to get done before next year! Seems it travels to Newport each year with just a bit finished! The best intentions...

We took a few hours and went up to old town Tustin, California to see the Flying Geese Quilt Shop. It's only about 15 minutes from the beach house. Sadly, I had to drive on a freeway to get there. I am such a small town gal! But we survived and luckily because it was worth the fright! They have the most beautiful trees there. And all the store fronts are adorable too.


Great ladies there gals! And a very nice selection of fabrics. They have a birthday month discount and you get to pick your percent from a hat! I was lucky enough to get 15% and that made a good sized dent in my selections. I did manage to come away with a nice selection of sweet fabrics and a few patterns too.
Wish I had been able to go to the trunk show they had with Gene Shepherd. He's a pastor that also does a fantastic job of hand dyeing wools. They had some examples and it was really nice. If you live near there go check them out.

Besides the shopping aspects of so cal, the art is great. We usually go to the Laguna Art Museum but decided to go see the art the artist they are featuring instead. Isamu Noguchi built this interesting and serene setting between giant office buildings.

I must admit I am glad I don't work in that atmosphere but it's nice those folks that do have this space.


It is located near South Coast Plaza on Avenue of the Arts.

Finally we rode bikes over to Balboa Island and took the Car Ferry the last night. We went to my girls favorite store when they were young gals. Even Sisters. The famous cow painted differently each year. How fun that it has my favorite symbol the bee this season.

We came back to the peninsula and went up to have one last meal at the Crab Cooker, we even found this cute bottle of wine at the nearby Safeway (Pavillions to those of the So Cal land)



Bye for now beach house. See you next time!