Christmas Breakfast and Dinner at Nancy's

 Nancy's beautiful breakfast spread.

Megan looking adoringly at her mother, Nancy.

Brother Bob, Nancy and Megan enjoying the wonderful dinner of turkey and all the fixin's that Nancy made.

Christmas Eve at Kurt and Antonio's

Nancy, Megan and I spent Christmas Eve with the Kinsey/Pujals family and some of their nice friends.

Antonio telling us about his camera.

  

Kurt holding James while he makes a face.

Here's what he really looks like.

Megan and Nancy enjoying the conversation.

Kurt made the best dinner. A filet mignon for each of us with a salad, asparagus with hollandaise sauce and Danish potatoes. I'm going to get the recipe for the potatoes. They were very unique and delicious.

A dogone good Christmas

We spent Christmas this year with a lot of our dog friends.

Megan brought Arthur all the way from New York. She, Nancy and Arthur drove all the way across the country, missed most of the bad weather and enjoyed the trip. I took care of Tootie, Nancy's dog, while they were gone. We worried about how Arthur and Tootie would get along, but so far so good.  Arthur is pretty old so he doesn't particularly like to play while Tootie really does but they seem to have worked out a plan.  Here they are opening their presents.

On Christmas day we all went for a walk in Fallbrook's beautiful Los Jilgueres Preserve.

Megan and Arthur, Nancy and Tootie

You wouldn't think Southern California would have so much Fall color.

Before Nancy left she and I spent a few days at our timeshare in Del Mar. We had a wonderful time, shopping and eating. While we were gone Jeri took care of my 6 cats. She took the morning shift and my friend, Robin covered the night feeding. So while Jeri was gone for Christmas I took care of her dog, Prince.  Prince wasn't too sure about me at first but when I shared my donut with him we became fast friends. It was so hard to say goodby to him each night.

Prince

A little bit of Fallbrook Christmas

Nancy's Altered Christmas Postcards

Nancy made these the day before our Altered Christmas Card Party.  I love them.  I told her she couldn't send them to anyone. We'll just keep them for every time we need a " Christmas stress" laugh. You have to look at some of them closely to get the full effect. (Click on them to enlarge.)

Altered Christmas card party

It was a cold December day- perfect for Christmas card making. The sun was streaming in the window of the studio, we were fortified with snacks, Bloody Marys, scintillating conversation and lots of laughter. Everybody brought old Christmas cards to make into new ones using our large stash of papers and other art materials (and lots that they brought, also).

The cast of characters: Doris Wilke: watercolor and multimedia artist; Kathy Morgan: print maker, calligrapher, painter, etc.(and neighbor); Linda Blinn: multi media artist, author of "Making Family Journals" teacher, designer, etc.; Jeri Clements: pastel and acrylic artist, jewelry designer (and Banar's administrative asst. for many years); Jane LaFazio: journal artist, teacher, watercolor artist, art quilt maker, etc.; and Nancy and I.

Jane kept us all laughing.

Jeri was very serious about her work.

Doris and Linda confer.

Doris works on an altered card.

Linda brought a machine for embossing called a Cuttlebug- dumb name but a neat machine.

Jeri was really enchanted with it and went right out the next day to buy one. This is a piece of vellum embossed and then colored with Pearl Ex pigments.

Linda adhered the top layer of a napkin to a card and then ran it through the embossing machine.

Kathy was the most productive. She was able to talk, laugh and work all at the same time. She made these four cards (and more). I think she, later, covered up the bugs on the last card and made it a little more Christmasy.

One of my lame attempts. I was running back and forth to the house getting supplies and didn't really concentrate on my card making. At least that was my excuse.

Just found this slightly better card that I made. I cut the snowflake and the word Joy from a Trader Joes shopping bag. I embossed the snowflake with the embossing machine.

Nancy made some great snacks; deviled eggs, cucumber slices with creamed cheese and olive spread,

various dips and chips. Jeri brought five layer dip, Linda made crab dip, Doris brought crackers and  Nancy made mean Bloody Marys.

Crows

I love this view of the crows at sunset. This is a dead avocado tree that really should be cut down but then where would the crows roost. Sometimes there's a hawk here instead of the crows. It makes the crows very angry.

Belated Thanksgiving Post

Nancy, my brother, Bob and I spent Thanksgiving with our friends Linda, Bill and Allison Miller in Palos Verdes. This is the Palos Verdes Peninsula looking towards Los Angeles. Linda was our neighbor when we were growing up in Pomona. Bob went to school with her brother, Tony. We had a wonderful dinner and reminisced about our childhood.

Linda and I had horses when we were in junior high school and we used to ride together and try to do circus tricks. Linda never got over her love of horses and has one now.  She also boards a horse so has two to take care of.  This is one of the horses and a resident chicken having Thanksgiving dinner together.

Red Still Life Watercolor- Pomegranates

Beth King Art Show- Pacific Beach, Ca.

My art teacher, Mary Tomaskevitch and her friend, Beth King.

Mary, Diane Jansen and I went to Pacific Beach to see this wonderful exhibit of Beth King's paintings.

Beth was one of the original artists in Fallbrook's Brandon Gallery and Mary was one of the founders.