Ocean Front Hotel and Montserrat

Traveling with The Hubby has its perks. One of these is that we stay in great hotels and this trip was no exception. We were able to stay right next to the beach in Barcelona, and so we could easily walk along the rows of restaurants and such that line the beach in this stretch of the sea.

 Here is the view of the north side of the city of Barcelona from our hotel room.

 The Hubby's favorite building in the area. He called it "the bullet."

 Then turning the camera to the right and out the east is the Mediterranean.

 There is art in nearly every nook and cranny of this city. This, still out of the same window.

And the meshy-metal of this structure atop the casino next door.

 Another thing in the city that is part of life is the railway system. We got a 5 day pass to the subway and took it all around the city. Here we are waiting for the actual train to take us an hour outside of Barcelona.

 Look closely (I'm quite serious here. Click on this picture so you can see where we are going.) slightly above the center of this photo and you can see where we are headed. Called Monserrat, (the Catalan people have revered it for centuries and it is their #1 pilgrimage site) this monastery is built in the rocky vertical ascent of this mountain. In some form or another, monks have occupied this sawtooth terrain since 900AD. It is quite an amazing site.

The chapel in the background here. The place is a village of sorts, with grocery, museums, dormitories, school, and churches. There were farmers markets set up along the main road selling cheeses and local wares.

The twelve disciples with Jesus in the center, as you walk into the basilica.

The place was crowded with standing room only for the young boys choir to perform at 1:00pm (everyday except Saturday.) It was beautiful and so were the voices of the choir.

I liked it.

 We had ridden up on the rack railway train, but went down on this cable ride. OLD cable ride I should say.

Standing room for 25. It drops from the 2400 ft monastery to the nearly sea level train station in about 4 minutes. Here we come!

A very nice excursion. If you go to Catalona someday, make sure you see this place.

Barcelona

The Hubby and I are in the cool OLD city of Barcelona. He has a few days of work and I tagged along. The we are staying on for a few more days to enjoy the city and surrounding countryside a bit.

 We went to church on Sunday morning and didn't understand much except the hymns and makeup of the meeting were sure familiar. We attempted to read different words to familiar tunes. We partook of the Sacrament which is the reason ultimately to go to the meeting anyway. A fun experience.

 We also went to the Catholic church that day, as there are hundreds in the city and this old and beautiful one in the Gothic quarter was amazing.

 There is a new window in this one up above the entrance as the old rose window was destroyed in an earthquake in 1429. The new one was completed in 1459. Quite new, right?

 The magic fire water show was pretty cool at night. We arrived by Metro subway and the whole place was hopping with people on a Sunday night in September.

 Hoogy big.

It was like a holiday. I can't imagine how crowded it could get on a busy day.

 We notice that the nearby stadium had an event going on and hoped that we would get back on the subway and out of the area before the game got finished.

 The whole avenue was lined on both sides by fountains with the culminating one at the very end. We will come back here to go into the Picasso museum during our stay.

Subways always intrigue us west coasters and this saxophone player had back up music and was quite talented. His "Take Five" rendition was heard for a hundred yards before and after his location. It really fills up the corridors. Very cool.
I'm excited for a fun week.

Something's Fishy

Little girls can wear smocked dresses until they are 6 years old, or there about. After that, they seem to outgrow the look. Therefore I feel the need to make at least one dress of this sort each year and this cute little sundress was my choice most recently.

I started and basically finished the smocking last fall, when I then set it aside for finishing in the spring. I didn't get it out until after our big wedding, and it just took me a few days to get it all wrapped up and finished.

 The pink and orange fishy has fun blue french knot dots to set it apart from all the other fish in the ocean.

 The purple fish should be a favorite of my little granddaughters too. I especially love their bright red smackers.

 The pocket on the front has the same orange piping surrounding it as the line that sets apart the top bodice from the smocked piece.

The back of the dress is drawn up with elastic to make it adapt to the small little backs that it must fit around. (I am watching a rendition of Mansfield Park right now, so I am perhaps sounding a little 19th century British as I write.)

I waited to enter these pictures for want of receiving a picture with the little Ellery wearing it, but I thought I'd now go ahead anyway. Maybe later.

(Update: When we went to SoCal for Thanksgiving, Cossette wore this cute little dress. Below are a couple pictures from that day.)

 Her from the back showing off the fancy hair bow I made to go with the dress.

Now the cute little 3 year old is telling quite a story, and we can see the front of the dress pretty well.

Not A Lot of Comfort Food Here

So ... I'm out in the garden gleaning this morning and I discover several things that I really need to address. I'll just talk about one of those things now.
The eggplants are a little bit out of control, and how many eggplants do we really need in any given year? We planted just one plant thinking we'd get a few for some Ratatouille, and other than that, I'm not sure what to do with them. In the back of my head I think, "Oh, (light going on) I wonder if it's easy to make Baba Ghanoush?"
Turns out - it is. I have all the ingredients right in my very own kitchen. (and garden I might add)

 I looked up, thanks to the internet, if I can use old Tahini. Turns out, it lives a long time so no worries.

