Our FOT 2015 Adventures in Sunny California!

Deepika and I were blessed with the opportunity to take a pre-FOT trip to Hollywood, California.  It was so much fun.  We toured the city life there, and also took a day to go to Universal Studios.  I really liked what Deepika said about how places like Disney World and Universal Studios are human kinds current way of the ultimate fun family unity taking people to a better world at the highest level humanly possible.  At Disney, there is even a land there called Tomorrow Land.

Anyway, here is a blog basically for my family and any friends interested of our Southern California adventures this year.  I'll try to blog in story form to make it more interesting to follow.  Enjoy!

It all started around 4:30AM when our friend, Justin G. picked Deepika and I up from her home.  We were all so tired.  #FriendsSeeEachOtherTired  :-)

When we arrived at the airport, we ran into my brother, sis in law, and my niece Sophia who were checking in.  Turns out that they were on our same flight on our first leg to Dallas.  Sophia was pretty "not there" at first probably wondering where and why we were all out so early in the morning.  Judging from her looks, she's not going to be a morning person, but after awhile, she woke up.

Sophia's awake now, and after getting upset at first with her Aunt....AKA me.....for taking so many photos of her, then she decided if you can't beat them, then join them. :-)  So she started entertaining me while I snapped away.

But after entertaining, she decided to tell me that was enough, and tried to reach for my camera.  LOL
BELOW:  VIDEO!  Right before Sophia boarded the plane.  Her first flight, and she did so well.  She was so happy most of the time and didn't cry really.  We have another world traveler in the fam!

My brother was so nice to document with my cam Deepika and I were there too.  :-)

Once we got to the Dallas airport, Deepika and I parted ways with my bro, sis in law, and Sophia as they were headed to the Caribbean, and we were headed to the West Coast.  We rented a car in Cali, and Deepika took the first shift in driving to Hollywood!  We both conquered LA traffic!  City gal drivers now.  It wasn't good for our womanhood though, you have to be so aggressive driving in traffic.  Didn't like, but with God's help up, we earned our LA traffic certificate. 

We made it to Hollywood after a long drive, and checked into our lovely little motel called The Tangerine.  The staff there were so friendly and the lobby smelled of guess what!....Tangerine!!!

I loved our room number there in Hollywood.  119!  In the hymnal page 119 is the song Behold The Day Will Come.  Perfect for us this time of year.  :-)

Driving around checking out the Hollywood area.

The Star Walk.  I love this pic that says live your life!  So true, only I would have added, "the right way."

Empty stars on the star walk.  Deepika and I decided that these are ours if we live our life right.  :-)

Deepika's claim to fame with her shadow.

We plan to stay fit this year.  :-)

We ate at this Buffalo Wing place which had so many different flavor of wings to choose from.  I had no idea one could be so creative with buffalo wings. 

My singer diva moment!  It was my one second of fame for now.  #OnlyAPose

We had bought tickets already to go to the famous wax museum of life sized wax figures.  Of course I had to "pose with" Simon.  :-)

I don't really know what was up with the big chair in the wax museum, but it made for a great pic.

This is where all the big awards are held like the Oscar's etc.  It honestly doesn't look as fancy in person as it looks on the camera, but it's a nice theater.  We are just spoiled with Armstrong Auditorium which is of such high quality.

Throughout this post, I'll randomly throw in food that I have eaten.  It's always been my thing to show my "physical feastings."  :-)

Moving on to our day at Universal Studios!  Such fun!  This is where a lot of movies that most have seen are filmed.  We're not so much into the movies like some, but it is neat to see the where and the how.

Obviously, this is where "The Voice" is filmed.

Stage 44 is where the movie, The Fast and the Furious was filmed.

Wow, what skinny city buildings the movies have.  :-)

The actual cars they used to film, the Night Rider, Magnum PI, and Biff's Car in Back to the Future.

And the two cars from 2 Fast 2 Furious

More studios from movies.  I am so movie challenged, so I couldn't tell you what movie they are from, but if you recognize it, points to you.  :-)

The Jaws set!  Pretty cool.

BELOW:  The set from some movie about a plane crash.

Just Chilling.

Bye bye Hollywood.  Time to move on to Indian Wells, California.  My turn to drive what turned out to be a 3.5 hour drive from Hollywood to Indian Wells.  That LA city traffic was awful.

Finally arriving to our destination hotel in Indian Wells.  We are so blessed to have a hospitality suite in our fancy hotel.  It's a blessing.  Above and below are video's and pictures of our blessing.  We feel like God blessed us with this accommodation, so what do you do when you have a hospitality suite?  You give back by being hospitable, so that is both of our goals this year in between the super hectic schedule that everyone usually has.

We ordered in room service for our Friday Night meal.  Salmon and Salad.  Healthy and delicious.

