Here’s a view from a Saturday afternoon luxury home tour. This is outside the living room on the patio overlooking an infinity pool.
We watched Michigan vs. USC football at our friends’ house, a mile up the hill from us Saturday. It was interesting because the other couple went to Michigan and my husband is a devout USC fan.
I was afraid it would be awkward, but it was a good game and Michigan won by three points.
At halftime, our friends suggested we go on a luxury home tour in their neighborhood. Every Saturday afternoon you can tour amazing homes in their massive development that has everything from condos to mansions on seven golf courses. We visited three homes. The first was all white, with white shiny counters, white walls and all white everything else. It’s was boring and I’m not wasting your time with photos.
The second was amazing. Fully furnished with the most unique art, fixtures, countertops, stone, etc. For a cool $6.5 million fully furnished. I didn’t take any photos, but here’s a LINK so you can see for yourself. The photos don’t do it justice. In fact, it looks crazy busy but in person it was really unique, fun and not overwhelming.
The third was high on the mountain with the most spectacular views. Here’s a LINK to the sales info. It was 9,411 square feet and $5.9 million, unfurnished.
View from a bedroom of the third house we toured.
Bathtub in the Master Bath.
Of course we’re never going to buy a home like this. Nor do we want to live in a country club community. But, it’s fun to take a look and wonder about the people who are selling these homes. Where are they moving to? Why are they selling?
Would you rather watch football or look at crazy luxury homes?
One of my friends who lives near Santa Barbara suggested we have dinner at the beach for Labor Day. And for old time sakes, have a bonfire and make s’mores. She’s the one starting to build the fire. We gathered small pieces of driftwood for kindling and used some napkins and paper plates from dinner to fuel the fire. One couple brought fire wood.
We had a potluck dinner with two other couples. One brought homemade pizza and pasta salad. I brought goat cheese brie with crackers, sweet peppers with hummus, and roasted cauliflower and zucchini. The third couple brought skewers, marshmallows, graham crackers and assorted chocolate bars including Hershey’s and Ghirardelli dark chocolate bars in different flavors including caramel and orange.
The s’mores and bonfire brought back memories when we visited these friends for Spring Break when our kids were young. We’d camp in our tent at Carpinteria State Beach and enjoy campfires at night. We always had s’mores.
Camping at Carpinteria State Beach with the kids and Angus, a few years ago.
Here are photos from our Labor Day picnic at the beach:
It’s almost sunset.
The guys (hubby on the left).
The wives and my empty chair. Somebody had to take the photo and everyone was too comfy for a selfie.
Our friends set up a camping table behind the fire to hold our potluck dinner. The campfire brought back many memories with our family camping at the beach — even when I was a child. But also a memory of surprise one summer when my high school-aged kids planned a beach campfire with their swim team friends and I wasn’t invited!
The lights of Santa Barbara can be seen across the water. The train tracks are in the foreground. Time to say goodnight and goodbye.
Have you had campfires or camped at the beach? What are your thoughts on s’mores? What foods bring back memories to you?
Nine-month old Nina hanging outside in our friends’ backyard.
It was an arduous few days, but we’re on our way to getting settled into the cottage at the beach.
We packed a day early. My husband magically managed to fit into our car all our stuff — his office equipment, our suitcases, cooler and bags of stuff I didn’t want to buy on vacation, like condiments, paper products and our Keurig and coffee.
We hit the road early and dropped in on two clients, one for lunch as we passed through our old hometown.
Then we met long-time friends for dinner in their hometown. They were celebrating their 45th anniversary and we got to treat them. We hadn’t seen them in at least 10 years. It was so much fun to catch up and we talked late into the night.
We ended up driving close to six hours on day one. Day two was a little easier with only three hours to drive. Strangely, those three hours seemed to take all day long!
Then arriving at the cottage, we spent hours unpacking and getting organized, grocery shopping etc. I slept that night like the dead.
Our first morning began with a beach walk with our friends and Nina, the rottie. They invited us over for omelettes after the walk.
View from our friends’ backyard.
