The Best For Last - the family - that's what it's really all about...

The best time out of the whole trip was the visit with my sister, her family, the babies, and the Baptism - my husband and I are the God-parents.













It was funny, before we got there the GS said he wasn't going to play with the babies, then he changed it to just the boy, got there and he fell in love with them both! Cried when we left.





Happy Birthday to Selena Gomez - wikipedia

Gomez began her acting career at age seven, playing Gianna on Barney & Friends. She said that she learned "everything" about how to act while on the show. Season 7 of Barney & Friends, when Selena Gomez was on the show, was held up for some time. Because of this, the episodes featuring Gomez did not air until she was in 5th grade. This resulted in some mild controversy/confusion as to whether she was on Barney in the 5th grade or the 1st grade.

She later had minor roles in Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over and the TV film Walker, Texas Ranger: Trial By Fire.

In 2004, Gomez was discovered by the Disney Channel in a nation wide scouting. Gomez appeared as a guest star on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and had a guest appearance – that later turned into a recurring role – on Hannah Montana from season's two to three. In early 2007 Gomez was cast in the Disney Channel series Wizards of Waverly Place as one of the three main characters, Alex Russo.

In 2008, Gomez appeared in Another Cinderella Story, the direct-to-DVD sequel to the 2004 Hilary Duff film, opposite Drew Seeley. She also had a minor voice over role as one the Mayor's ninety-six daughters in Horton Hears a Who! which released in March of that year.\

In April, Lacey Rose, of Forbes ranked Gomez as being fifth on their "Eight Hot Kid Stars To Watch" list; and Rose described Gomez as having been "a multitalented teen".

In June, 2009, Gomez appeared in the made-for-television Disney Channel movie, Princess Protection Program with her then best friend Demi Lovato. On August 28, one month after appearing in Princess Protection Program, Gomez appeared in Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie, a made-for-television film based on the show.

Gomez began wearing a purity ring when she was 12 years old.

She is the owner of five rescue dogs and describes herself as a "huge animal lover". After Gomez and Lovato, whom she first met at the Barney & Friends auditions, posted a video blog on YouTube in March 2008, Miley Cyrus and her friend Mandy Jiroux uploaded a parody of that video, which caught the interest of entertainment media. Reports included the theory that Gomez and Lovato might replace Cyrus.

Gomez clarified there was no feud, saying: "I'm not interested in being anybody but myself, and I'm not here to replace anyone. I think that she's a wonderful performer, and of course it's a compliment. But I would like to take a different route." In answering a question on Hispanic heritage, to stationary provider Scholastic's news service for kids and teens, Gomez said: "My family does have Quinceañeras, and we go to the communion church. We do everything that's Catholic, but we don't really have anything traditional except go to the park and have barbeque's on Sundays after church."

I like this girl - I think she's extremely talented and because she is on Disney - I tend to see her show a lot.

Olvera Street - China Town - Santa Monica Pier - Griffith Observatory

Welcome to Olvera Street, Los Angeles, CA Olvera Street is the birthplace of the City of Los Angeles, otherwise known as El Pueblo Historic Monument.


Our Lady of Guadalupe.


Gee they have these eggs that hold confetti - of course the GS got some. And he was going to spread it on me. I thought he saw every one breaking them BEFORE they put it on them, but he didn't. He used my head as an egg cracker! OUCH!



CHINA TOWN:





SANTA MONICA PIER: A little over cast that day, but nice and cool. We walked the pier.

I don't know what the group of us was looking at!



A man was fishing and had found a crab and had the GS hold it. Of course - first a little lesson on how to hold one and not get bit.



Going to Griffith Observatory - each letter is 50 feet high.



They had all sorts of displays.



Here we are resting, my sister and her sweet husband.



"There is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is." ~ Ernest Hemingway



Happy Birthday to Ernest Hemingway - wikipedia

What is amazing is this - he lived one of the fullest lives I've seen in my readings, yet . . . he committed suicide.

In the spring of 1961, three months after his initial treatment at the Mayo clinic where he received a series of ECT treatment, Hemingway attempted suicide in his Sun Valley home. His wife Mary convinced the local physician, Dr. Saviers, to hospitalize Hemingway at Sun Valley hospital and from there he returned to the Mayo clinic where he was "given ten more shock treatments."

On the morning of July 2, 1961, two days after having been released from the Mayo clinic, Hemingway unlocked the gun cabinet, went to the front entrance of their Sun Valley house, and "pushed two shells into the twelve-gauge Boss shotgun (made in England and bought at Abercrombie and Fitch), put the end of the barrel into his mouth, pulled the trigger and blew out his brains."

Dr. Scott Earle arrived at 7:40 a.m, having been summoned to the house, and he certified the death. At request of the family, the coroner did not do an autopsy.

Other members of Hemingway's immediate family also committed suicide, including his father, Clarence Hemingway, his siblings Ursula and Leicester, and his granddaughter Margaux Hemingway. Some believe that certain members of Hemingway's paternal line had a hereditary disease known as haemochromatosis (bronze diabetes), in which an excess of iron concentration in the blood causes damage to the pancreas and also causes depression or instability in the cerebrum.

Hemingway's father is known to have developed haemochromatosis in the years prior to his suicide at age fifty-nine. Throughout his life, Hemingway had been a heavy drinker, succumbing to alcoholism in his later years.

Hemingway possibly suffered from manic depression, and was subsequently treated with electroshock therapy at the Mayo Clinic. He later blamed his memory loss, which he cited as a reason for not wanting to live, upon the ECT sessions.

