What do you take grandsons who seem to have everything? Well, how about cookies? When my husband and I flew to Orange County for a summer visit, I packed box mixes for snickerdoodles, brownies, and macadamia and white chocolate cookies. Over a week's time I was able to bake all of them. Cody helped with the snickerdoodles. We put the Special Dark Hershey Kisses in the middle, a la Sarah ( see June post).
I used melted caramels to drizzle over the brownies, but I thought it made them too sweet and sort of sticky. They had to be eaten with a knife, fork or spoon. However, no one complained.
By the time I took this snapshot, the macadamia nut and white chocolate cookies were mostly gone. You can see the how messy the caramel brownies were.
On the left are Cody's snickerdoodles.
Cody also showed me how to play Angry Birds (video game) and gave me a chess lesson, but I don't think I'll ever be able to play chess.
Although it is summer, Zachary is still playing high school basketball. I didn't have much luck taking Zach in action. This picture is typical of my efforts. (Yes, Zach is #7.)
Or this one. Very exciting.
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| Calvin, Matthew, Zach and Luke - skateboarding USA |
After one of their games, Joyce brought Zachary and three of his friends
to Huntington Beach with their skateboards.
They took time to pose for me as they clambered out of the minivan and prepared to skate off towards the pier:
quintessential Southern California.
Wade went with me to the Bower Museum in Anaheim.
They had a stunning exhibition of Faberge items owned by Tsar Nicholas and Alexandria. Some member of Nicholas'
family (I think an aunt) stuffed a bunch of these precious items into a pillowcase, so the story goes, after the Romanov's family's arrest. Using her private train and bribes, she escaped to Denmark, where the treasures were forgotten until after the war when they were put up for auction.
There was also an exhibit on loan of natural gold nuggets which looked like works of art set in quartz.
They also had an extensive Polynesian collection that I found mind-boggling: headdresses, masks, drums, ceremonial costumes and these totems.
Wade, my husband and I joined our cousin, Zenab at the Original Pancake House in Lagauna Hills where Zenab was visiting friends. We had to take a picture of their enormous omelets which Zenab and I shared. A blurb on the menu threatened to charge $2.00 for an extra plate and utensils if customers wanted to share, Happily, the waitress told us they had cancelled that charge.
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| This is half a veggie omelet. |
I don't have to tell you that the weather was sunny and mild. We did have rain one day, regardless of what the Beach Boys claimed. ("It never rains in California in the summer time.")
Flying out of John Wayne Airport, we arrived around 5:30 AM. Passengers all board their respective planes at 6:15. Airliners line up on the runways by 6:45. In deference to sleeping Orange County residents, planes do not start taking off until 7:00. We made it off the ground by 7:15.
