I do need to make a comment on the photos from this particular expedition. I’ve recently decided to spend a little extra time and learn how to use my awesome camera, which I’ve mostly been using in the automatic mode. My sweet hubby has, along with my great son Matt, been patiently teaching me over and over again what all those little dials do. So, if some of my photos look out of focus or the color looks off, yup, that’s why. I don’t know what the heck I’m doing!

The trails are steep, rocky, and often narrow on the Eagle Trail. Tall oak trees reach for the skies, their branches hanging down and by doing so create a dark canopy, obscuring the path ahead in certain sections of this trail. A wide variety of plant life begs to be given a closer look and a welcome bench pops up here and there for those who grow tired or just want to enjoy being among all this nature. The uphill climb coming back gave a great cardiac workout at times.

The driving force that spoke to me to get home was my anxiousness to see the photos I had taken of the horses at Harmon Camp. In this photo that I took from the hilltop before we started down Eagle Trail, you can see the horse stable and corral area. I was so excited and hopeful that Jerry and I could make it down and see the horses.

The hike down Eagle Trail in Arroyo Trabuco Wilderness was gorgeous, but honestly nothing could compare to what awaited us at the horse corrals. A beautiful 7 1/2 month old Paint named Colby. He was quite interested in me, coming up to the metal fence, poking his youthful head through the bars, his mane whipping in the wind his eyes looking a bit on the wild side, nuzzling me and hoping to get a treat of some sort. I could have stayed and visited with this young seemingly wild colt named Colby for a long time. The hike had been somewhat hard and he was the treat, certainly worth every step of the way. The air had taken a chill, the wind was up, the clouds were moving in, it was starting to get dark. Colby was anxious, the light was perfect. I felt in a spiritual moment. Something I guess I had been looking for the last few days. It was time to head back home with my sweet hubby. Thank you Colby. Thank you Jerry. I had a beautifully spiritually uplifting afternoon.

The trip to Torrance to visit good friends Beth, Steve, and assorted family members was fun as always. While we had certain tasks we wanted to accomplish, most of them require purchases, and as always lots of laughter. There are many things I love about these long time friends: their generosity, their kindness, their compassion, certainly patience which will be explained a bit later, and as if I could mention just 1 more of many many more it would have to be their ability to shower me with love. I’ve never had friends who do this for me in such a wonderful way. They sing my praises with every move I make, whether it be the sewing projects I’ve done or the cooking. They even find a way to suggest they only too just woke up after I’ve slept in until some late late hour of the morning. I come home oozing love. It’s the most awesome thing ever.

Beth and I were sitting in her family room admiring her garden when I decided to take photos of it. Beth has a green thumb she just doesn’t really know it. Her love for geraniums is awesome: with a lot of different varieties strewn all over her patio and garden beds. She has several bouganvillas, a plant that I love and have killed over the years. This particular one is quite large. The big fountain attracts a wide variety of birds.

Colorful ceramic mushrooms sit at the base of 3 different bird baths. Beth’s yard is full of birds and yes even crows, of which both of us are not especially fans of.

On this particular visit I was in rare form. Let me explain. In past visits I started a trend in which I either break something or more likely am connected to something getting broken or not working, thus creating jobs for Steve. To be honest and reveal all, I don’t intentionally do this, it just seems to happen. This time I was on a roll and things were happening all around me. In a past visit I turned off Steve’s computer. And I mean literally. Turned it off. As in didn’t want to start up again. Here’s where the patience part comes in to play. Steve didn’t get mad, he just explained it was an “uh oh” waiting to happen. Lucky me. Or maybe lucky him, as he later explained he’d been waiting for this to happen so he could go out and buy a new one!

Steve & Beth’s new Mission style hutch has a extension cord plugged in to the wall behind it. A couple of visits ago I was told to plug the vacuum into the cord. I got about 2″ of carpet vacuumed with Beth’s new and powerful vacuum when everything on that side of the house lost power. Oh dear! On this recent visit I was working in the garden and I accidently stepped on a exposed sprinkler pipe, breaking it, or as Beth likened it: finished breaking it. Score: Patty 2, Steve 2

On one of my many trips to the garage I noticed this creature sticking out from around a box on the shelf. I kind of remember there being a story attached to it, making it something great for Steve and Beth to keep. I just don’t remember what that story may be. Still I’ve gone used to seeing his little face watch me ponder over the tool bench.

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Steve’s repaired glasses sit atop Pepsi he brought home for Beth. (I got a diet coke!-thanx Steve). I picked them up and upon doing so the lense popped out. Oops! Score: Patty 3 Steve 3. Also during this visit I managed to unplug the phone bases when I plugged in the coffee pot. Are you keeping track? Patty 4 Steve 4. Steve’s #’s correspond to the chores he has to do for the things I kept breaking. He’s gets well over a 10 for his patience. Thanks for yet another great visit wonderful friends!

It took 3 of us, a few interesting poses and suggestive comments but we managed to get Beth’s antique rocker covered with a beautiful needlepoint she found on ebay. We also were in the lookout for a nice arrangement for their new dinning room table. We found this wreath for the door at one of our favorite haunts: Mulberry Cottage. The gorgeous green flower arrangement was purchased at Michael’s. It goes beautifully with their new dinning room set.

