There are a number of little cottages that we pass whenever we head out of town.

They are appealing to me for some reason so I take photos of them.  I often wonder when someone will paint them.  When we drove by the other day I took this photo and looking at it later it made me think of the new year coming up.  It looks to me like someone is clearing out the old and making way for the new.  That's a heck of a lot of garbage bags.  Maybe they are getting ready to spruce up these cottages.



There are two ways at this intersection to leave lower town... one is to go to the left which leads you up to what is called by the locals "Top Town and if you go on the street by the cottages you still go to "Top Town" but pass houses and a church. 

I'm anxious to get in the car today and see if "Fast Eddies" is open in TopTown.  The building that houses "Fast Eddies" had been painted purple a year or so ago when the new renters came in to start a bakery called "Jem's Dough".  For some reason they never opened and from what we know it is because the County gave them a lot of headaches over things that needed to be brought up to code.  They ran out of money before they could get all inspections cleared.  It was sad  because they had put so much money in to it.  We happened to be driving by the day they were packing up and leaving.  Several months later "Fast Eddies" came in but it has been way over eight months I believe - and they are just now ready to open.  I think I'll post some pics of Toptown in my next post.  We wish them all the luck in the world because dealing with the County in this town leaves one frustrated and ready to give up.

Hope you all have a great year ahead.  I plan on it!

We spent the weekend in Ventura about four years ago in 2013.  At some point after that my computer crashed and I lost my photos of this restaurant and of our trip.  The only photos I have of our mini vacation were those that I had posted on an older blog that is closed down now. 

Since we are heading back up the coast in January to go to San Luis Obispo area, I'm hoping to pull off in Ventura and go to this place for a quick snack or at least a drive around the area to see if it's changed much.  It's not that far off the freeway so I think we can make the time for it.



Our weather here in the mountains has been unusually mild for this time of year.  We have our grandson with us until tomorrow when we go back down the mountain to pick up two more grandkids and spend the day doing kid stuff with them and then a family pizza dinner at a place I haven't been to in a long time.  Today we leave in a bit to take our grandson up to Big Bear to get him away from "screen" time and out in the fresh air.  Hope the crowds are too crazy.

This week has been so nice as I don't have the pleasure anymore of seeing my grandkids very often since they all live so far away. 

Some Christmas day photos of the 3 grandkids. 

Waiting for the fun to begin after just arriving at their Uncle's house.


This ball is going to provide a lot of laughter very soon after this pic was taken.

It's a big cellophane ball that gets unwrapped by a person until the next person to the left who is holding the dice gets "doubles" then the ball gets moved.  The thing about it is there are presents hiding in the layers and then at the end there is some money.  So it gets very competitive to try and roll doubles.  There were five adults and three kids playing. 



These two are exactly a year apart by 2 days both born in June 25 and 27.  We watched them quite a bit up until their ages of 5 and 6, when the 5 year old moved away with her family up to Bend.  They were always about this difference in height.  I just had to check again to see if that still held true. 


She is now 10 and will be 11 this coming June.

I really loved visiting this small harbor town - and I'm sure there is a lot more of it I didn't see.  We did drive through a few neighborhoods and visited an art show before we parked with the intent to walk around the harbor.  It was perfect weather.

Laura - I hope we can visit here when we go on our road trip in May.

Talk about procrastinating.  I have been intending to post photos for a year - of a few trips we have taken.  I have so many photos from the Seattle and south of Seattle area, several little port towns, etc.   I'm hoping to create a habit before the end of the year where i will get some of my travel photos posted so I will have them on my blog.  I have pretty much lost interest in blogging but I like being able to come to my blogs and be reminded what the year was all about.

My son and his family live in Washington pretty close to Gig Harbor so I know I'll be back to this area.  My sister and I will be taking a road trip in May up the coast of California to Bend Oregon and on to Seattle Washington area.  I am SO looking forward to seeing Northern California and the redwoods as we travel up the coast.

Anyway, a few photos from Gig Harbor in Washington.  I loved walking through this area and could have spent way longer than the few hours i did spend here.

(Laura) i have posted these before on the blog we share but i wanted them here on what i call my main blog - so you will have seen these before).