Beach Cook Out

 With Todd and family coming a day early for out San Diego vacation, what better time to have a family beach cook out.  The usual partners in crime were there minus Sophie (she had a dance camp she could not miss.  She is going us in San Diego on Friday), and of course Carson and Luke.  On the bright side, it was so good to have Tayson back with us.

Mark wins grandfather of the year award.  He went into the cold water to help the little ones boogie board!!

French Pastry Class

 For my birthday, Amy gave me a cooking class to learn how to make puff pastry (laninated dough) and several French pastries.  And of course, she didn't want me to have to attend by myself, so she got a ticket for herself.

Making the laminated dough was pretty time consuming with lots of rolling, folding, and resting.  But, what we make it it was delicious.  

Kouign-amann were almost muffin-like, the dough cut and rolled into squares, corners brought up in the middle and dusted with sugar.  Amazing

Palmiers are rolled out in sugar rather than flour and then folded with additional sugar, sprinkled with cinnamon, rolled into heart shapes and thinly cut and baked.  Probably my favorite.

Berry turnovers--my least favorite-not sweet enough and needed some kind of glaze over the tops.

I'm excited to try these again!!  Just waiting for the weather to cool down to attempt the laminated dough.

Catalina

I've been wanting to go to Catalina for a while now and we finally made the time for it to happen.  I'm just sorry that it was on a Thursday, so Todd had to miss it.  But, we had so much fun.  I love being on the water in a boat, so the day started out perfectly.

Once we were on the island, we kyacked, snorleked, and drove a golf cart to see the sights.  The water so so clear and blue, Emma and I could even see fish from the kayak.

Amy found a "perfect spot for a selfie" on pinterest, so we set out to find it.  I must say, it did not disappoint.

 

Happy Birthday Sophie

 Todd and Kathy were out of town on Sophie's birthday, so I'm not sure if Tayson or David did the honors this year, but she did get her pancakes.  After my facetime call, she went out on the lake with some of her friends.  A very fun way to spend her special day.

Happy Birthday to Me

 The kids surprised me with birthday pancake on my birthday...

But we actually celebrated it a day late. After picking up the weary travelers from LAX, we went out to Red Robin and then home for Chocolate Satin pie and presents.  I felt very loved...and very old.  Wow!! 74!!!

Wild Rivers

My birthday, and last day with the kids was spent at Wild Rivers.  

 

Babysitting?

I'm not really sure you should call it babysitting when the kids involved are teenagers, but babysit I did.  Amy and Todd took Wyatt to Orlando for the Nationals in volleyball and asked me to "watch" Emma and Owen for the week.  It was pretty low key.  Owen helped me pick boysenberries, but I'm not too sure how many made it into the bowl.  

He also helped me make lemonade for dinner one night.  This lemon from my tree gave us 3/4 cup of juice!!

We bar-b-qued and made  

Pancakes were on the menu on the 4th of July with my ward's annual flag raising.

We then boarded the metro and ventured into downtown LA.

Grauman's Chinese Theatre was visited.  I especially enjoyed seeing Koby's and the entire cast of the Avengers.  After than, the day kinds went downhill.  It was a long, hot walk down Hollywood Blvd to the Funko Pop store, that was closed, and another metro ride to Olvero Street, that was also closed.

Once home, we tried a couple of Subway shops for dinner...yep, all closed.  Ended up with El Pollo Loco.  But it was a very fun day, even it didn't quite work out as planned...an adventure!