The picture above, taken a few weeks ago, shows my pretty white and purple eggplant.
Todays crop featured some that were twice as big.
I grilled the eggplant on the BBQ because I was already using it to grill some other veggies. I just turned it to medium and put the eggplant on whole for about 40 minutes. Then I ran to my hair appointment which I was late for because I decided at the last minute to make Baba Ghanoush in addition to the White Gazpacho I was making for some friends tonight.
I fear this kind of activity is not being grown out of just because I don't have children at home anymore.
I wanted to miraculously become an on time person when I reached this stage in life. But .... I digress.

 Then after I came home several hours later, the eggplants were easily peeled and the ingredients blended together. I ate some of the wonderful spread with some of the grilled crook neck squash and it was wonderful.
I liked it anyway.

The people I'm taking dinner to tonight are probably not expecting weird food like I make, so I'm taking them a big variety. Hopefully we can hit on a few desirable tastes for them.
Wish me (them) luck.

Independence Day Quilt

 I started this quilt last year a month or so before the 4th of July. I quit working on it after I didn't get it finished, in leu (is that how I should spell it?) lieu (thanks to my niece Megan for helping me be a little more literate) of finishing the next projects on my so called table.

Then this year there was a big wedding in our lives, and life got in the way of getting back to the quilt in time to finish it for the celebration of our Country.

I bought the pattern at a cute quilt store in Livermore, CA and it is by Verna Mosquera at "The Vintage Spool." Called Faded Glory if you want to look at her things.

 The pattern calls for hand stitching all the appliqués on by hand, and I had completed a few of them last year, but I decided I didn't need to take the time and effort to do them this way now.  I used iron-on backing on each individual piece and then machine stitched each design with a blind hem stitch or a satin stitch when I thought it would look best. This quilt is not going to be going through wash even once per year, so it'll hold up just fine with the iron on. There are 12 main designs and I think they are so cute that I'll probably make a few pillows or table runners out of some of the patterns eventually.

 The design above is Uncle Sam's hat with a bouquet of flowers in it. A few of the flowers are just cut outs of fabric flowers in a particular piece of fabric. This method of piecing is called Broderie Perse and is basically just fussy cutting a section of fabric that you want to place onto another fabric for a pretty addition to the quilt. You can see the red/pink flowers above are not pieced with stamens and petals, but  cut all in one already printed flower. Apparently they used to do this with Persian or English chintz fabrics for a specific look.

 The firecracker above had bugle beads hand sewn on for the burst of fire on the end. Very cute, if I do say so.

 Same on this wagon full of firecrackers. The blue and red sparklers are beaded.

Another technique I've used on the quilt is my own idea of using my cool embroidery machine to make a couple of sectioned flowers, cutting them out and then sewing them together. Nice new type of embroidery I've never tried before.

The whole thing turned out very well, even if it is the middle of August.

Better luck on my Thanksgiving quilt?

What's for Breakfast?

I have been trying to eat more protein for my early morning meal these days. Eating an egg, protein infused green smoothy, or greek yogurt seems to keep my appetite in check when 3:00pm rolls around each day.
The Hubby has taken on the roll of fixing me a protein shake on Sunday mornings. While I'm getting ready for church he brings me a nice cold thick drink and I don't have to think about it at least one day a week. What a nice guy I married.
Saturday mornings are a little more up in the air and we often go to the Saratoga Farmers Market and decide what to eat from there.
But I digress. I just wanted to post some great looking/tasting yogurt parfait's here.
So a couple Saturdays ago, I brought the Hubby out some simple parfait for Saturday breakfast. Bu "out" I mean he was in the backyard cleaning up the pool and so we ate underneath the big arbor on the couch. What a great breakfast spot. REALLY great! Perfect!

 We had some fresh blueberries and strawberries in the fridge, and so I thought they would make a beautiful and tasty layer in my morning yogurt. I usually add a teaspoon of agave to my Fage 0% yogurt, but this week I had some cream cheese frosting in the fridge so I plopped a big tablespoon of that into twice as much yogurt ('cause I was making two today.)

 The first layer was crunchy granola and then yogurt blend, followed by berries.
Repeat.

 Good stuff, Maynard!

The outside couch also makes an excellent spot for answering a couple emails.

Tahoe in August

The weather is perfect this week in the high Sierra. Seriously, the last time I was here it was 12 degree's for a high on that day, and I nearly froze my kajanka's off. Today it was 77. Did I say perfect? Exactly!

The Hubby rented a boat and we took it out on the lake with our son David and his cute family yesterday.  Lena took a turn at the helm.

 Lexy really wanted to ride on the inter tube. Lexy really did NOT want to ride. Yes, No, Yes, No????
Finally she was convinced and then had a great time.

 Lexy and I having a little bonding moment.

 Kara is ready to go! Woo Hoo!

 ...another turn with Lexy.

 David's turn. Hold on tight.

 Here's the whole family. We drove for several hours around the lake and totally enjoyed the scenery and company.

 GPa and GramVi.

We all had a shave ice when we got off the boat. They hadn't experienced one before. First time for a lot of things today.