Valentines Day Cookies and Party

It was quite the event. Laurie and Hailey (and friend) were in town from KC and Cyndy, Nicola, Danny, Gavin, and Noah were in town, too. Trev and the girls came up from Nipomo, and Karen joined in the festivities, too! Even Josie was there for a while with Serafina. Decorating cookies, Matt's ribs, and playing everything everywhere made for quite the afternoon and evening!

All the pics are here.

A Valentines Day Getaway

Lynn and Jamie had a little Valentine getaway to Santa Barbara. And we made some fun discoveries. Tre Lune is quite the breakfast spot in Montecito, so much so that we first met the wedding party of the century there. We would run into them a few more times by the time the wedding occurred at the Biltmore. After breakfast we tried to visit the Casa de Herrero, but they were booked. We stumbled onto the Mount Carmel Church instead and had fun exploring that a little while, then on to the Butterfly Beach. Nice walk in the fog. Our next stop was the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden (Lotusland was not open). From there it was back to Montecito to enjoy a mid-afternoon "lite menu" at Bella Vista, a restaurant in the Four Seasons Biltmore - which is where we once again caught sightings of the wedding party. We had a little time to kill before the play off State Street, so we cruised the Paseo Nuevo area. The play, "I Am My Own Wife," is a unique piece of theater, a one-man show playing 30 characters, telling the story of a man who survived Nazi Germany by looking like a woman. Lynn thought the title "Between Two Lions" (Russia and German) would also be appropriate. The Ensemble Theatre Company facility is very nice. Sunday morning we took a stroll on the pier and cruised about half of the Art Show along Cabrillo. We capped off this Santa Barbara cruise with lunch at the Lure Fish House - OMG! Very fun place, excellent food, can't say enough about it. Get there early, they don't take reservations. There was a significant line at 11:30am on a Sunday when they open. Fortunately, it's a fairly good size restaurant. After lunch we headed home to join in the Valentine festivities at the Compound.

All the pics are here.

Matteo and "Pops" Take Santa Barbara

Matteo and "Pops" took the train to Santa Barbara and enjoyed a day of: Sambo's for breakfast, some time at the aquarium on the pier, a Land Shark tour, more time at the aquarium, lunch at Moby Dick's (on the pier), ice cream, and the duck pond behind the merry-go-round! Jon joined us, too, for most of the mid-day stuff!

All the pics.

Montana de Oro

Fun boy-trip to Montana de Oro today.

Pics: http://www.jamie-foster-photography.com/160123-Montana-de-Oro/

Sonora/Robob

Lynn, Jamie, Sam, and Serafina ventured forth to Sonora for a quick visit with Papa Robob and Candace. Pics: http://www.jamie-foster-photography.com/160116-Sonora/

Sandy and "Wimpy"

Does she think she's hiding? Or just snuggled up to her bestest pal. Jamie had a similar stuffed dog when he was a kid, named Wimpy.

Music Man Portrait

A few months ago, Lynn and Jamie attended a French Hospital fundraiser and won an original portrait in the silent auction. The artist uses a photo you give her to get started. Danielle and Lacey have just started a music studio (Mini Melodies) and were looking for artwork to hang on the walls. Well, how about a painting of Marian (Lacey) and Amaryllis (Serafina), real-life piano teacher and student, to grace the halls of the new digs?! Ta da. If you'd like to contact the artist: sandra2paint@gmail.com

Here's the photo, which Danielle took!

New Year's Day 2016: Surfliner to the SB Zoo

All the Compound dwellers (except Sandy) hopped on the early morning Surfliner to Santa Barbara for a visit to the Zoo! We've done this trip many a time, but never with eleven people! Nothing like an AmDog on the way, some breakfast (we tried East Beach Grill this time, which at a busy time didn't work so well for a large family and was pretty expensive for mediocre food), the zoo, and Enterprise Fish.

The day's photos.

That's about how Jamie looks on a train, too.

Playing "Red Light Green Light" waiting for the shuttle.

Palm Desert

Lynn and Jamie joined Bob and Sandy for a 4-day vacation in Palm Desert. Such a great time! It was pretty cool (never got out of the 60s), but sunny and delightful. We enjoyed movies, libations, card playing, walking around, and general merriment. The "biggy" was visiting their zoo. And what to our wondering eyes should appear (at the zoo) - a very significant G-scale train layout! The zoo was layed out in such a manner as to be able to get many photos that looked like they were shot in the wild.

Palm Desert photos.

Our room looked out over the golf course.

Christmas Day 2015

With coffee in hand, the fun began at a very reasonable hour this year. We first did the Compound stocking stuffers and then headed to Nipomo for Christmas Breakfast and a gift exchange there. Going to Nipomo for breakfast was a bit new, and we loved it. Then back to the Compound for the Santa gifts and settling in to play with all the new stuff. The next day the boys went to Biddle Park to fly some of the new contraptions and burn off a little energy.