If anyone knows me well, they know I love to organize anything and everything. I’m almost anal about it. I took it upon myself to organize Beth’s jewelry while we were visiting this last weekend. She got into it too at the end and we stayed up until midnight talking about the special meaning behind some of her most cherished possessions. It was such fun.

Be sure and click on the photo of the Air Force flag because you will find Steve in the picture to the right. Steve and Beth’s middle child, a son, is over in Iraq right now, fighting the fight. Please take a minute and say a prayer for this truly wonderful guy to come home safe and sound, to his wife and family. We love you!

Beth has 2 adorable kitties, sisters Tiger and Tigger. Tiger is shown below in the back of the closet being the shy one that she is. She sleeps during the day and is up at night running through the house, scaring anyone who might get up for a drink of water or a potty stop. Silly girl! Tigger is the youngest, the runt of the liter, and a bit more sociable. She loves to be around the action and you will frequently find her resting nearby. She’s also more mischievious and loves to do things she knows she shouldn’t! She’s shown resting in Beth’s red chair.

On one of our excursions in the neighborhood we saw this huge pink hydrangea in the front yard. Every year it gets bigger and more beautiful. Beth said she believes the owners trim it down during it’s off season. Maybe I’ll get the nerve to do the same to mine. And just look at my adorable new Jim Shore Tinkerbell figurine! I love it! It was an early birthday gift from Beth! Awesome! I also got a very sweet cloche, perfect for all sorts of wonderful things. Thank you my dear friend! So very much!

You can see the new Jim Shore Tinkerbell figurine under the new cloche from Beth on the left side of my desk shelf top. It’s there you can also see the photo I had enlarged to match our newly painted bedroom colors. I had Matt tweak the colors of the rose a bit, toning it down so the center wasn’t quite so pink, even still it looks pinker than it really is. I love it. Here also is a close up of the new Tinkerbell figurine.

I came home from my visit with Steve and Beth to take Matt for his 26th birthday (earlier in the week) out to dinner with my sweet hubby. We went to California Pizza Kitchen, yum! and ate wonderful pasta, rolls, and red velvet cake! Happy Birthday sweet Matt. We love you so much!

I had my latest and increased dose of Remicade 2 days ago and am elated on how well I feel. My hands work again! Mind you not completely like they are suppose to, but to be able to grasp my morning cup of joe safely is a huge one. Getting out of bed in the am isn’t as uncomfortable as it was a couple days ago and I can get to sleep with a simple plop of this grey haired head on the pillow again.

From where I blog I can see the back patio clearly, even a couple of bird feeders and the potted plants on the patio. I’ve been having a bit of an issue with our squirrel, Rocky (so named by my sweet husband). Seems he has taken note of where Jay and Kay (our blue jays, also named by hubby) hide their peanuts when Jerry passes them out in the morning. That hiding place would be deep inside my potted plants. Rocky likes to come by and dig the peanuts out, and of course being a squirrel he doesn’t clean up after himself, leaving dirt and such strewn all over the patio. When we emptied our small pond a few years back I placed the pretty grey river rocks we had on the pond bottom, on top of the potted plant dirt. This was more due to the lack of something better to do with these expensive rocks than for decoration although it does look nice. I didn’t realize at the time that it would prevent the scrub jays from hiding their peanuts in these pots, but hey, it worked so I thought I’d put more of the same rocks in all the potted patio plants (try saying that real fast). Of course the price of pretty rocks has gone up so I compromised and got the next best thing; smaller sized beige rocks. One bag at $4.59 of beige rocks covered the tops of remaining planted pots and I saved $6.50 or more by not making everything matchy patchy as I tend to like. Done. Or so I figured. The sun was shinning brightly when I walked onto our patio yesterday morning. It seemed like it would be a good day, until I saw a neat pile of rocks stacked in one of the pots, with dirt strewn all over. Again! I should have taken a picture of it, not that I could have posted it here, but it would have been fun to look back on it and imagine how cute Rocky must have looked stacking the rocks to get to that hidden peanut. Guess I should have invested in the bigger grey rocks. I bet he would have had trouble getting his little paws around those suckers!

Matthew drove down here to Mission Viejo recently and we went for a walk in the gulley across the street from Temple Eliat. I’ve always wanted to go down there and wander around, so taking our cameras and documenting the walk was interesting.

There were a lot of unusual items down in this dark and damp gully. It looks as if people visit often and don’t have a second thought as to vandalize the area. Matt found pieces of a umbrella and stand, broken and scattered everywhere. There were the usual old bottles along with discarded remnants of chair parts and other miscellaneous junk.

It makes me sad to see the large oak trees spray painted along beside the natural beauty of the wilderness glenns that grace Mission Viejo, though I doubt the city’s landscape and cleaning crews come down very often and clean up. There are more obvious areas that they need to tend to.

I was tickled to see a fairy ring in the wilderness glenn, though I didn’t see any fairies on this trip. Matt and I got stuck in a sudden down pour on our walk home and had to put in an emergency call to Jerry to pick us up. We made the best of the wait and took photos of an old truck that is frequently parked beside the road.

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