This Moment

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"{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

Nature's perfection...

A Walk Around the Neighborhood

The weather here has been kind of finicky lately…cold and rainy one day, then in the eighties the next.  Last Thursday we took advantage of a perfect evening to take a walk around the neighborhood.   We love taking family walks when the opportunity presents itself, and this was the first after several months of cold and rain. 

Bella took her scooter.  She loves to zip ahead, practicing her balance. 

The city put up this mural about a year or two ago.  It’s a beautiful way to spruce up the huge stone wall that wraps around this residential community and reminds us of our city’s rich history.

We saw lots of flowers on our trek…a sure sign that spring is in full swing.

Bella especially liked this one…a lone bloom amongst a plethora of flowering bushes.

Our walk would not have been complete without visiting Papa New Guinea, the community guinea pig. 

He belongs to a resident, but apparently he doesn’t like his cage and so they let him out on the grass to nibble.  The first time we saw him, a couple of weeks ago, we thought he was lost or abandoned.  We were prepared to rescue him on Easter, but we found out he does have a home, so now we just enjoy watching him roam about.

But the best part of our walk...

Spending time with my two most favorite people!

Weekend in Pictures

This weekend we:

Made strawberry jelly…

Imagined ourselves superheroes…

Enjoyed a delicious bowl of ramen made by Julian…

Created a menu for our “fancy” Easter brunch…

And napkin holders…

And place cards…

Dipped a lot of strawberries in yummy chocolate (and licked our fingers, of course)…

Harvested oregano from our garden…

Set a beautiful table for Easter brunch…

And shared a delicious homemade meal with our loved ones…

 Acted silly…

Hunted…

And hit the jackpot!

Hope you all had a terrific weekend!

Linking with Amanda (a little late) for weekending.

Sunday Blessings

Since I devoted a whole post to Saturday, I figured I should devote one to Sunday too as it was a marvelous day! I had been wanting to get to the Great Park Farmers Market in Irvine for a few weeks and hadn’t been able to. We finally made it on Sunday, albeit a bit late. It was wonderful! I wasn’t super impressed with the produce stands. I was expecting a bit more variety…but it seems everyone has apples and oranges this time of year. Oh, and strawberries, lots of strawberries! What I did love were all the craft booths and the food trucks. Yum! The park is also very nice. We didn’t make it on the Great Balloon…

But Bella and I did manage to get on the carousel.

I also decided to invest in some fresh herbs to plant in our garden (more on that in a sec). We stocked up on food from various food truck vendors and sat at the picnic tables to enjoy our lunch.

The Mediterranean chicken plate was scrumptious!

And the fries with fire feta dip from the Louks Greek Food Truck were to die for!

We also tried the Calbi Food Truck. Julian had a burrito and Luis tried the tacos.

Safe to say we will definitely be going back!!

When we got back home Bella and I got to work planting our garden. We filled out planters with soil (I think I bought the wrong soil, so my fingers are crossed)…

 Then we got to transplanting all of our seedlings and the new herb plants we bought at Farmers Market.

Not all the seedlings worked out. Not sure where I went wrong, but like Luis told me, this is a learning process. I really need to invest in a good gardening book that specializes in container gardening. I welcome any recommendations. Anyhow, we planted peas and carrots from our seedlings and we planted basil, thyme, and oregano from Farmers Market.

By the time the sun set I was exhausted and sore all over, but every time I look out onto our patio it all feels worth it. I hope to actually eat the fruits (or vegetables and herbs, as the case may be) of my labor soon.

So I would say we had a pretty good weekend. A pretty good weekend, indeed.

Weekend in Pictures

This weekend we:

Battled the flu…

Braved through Bath Remodeling Day 3…

Roped Dad into helping with paper mache…

 

Went shopping at the thrift store and turned these…

Into these…

Baked…

And brought color into the dreary spring days…

Happy Monday!