Paula, Carol and Laurel spend the day in San Francisco

Paula came over last night and had a sleepover. Now, I've known Paula since high school and do you know that she has never done a sleepover at my house. Paula and I were also RA's in our college dorm at the same time, but never did a sleepover. Oh, and Don took Paula to his senior prom, but she never did a sleepover (at least I don't think she did). But, yesterday she came over aroun 4:30 and we had a great time chatting, followed by dinner and more chatting. Then this morning Laurel joined us for a trip to the city to see the Impressionist at the DeYoung Museum. That was wonderful. We then took Paula to mosaic steps (see the picture of Laurel and Auntie Paula below). After that we went to Green for an outstanding lunch. Check out those pictures below. They have amazing food. What a wonderful day. Paula is BARTing back to her house in Fremont right now. We all agreed that we need to do this more often.

Mosaic Four Art Studio Party

Today the Mosaic Four had a wonderful Mosaic Show at Linda's house. It was fun to have a bunch of people come by and be thrill with our summer projects. They all came out so well. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

Here is Cris with her Blue Heron. I love this and would love to do something like it next year.Here I am with my Golden Gate Bridge. I now anxious to have Don install it in my back yard.

Here is Dolores's Dolphin mosaic. This is perfect for her as she is a sailor. I'm sorry that I forgot to take her picture with her mosaic.

This is Linda's Koi fish. It is mounted right above her outdoor pond. She used broken Asian plates to make most of the fish. I looks great.

Here is a birdbath that Linda made.

This is Cris's bowling ball mosaic. She had this perfect dog stand that it fit in perfectly. I just started working on my own bowling ball. It'll be done in a week or two.

Portland visit July 2010

I spent a busy 5 days with the Portland Ballanti's. I had a wonderful time. I played a lot of princess/barbie/my little pony with Maryn and Lucy. They are both so full of play and make believe. We also did lots of outdoor play. I couldn't put those pictures in here because they kept taking off their clothes and running through the sprinklers and playing with barbies in the water play table. I went to the park a few times, picked raspberries, went to the Rose Garden in Portland and my sister Mary came over from the coast for an ovenight visit. We also got to go watch Chris play volleyball. Wow, I'm almost tired just mentioning some of the things we did. It was a great visit. Here are some pictures to give you an idea of what we were up to. Enjoy!

Golden Gate Bridge Mosaic

I finished my San Francisco Mosaic. I have 4 spots that I will complete when it is installed on our outside wall. But, I have to wait to install it unitl after we have our 2010 Mosaic Art Show. You are invited to Linda's house in Pinole on August 8th from 2 to 4 for the show. Let me know if you are coming and I will give you her address. Included in my mosaic is blue glass from windows taken out of our backyard, a piece of china found in the backyard that says "made in occupied Japan", coca cola bottles and sauvignon blanc wine bottles. If you have any old plates, glass or unique bottles or tile, save it for me. I am always looking for new materials. If you don't make it to the Art Show, feel free to come by my house and check our my latest creation. I had a blast doing it.

Rogue River 2010

This was a wonderful relaxing river trip. We had lots of layover days and 18 adventureous and fun people to share the trip. Here are just a "few" of the 926 pictures that I took on the river.

Please ignore the labels if they are in the wrong place. I really dislike the format of blogs. It's hard to line them up. But, the pictures really tell the story.
The Put-in at Almeda Bar:

Costume Night: Our theme this year was Electric (or ecclectic) Ninja Pirates and Cowboys in Space.

The Ballanti's on the Rogue

The Wongs on the Rogue: Ok The Wongs are included in here because Oscar and Owen are just so cute.

Rapids: Here we are scouting rapids and running them. The big ones one the Rogue are Rainie Falls and Blossom Bar. The other place that the kayakers rolled up their kayaks was Mule Creek Canyon. There are no big rapids but a narrow turbulant canyon makes it a problem for small boats. The first two pictures are from scouting of Blossom Bar.

Laurel is describing to Brel, how to run Blossom Bar

Here are Jeff & Kim entering Mule Creek Canyon.

Rainie Fall aka The fish ladder: Here we are at Rainie Falls. This is a class 5 rapid on the river. That means, if you run it, you will probably flip. Therefore, our boat go down the fish ladder. Owen, Oscar, Auntie Deb and I walk around and took pictures. The second picture down is Oscar and Owen giving the OK sign to the boats going down the fish ladder. That means the boat ahead of them came down the fish ladder and didn't get stuck. The next boat can proceed. Doing the fish ladder is sort of like bumper boats. There isn't a lot of control. I personally perfer to take pictures.

Laurel and her Hula Hoop Laurel carried her hula hoop with her down the mighty Rogue River. Here are just a few places that she hula hooped.

Games on the River:

There were some people that just love jumping into a rapid and floating down the river.

Beach Volleyball was fun. We also sat around and just enjoyed life. I believe that is Jeff and Kim doing a beer tasting in the middle of the river.

Whoever called "Moon" first on the river was a winner.

This was part of the laser show. Very cool!

Water Ballet

Drew and Stasha doing their singing (upside down). This was very cute!

Banana Grams

Bocci was fun!

Rogue River Ranch :This working ranch was a short hike up Mule Creek from our campsite on the river. They have drinkable running water and a great museum that you can visit. I just like using the hose to get wet as it was very warm.

Whisky Creek Ranch:Here are a few picture from on old house near the river. Note the two seater outhouse. Now, those were the days!

Meals on the river: We had wonderful food on the river. Our five dinners were, Blue Fin Tuna Burgers, Chicken Ceasar Salad, Filet Mignon, Chicken Fajitas, and Pasta with Italian Sausages. Yum! Below is my cook crew. We were only in charge of cooking for one day on the trip, so we were able to relax most days while others were preparing our meals. It's a good system. Please note that there were no forest fires started while making our smores. Plus we had our own fireman with us on the trip. The picture below does look like Deb's head is on fire (just trick photography).

Here is a picture of us filtering water in the green bag and the red one has our wine stash.

Animals on the river: Here are pictures of a river otter, eagle, blue heron and turtle. We saw a lot of other animals. Most the them were birds. I decided not to include the dead snake that we found in our camp or the snake that I missed stepping on by about one inch. Yikes! I really don't like snakes.

Napping on the river!!!! We were active on this trip, but as you can see, a lot of napping happened.