Hemingway is interred in the town cemetery in Ketchum, Idaho, at the north end of town. A memorial was erected in 1966 at another location, overlooking Trail Creek, north of Ketchum. It is inscribed with a eulogy he wrote for a friend, Gene Van Guilder:

Best of all he loved the fall
The leaves yellow on the cottonwoods
Leaves floating on the trout streams
And above the hills
The high blue windless skies
Now he will be a part of them forever

The last week was in LA visiting my sister . . .Hollywood

We had 8 days in LA - my favorite leg of the trip and the others too felt this way too. It was not because of LA persay - it was because my sister and her family and her two babies were there.

My sister took us all around LA and took the babies too. They had never been anywhere and here she let them go out to so many places - because she loved us and wanted us to have a good time and we did!

Our first stop was HOLLYWOOD - Where else?

Hubby dreaming of Marilyn Manroe!
(Aren't they adorable?)

No, nobody got 'discovered' - oh well . . .


Happy Birthday to Lizzie Bordon - wikipedia

She was a New England spinster who was the central figure in the hatchet murders of her father and stepmother on August 4, 1892 in Fall River, Massachusetts in the United States. The murders, subsequent trial, and following trial by media became a cause célèbre. The fame of the incident has endured in American pop culture and criminology. Although Lizzie Borden was acquitted, no one else was ever arrested or tried, and she has remained notorious in American folklore. Dispute over the identity of the killer or killers continues to this day.

Borden was distantly related to the American milk processor Gail Borden (1801–1874) and Robert Borden (1854–1937), Canada's Prime Minister during World War I.[28]

Elizabeth Montgomery and Lizzie Borden were sixth cousins once removed, both descending from 17th-century Massachusetts resident John Luther.

Interesting . . .

Back on the road again

Back on the road again . . .

On to the city of a million lights - Las Vegas - we stayed at New York, New York.



Now this is the MGM Grand and it is grand. This is there lion.


Anybody recognize this? It is the Rain Forest Cafe in the MGM Hotel.

We walked the streets and Spider Man was there!


And the M&M family. And yes we did buy some.

Who else was in Las Vegas? Star Wars of course - a Storm Trouper and Darth Vader.
Of course the GS had to fight against them to save us!


Well good thing we're not gamblers or drinkers. Of course the GS couldn't go on the casino's floors, but that was okay with us. It was HOT here. We went to Margarettaville, Rain Forest Cafe, saw the real Lions in the MGM, M&M store, Hard Rock Cafe, Caesar's Palace and more.




Happy Birthday - Dawna Markova

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
Of falling of catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
To allow my living to open me,
To make me less afraid,
More accessible,
To loosen my heart
Until it becomes a wing,
A torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
To live so that which came to me as seed
Goes to the next blossom,
And that which came to me as blossom,
Goes on as fruit.

Back to the trip . . .

So do I have you confused yet? I talk about the trip, then I talk about side trips, then I go to other ideas that are not about trips - well . . . that is the story of my life . . . and my life goes.

Today is the end of Hoover Dam. We decided to be big spenders and go on a helicopter ride. It was $30 - not bad we thought - when we got there is was for two minutes! Of course you could spend $75 for 5 minutes, but we did the two minute ride.

The helicopter sat on top of a hill and they took you up there by way of their van.

We got there early to be the first ones on - and we had to wait a few minutes for them to open.

This was the cool temperature at 8:30 am.

My husband got the front seat - which we wanted, because he LOVES flying.

Lake Mead.

The marina at Lake Mead.

Closer look - wouldn't it be nice to have one . . .

The mountains around Hoover Dam.
Hoover Dam.


Hoover Dam.

Ole Chatty getting out of the helicopter. It was fun.




My friend leaves today so I will start catching up on checking your blogs. Thanks for understanding.

Happy Birthday Henry David Thoreau - many of us have heard his quotes - here is his beliefs according to Wikipedia - it was full of information about this man.

"Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind."

Thoreau was an early advocate of recreational hiking and canoeing, of conserving natural resources on private land, and of preserving wilderness as public land. Thoreau was also one of the first American supporters of Darwin's theory of evolution.

He was not a strict vegetarian, though he said he preferred that diet and advocated it as a means of self-improvement. He wrote in Walden: "The practical objection to animal food in my case was its uncleanness; and besides, when I had caught and cleaned and cooked and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me essentially. It was insignificant and unnecessary, and cost more than it came to. A little bread or a few potatoes would have done as well, with less trouble and filth."

Thoreau neither rejected civilization nor fully embraced wilderness. Instead he sought a middle ground, the pastoral realm that integrates both nature and culture. His philosophy required that he be a didactic arbitration between the wilderness he based so much on and the spreading mass of North American humanity.

He decried the latter endlessly but felt the teachers need to be close to those who needed to hear what he wanted to tell them. He was in many ways a 'visible saint', a point of contact with the wilds, even if the land he lived on had been gifted to him by Emerson and was far from cut-off. The wildness he enjoyed was the nearby swamp or forest, and he preferred "partially cultivated country." His idea of being "far in the recesses of the wilderness" of Maine was to "travel the logger's path and the Indian trail," but he also hiked on pristine untouched land.

In the essay "Henry David Thoreau, Philosopher" Roderick Nash writes: "Thoreau left Concord in 1846 for the first of three trips to northern Maine. His expectations were high because he hoped to find genuine, primeval America. But contact with real wilderness in Maine affected him far differently than had the idea of wilderness in Concord. Instead of coming out of the woods with a deepened appreciation of the wilds, Thoreau felt a greater respect for civilization and realized the necessity of balance

On alcohol, Thoreau wrote: "I would fain keep sober always... I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man; wine is not so noble a liquor... Of all ebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes?"