A few pics from our hotel balcony.  So nice to see real trees!

My morning breakfast at the hotel.  Chicken sausage with cranberries and spinach, and breakfast potatoes with roasted peppers.  I think we're going to like it here!  We are so blessed and thankful!

 Sabbath dinner at Olive Garden with Nathan, Elise, and Deepika.  Good times.  We talked about how we all plan to make this a FOT of serving our extended family w/God as our center focus.  My goal this FOT is to extend myself as far as I can within balance.  We will see how well that is achieved.  Tomorrow is meetings in the AM, choir practice all afternoon, and then it all begins!

Tomorrow morning is breakfast with the Nash's.  To be continued.......

Notebooks Worthy of Honorable Mention. :-)

Every year around this time of year I always buy a new notebook to take notes in.  (I'm not a laptop note taking type of gal.)  Anyway, I saw these in Ross the other day and decided to get them both b/c of what they said.  I liked them so much that I'm blogging them.  :-)

A Relaxing Extended Family Meal!

 A big thanks is in order to Matthew and Christy McCarty for hosting a spontaneous and relaxing meal in their home on Trumpets.  Like I've told them, the McCarty's have a way about them that makes those in their presence feel relaxed and so loved like part of the family in which we are.  What a lovely time that it was.  (Thanks for the photos, Christy.  :-) )

A Nice Dinner

 A few pics from a nice dinner with Jordanya, Danielle, Ben, Nick, Paris, and Melissa.  A very nice group!

 Jordanya is such a special young woman of character.  Love this gal!

The Niece

My beautiful niece, Sophia Juliet, will be one year old tomorrow!

She's walking now.  Look out world, here she comes!  :-)

Labor Day Projects

 This past summer has been a little different in being caretaker of my mom.  The only big project that I took underway was to paint and redecorate one of my guest bedrooms which is shown in an earlier blog post on this blog, but with fall now officially here, Labor Day weekend came in quite handy.  I needed a royal purple and navy blue dress for the FOT choir, and the only royal purple dress that I had was from my brother and sister in laws wedding which is really a little "too flashy" to wear in a choir group setting even though I did wear it last year, and I've had the same navy blue dress for years!  I designed the two dresses in my head knowing that I wanted my navy blue opening night dress to be simple and elegant, and knowing that I wanted my LGD royal purple dress to be more on the formal side, yet not too flashy.

ABOVE and BELOW is what I came up with as my LGD dress.  I didn't sketch it out, just pictured it, and sewed it.  It's pretty simple with a formal touch.  My fav part of this design is the functional train.  I created a video of how it's a "hands free" CCoatsOfManyColours! functional train design.

VIDEO of train on dress design and how it's a hands free functional train

BELOW:  The Opening Night navy blue dress design

Really simple design.  I'm headed to a place with warmer temperature, so that made it easy since sleeves weren't needed.  I kept the dress ankle length to avoid it from being too formal, and added the bling on top off centered to give this dress a little quiet flare.

Finished this CCoatsOfManyColours! necktie as a gift along with a ladies matching shawl to compliment it though I technically was finished with this project before Labor Day.

Thanks to the power of suggestion by Paulette Corey, I made homemade peach fruit roll-ups in my dehydrator for the first time.  I really got a thrill out of this.  Healthy fruit roll-ups.  All I did was take one large tasty peach that was sweet enough on its own, and pureed it with a touch of lemon juice, spread it thinly in my dehydrator, and after 21 hours on the top shelf in my machine, they were ready.  They came out with pretty much the same texture as the store bought, but without the preservatives!

While I was at it, I cut up 3 more peaches, dehydrated them, and had peach chips.

Added blueberries to the dehydrator as well.  ABOVE:  is how the fruit roll up looked in "raw form."

Voila!  Peach chips and dehydrated blueberries.  I decided to use the blueberries to make homemade chocolates, so I put them in a chocolate mold.

Why buy a double boiler when you can "do it yourself?"  :-)  I'm just joking, if you have one, that is great, but I'm cheap and just fill up a slightly larger pot with water, and then place in a slightly smaller pot in the water, turn on the heat, and you can leave the chocolate pretty much unattended, and it will melt without burning or sticking to the pot.

Once melted poured the chocolate over the dehydrated blueberries, placed the mold in the frig, and when set, popped out the chocolate candy.  These are yummy, if you like blueberries anyway.

Once I got going I decided to go the whole nine yards and used organic unsweetened...AKA real coconut and made the below chocolate candy.

...and then thought roasted almond chocolates, below, would also be yummy topped with sea salt.  Oh, don't believe me, you have to try these yourself.  The sea salt crystals add that finishing touch.  My plan is to box them up kind of professionally this evening and share them by gifting them out hopefully tomorrow if time allows.