Christmas Day photos.
Biddle Park photos the next day.

Christmas Eve 2015

A rare photo of all eleven Compound inhabitants. Too bad it was a stand-in dog and not Sandy. There were a couple photo booths set up at the Grace5Cities Christmas Eve service. That was a good idea!

Gingerbread Houses

It was something of a Santa's Workshop Day.

All the photos.

Cookies and Carols

Tracy and Lynn decided it was time for a Christmas Party. This one would be simple, invite everyone, have holiday cookies and libations, and encourage folks to sing and play Christmas Carols at their heart's content. So we did, and it was the best time. The sounds of the singing and accompaniment was the best! Thanks to Lacey, her Dad, Danielle, Jackie, Natalia, John, and those I've forgotten who tickled the ivories, brass, or strings as the case may be, and thanks to everyone for pitching in their voices and sense of fun. We're thinking again next year...

Cinderella at PCPA

One of Lynn's favorite Christmas gifts is to take the whole fam damily to the theater. We managed to do that three times this season: The Holiday Extravaganza at the Melodrama (actually, this was Jamie's birthday), A Christmas Story at SLO Little Theatre, and Cinderella at PCPA. Pictured are all the adults trying to get a picture of the kids at PCPA. All great shows, by the way. Just go.

Lynn's Birthday at Foremost Wine Co

We lucked into it again! Lynn and I celebrated her birthday this evening with an evening out just the two of us. On the rainy drive into San Luis Obispo, we were still totally undecided about where to go for dinner. There's like 2 million places we love in SLO, and on our list tonight were two new ones. At least I thought both were new. Turns out upon drive-by that one we had been to before and wasn't even open tonight. Granada Bistro was full (most of their seating is outdoors which was rained out). We decided that ambiance was the most important thing tonight. That's not entirely like us normally; we're usually more about the flavors.

I had just heard about Foremost Wine Company. Follow that link, but understand that the website was not nearly as intriguing as the place itself. I guess looking back all the pieces were there (on the website), but I still didn't get it. While I idled on the curb, Lynn dashed in to check it out - remember, ambiance was big tonight. She came back and said, "park the car, this is it."

I could go on and on describing the ambiance inside this old Creamery building. I could also go on and on trying to describe how unique and wonderful the food was. Truth is, you just have to go and check it out for yourself. As much as we liked the look and feel of the place, and the service, and all the other pluses, we were blown away by the flavors. OMG. You should read all about the French chef. No wonder, it was all about the sauces. And, we love the way all the food is designed and served to be shared.

We figure it'll take us six visits to sample all the food offerings and sit in the unique niches around the place. And then they'll change the menu on us, which they say is done with some frequency. And there's no way you'll ever try all the wines. We didn't recognize too many of the wines; a new world begging to be explored.

They offer a wine club membership, which may well be great. But I KNOW I'd have died and gone to heaven with a food club membership!

Give us a shout if you wanna go - we'll go with you! If you hate it, we'll buy. If it's the best ever, you buy. Anything in between is dutch treat.

Since the website doesn't fully tell the tale, here are a couple links to help us describe this place to you:

SLO's Foremost Wine Co. embraces farm-to-table philosophy
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/entertainment/restaurants/article39538005.html

Foremost Wine Co. a Great New Eatery
http://www.centralcoastcritic.com/destination-restaurant-2/foremost-wine-co-exciting/

On our table this evening (except we missed a photo of the truffle risotto with poached egg), along with a very nice brut French champagne:

Romanesco Cauliflower

Butternut Squash in Mole

Seared Diver Scallops, creme fraiche, Opal basil, etc.

Passion Fruit Tart with a fabulous dark chocolate layer you can't see

Matteo's Birthday Party: Rocks and Minerals

It was a "Rocks and Minerals" kinda party. We hunted geodes in the yard and cracked them open (as best we could). Then a bingo-like game called Rock On. Some hardness testing. Of course, there was rock candy in each person's mine bucket to which they added specimens as we went. Lava Keep Away was a balloon game. The soil stratification snack was well received! We had lots of rock and mineral specimens out and about for decoration.

All the pics are here.

Halloween

We covered much ground this Halloween Day. First stop, the San Luis Obispo Railroad Museum. Anyone in costume gets in free! Then it was on to Trick or Treating in the Village of Arroyo Grande, a very popular tradition. We did our best to keep the Fosters, Reguscis, and Gibsons together. The Village was jam packed today, and hot! And last but not least, Lynn and Jamie went to Trevor's and Jen's for bedtime with their kids, dinner, and some Halloween candy wine pairing.

All the pics: http://JF2.com/151031/

Arsonists

The Arsonists
by Max Frisch
October 16-17, 2015
A staged reading by SLO Repertory Theater
Directed by Gregg Wolff
Jamie and Lynn: Chorus

Thanks to Danielle Dutro McNamara Photography for the photos.