Now it’s time to relax! One challenge for me is we have more friends in our vacation area than we do in our new state of Arizona. Through COVID, I got used to having lots of downtime. I need to be balanced with our friends here and not over schedule our social life.
The last few days reminded me of Lenny Kravitz song “Fly Away.”
Do you need to have downtime in your weeks, too? Or can you be super social and enjoy it?
View from the apartment where we stayed at the beginning of our trip and final night.
We left the wilds of the desert Thursday for vacation on the East Coast and returned home Tuesday. It was a trip to visit a friend in NYC. It was smoldering hot with a heatwave in Manhattan. After going out for a delicious Italian dinner across the street from the apartment, we drove with our hostess to her weekend home in the country where it was peaceful and a tad bit cooler. It wasn’t the bustling Manhattan I had envisioned for our trip, but so delightful — and much more my style.
How’s that for a change of scenery from Manhattan? It was serene, peaceful and beautiful. We spent the days in deep discussions, reading, and touring small towns in the countryside of Connecticut. We had fabulous meals at affordable prices in quaint buildings. (I wrote last week about my disappointing restaurant meals HERE. Every meal on this trip was excellent.)
Unlike Scottsdale, everywhere we went had history going back to our nation’s founding.
Here are a few phots from a graveyard, lake, art show and restaurant:
One of several quaint, delicious restaurants we visited. Huge portions at ridiculously low prices.
We stopped at beautiful Candlewood Lake.
These were all the outside booths of the art show. There was a building with more booths inside. Small but mighty. So much talent.
One of the highlights:
The last evening of our vacation, we returned to NYC. I met LA of Waking Up on the Wrong Side of 50 in person! We recognized each other on the spot. We hugged and could have talked for hours or days. I felt like I discovered — as Anne of Green Gables would say — a kindred spirit.
What are your favorite parts of exploring a new place?
Sightseeing, eating, spending time with friends or shopping? Or something else?
The stone lantern at the start of our exploration of Rohoen Japanese Friendship Garden of Phoenix which is designed in the hide-and-reveal style. I wrote about more exciting parts of the weekend with Japanese gardens, guests and fire HERE.
Our docent guide was in her late 70s, from Japan and was a foreign exchange student when she came to the US. She laughed and said she was into “rock and roll” and loved the West.
She explained the meaning of the garden’s name Rohoen:
The characters on the brochure are our gardens name, Rohoen (鷺鳳園), and represent the following:
鷺 Ro – Japanese word for Heron, a symbol of Himeji City. Shira Sagi Jou, or the White Heron, is the name of the famous Himeji Castle, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. (Himeji City is the sister city of Phoenix.)
鳳 Ho – Japanese word for the mythical Phoenix bird.
園 En – Japanese word for Garden.
How amazing it is to have an authentic Japanese garden in the middle of a desert? The architect and designers from Japan had to find native desert plants and others that would thrive in a climate very different than Japan. Only 17 out of the 107 varieties of plants are Japanese.
From the Visitor’s Guide:
The Japanese Friendship Garden, Rohoen, is an authentic Japanese stroll garden designed by Mr. Nozomu Okita in the traditional miegkaure (見え隠れ) style. Miegakure, or hide-and-reveal design, is prevalent in Japanese stroll gardens where the entirety of the garden is never visible at once. Instead, the viewer is led to uncover intentionally hidden views of the landscape while strolling along its curved paths. New visual compositions are revealed as one moves through the various garden regions. Each rock, plant, and ornament has been selected and placed with skill and sensitivity.
Kasuga-doro (春日灯籠, stone lantern from Kasuga) are the style of lantern most frequently used in Japanese gardens. They originated at the Kasuga shrine in Nara, Japan’s ninth century capital. Our ten-foot tall Kasuga-doro is our main lookout point, where the garden’s four distinct landscapes are easily viewed. These include the low-lying grasslands, the woodlands, forested mountains, and stone beaches.
Out friends from our swim team days are into gardening. Especially Japanese gardens. They planned a trip to Phoenix from Palm Springs to visit the garden and stayed with us. They have flown to Portland, Oregon to see a Japanese garden. They are planning a trip next year to Japan to see more Japanese gardens and have invited us to join them. We’re thinking about it.
