Retreat

The Pathways Retreat was this weekend at Camp Horizon near Arkansas City.  The scenery is amazing there.  And we had a great speaker and fellowship time.

Los Angeles

I had the opportunity to spend a long weekend in Los Angeles.  I have been there a few times but have never done a lot of the tourist stuff.  My friend Hillary lives there now and offered to be my tour guide.  It was a great weekend and I got to see a lot of LA.
On Friday, I went straight from the airport to Disneyland.  I hadn't been there since 1980 when we went with Grandma and Grandpa Marshall.  It was crowded but we got to ride everything I wanted to and saw the fireworks show. 

On Saturday we started out by going to Griffith Park.  Went to the observatory where you can see the Hollywood sign.

Then down to Hollywood Boulevard at the Chinese Mann Theatre and the Walk of Fame.

Lunch was In-N-Out Burgers.  Yum!



Then on to Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive where we saw a Bucati hanging on.

Then to the Santa Monica Pier.

After dinner in Little Ethiopia, we went by the La Brea Tar Pits and the art museum which has this cool lamp post installation outside.

 On Sunday I went to Huntington Gardens.  Beautiful! The Japanese Garden, the Rose Garden, and the Cactus Garden.

I got to have a Sunday dinner with Aunt Sharon & Uncle Ted as well as some cousins & their kids. 

Then Hillary and I went to downtown LA for a little more sight seeing before I left.  We rode Angels Flight - the world's shortest railway - up the hill.  It was a great, full weekend!

5K and flowers

I have been waiting for an opportunity to make this dessert in my Domestic Goddess cookbook - Torta alla Gianduia or chocolate hazelnut torte.  I had a dessert with our senior pastor to attend at a friend's home and offered to bring it.  It was yummy!

Saturday I ran a 5K.  I didn't do as well as I wanted to but I ran the entire time and bettered my training time.  My time was 31:57.  I am confident I can get to 30:00 by my sprint triathlon in August. The interesting thing about this race was it was for women only put on by Girls On The Run.  It started & ended at The Boathouse downtown.

This week the irises and clematis bloomed. 

And Sunday while I was doing yardwork, Diesel found a baby bluejay that had fallen out of it's nest.  He was very protective of it which kind of surprised me.  Wildlife Services told me to leave it where I found it and hope the mama would come back for it.  Sadly, that did not happen.

LOVE Wichita

Our biblestudy had a surprise engagement party for Gayle (center) who got engaged over the weekend. We are so excited for her & Shaun!

 I made some special wedding cake shaped sugar cookies for her.

Friday night, my roommate and I ate at Tanya's Soup Kitchen.  It had been an Wichita institution but I never ate there.  It ws closed for several years and recently reopened.  We went to check it out. 

 Liz had the tomato basil and I had a pesto minestrone.  Delicious! Definitely going again.

 LOVE Wichita was this Saturday. It is a once a year day of service that the churches get together to love on our community.  This year 40 churches and 4000 people participated.  Pathways had a project to ourselves.  We scraped and painted this house and did some landscape clean up.

 The finished product.  It was a long day but well worth it.  The homeowner was so blessed.