At their home, they have Japanese elements like olive trees pruned in the bonzai style. They are building a koi pond. Also, their amazing garden has mangos, peaches, mulberries, and other fruit and many vegetables.
Our guests brought us fruit from their garden:
Fresh peaches from Palm Springs. I never knew peaches grew there. I thought it was too hot.
Two of the basket of mulberries they brought us. I’ve never seen or tasted a mulberry before. They are super sweet and juicy, and filled with health benefits like vitamin C, iron, and mulberries help reduce cholesterol, blood sugar and cancer risk!
Here are photos from our tour:
Looking back at the lantern from across the koi pond.
A cormorant on a rock in the water.
Shachi, a mythical creature with a dragon head and fish body.
I learned that a true bonzai has to be in a pot. There were many trees in the garden that were pruned in the bonzai style.
One last beautiful view of the garden’s many shades of green. It was so special to visit the Japanese Friendship Garden with good friends.
Where have you visited Japanese gardens? What was your favorite part?
My beautiful boy in his Nutcracker bunny suit at age three.
I’ll never forget being in a community production of Nutcracker with my son. He was the infamous bunny (it’s a Balanchine thing.) I had two roles: party guest and rodent.
I would take my son to my ballet class and he would play with another three-year-old named Katherine Bottoms. Her father is actor Joseph Bottoms and her mother was an amazing dancer who had danced with New York City Ballet.
While we moms took class, the children played together.
One day, I spotted my son lying on the floor in the dance studio. Katherine had tackled him and was on top of him.
“Promise that you’ll marry me!” she told him. It sounded more like a threat! Finally, he agreed and she got off his chest. I’m not sure if she kissed him. Of course, he ended up marrying another Catherine, who goes by Buff.
I remember having a young love. I was also three. My neighbor Victor was four and my brother was five. (Photo is me with my brother.)
One day the doorbell rang. My mom answered and Victor was standing on the steps.
“I’m sorry, Victor, Bobby is at school,” My mom explained. My brother had started kindergarten that week.
“I’m here to ask if Elizabeth can come out to play.”
“Oh!” my mom answered surprised. I do remember this happening, but I also remember my mom’s retelling it to the neighborhood coffee klatch with lots of laughter.
Victor and I played together most days. Victor ended up moving. When I was in the third or fourth grade, he came back for a visit. We were at an event with music and dancing. Maybe it was a wedding or a church social?
Without a word, he immediately grabbed my hands and twirled me around the dance floor until it was time to leave.
What memories do you have of young love or early friendships?
This weekend, it’s my birthday. I am throwing a party for my husband.
That’s because his birthday was in January and he was sick with an upper respiratory virus. I was sick before Christmas through New Year’s, then it was his turn. I had invited three couples from our neighborhood, plus our Palm Springs friends who now live one mile away. Our Santa Barbara friends were going to surprise hubby. But they came two weeks ago and we had a fun, but exhausting time!
I couldn’t have the party while they were here, because two of the previously invited couples were out of town.
I haven’t felt like entertaining, but time is passing by and I did invite them. I said we were postponing while hubby was sick. I didn’t want to flake out on them so, his birthday party happens to coincide with my actual one.
For my birthday I also made swimming reservations for us at our local YMCA. We had such a cold winter, I never once made it to swim laps. I’m warm weather swimmer, also known as a wimp. I thought what better day than my birthday to restart lap swimming.
I did go to lunch with my two graphic designer friends who moved from Palm Springs to nearby more than 10 years ago. We have made it a monthly get together and we rotate who gets to choose the restaurant. It was my turn and I picked a sushi restaurant that none of us had been to. I had sushi and my friends ordered the Bento Box — which was only $12! That’s a deal in this town.
Hamachi Nigiri and the Garlic Roll that had tempura shrimp, tuna and roasted garlic on top.
My friends $12 Bento Box Lunch Special.
What do you like to do to celebrate your birthday?
Are you a sushi fan? Or, do you like food like in the Bento Box better?
