Halloween at daytime

Not having a real Halloween party does not mean, we cannot celebrate the 'spooky' time of the year. To bring a lil' Halloween even to my rooms and friends I thought about it. How can we have a little bit of it without actually having a party.

We could not have a real Halloween party because we got an invitation for a birthday party without any theme, except birthday :)

So I invited friends to come over for a Halloween brunch and the pictures show you our decorated table. It wasn't easy to get some Halloween stuff one day before, but you can transform some regular things into spooky ones.

The only really Halloween-like decoration I got have been some chocolates which look like witches and pumpkins. Oh and of course 3 really cute little pumpkins.

All the other stuff was transformed from normal to 'spooky'. Tangerines with Jack O'Lantern faces, orange and black napkins, spider webs from cotton wool and candles. Not that much, right?

I even tried to make a spider with an old black button and dark yarn, but to be honest after 4 legs I had no patience anymore and decided to have a very spooky 4-leg spider hanging over the table. :)

All thi picutres show you the table without food, because I decorated it bevore we went to the birthday party so I could sleep a lil' longer the next morning and just had to prepare the food.

Oh I forgot to mention, one of our friends has a really cute dog, and I thought he (his name is Klaus, isn't this funny) has to get a little Halloween as well and so he became an extra space decorated with orange and black napkins.

Just to give you an idea what we had to eat for our 5 hour brunch (yes we ate, talked and enjoyed our selves for 5 hours):

veggie lasagne

whole grain rolls

ham

6 or 7 different sorts of cheese

cream cheese

salmon

apple pie

solyanka

tomatos

egg salad

pickled herring salad

cold cuts

coffee

tea

juice

champagne

fruits

and so on

I think it was a really good way to celebrate Halloween even at day time.

Wish you all a great week.

spooky greetings

mElinus

Leather: colorful and versatile

My newest treasury list is all about leather. It is surprising how many different things the creative Etsians are able to do with leather. This treasury is to honor the peoples work and of course to remind me and you, that it is a material which we should use attentive because of its source.

I hope you like it, so stop by!!

wish everybody a great weekend

sunny greatings mElinus

we have to leave ... for now!!

My last couple of hours in sunny California are counted, the airport is waiting. So I have to say Good Bye and go home. All pics from LA will be posted when I am back!!

So hopefully the flight will be not so exhausting.

I wish all who have to leave something they liked or even loved:

If it is worth in your eyes, change your life so you don't have to leave any longer.

packing and sniveling greetings

mELinus 

a sneak peak at the city and a boats tour

Yesterday we cruised through the city and made a boats tour through the San Diego Bay.

CBD

an old hotel

an old brick house

Now the boat tour starts:

We came aboard the Marietta and had a nice guide named Marco. He is a former US Marine and was able to tell us a lot about the US Navy.

USS Midway

CBD

CBD

the Fish Market Restaurant

fishing pier

speed boat in front of hotels

a liner who brings American cars to Japan and/or South America

---------------------

And now lets talk about the day before yesterday. I think you heard or red it, that we had a huge black out here in southern California. It was just a lot of fun for us.

We all had a great afternoon, evening and night.

Because nothing was working, no supermarket open, no gas station nor any restaurant, we had to improvise. We had a gas grill outside and of course it was working, so we talked to Stella and Richard our hosts and decided to have dinner together, because their oven wasn't working like ours. And a very nice thing happened, a neighbor, Takehashi, came over and because he is a sushi chef we had sashimi and he made some fried fish and also fried rice. We had a huge variety of food, we made scrambled eggs with ham and cheese, we had potato salad and some left overs from our BBQ the day before. We had salad and Stella and Richard brought a huge bunch of candles, sushi, bread and pizza.

We made pizza on the BBQ grill and we figured out, it is the best way to make frozen pizza.

We sat there in the dark, just the light from the candles and the moon and had such a fun night, unbelievable.

So if you missed the huge 'event' here are the news:

So the power came back late at night and we heard all around people who clapped on hands or just screamed because of happiness.

We will start our last day in San Diego today, we are all very sad, but we will have a nice last day here. We will have dinner with Stella and Richard again. And afterwards the two will show us what 'rocks' in the city's gas lamp quarter.

Wish you a great day.

 'power' full greetings

mElinus

Yesterday in sunny San Diego

Yesterday, it took us a while before we could start our day trip. But after a lot of computing and emailing and mailing, we finally made it in the car and more or less straight to Coronado Island.

Because everything was so beautiful and we haven't done really spectacular things, I just want to show you some nice pictures:

view from Coronado bridge towards down town San Diego

view from Coronado bridge towards Coronado Island

after lunch we strolled through Coronado

old entrance

thats how people live here ;)

the sun and stars

a beautiful entrance in a private garden

after our stroll we went to the beach and visited the pier

the beach left from the pier

the beach right from the pier

surfer waiting for a wave

after some fun hours at the beach we headed home

back to San Diego via Coronado bridge

 a beautiful sunset towards town town

a ship is coming to San Diego


We had a wonderful day at the beach, with fun in the water and enjoying the sun.

Afterwards we went to the supermarket and bought some really big steaks for our BBQ we had for dinner. The steaks were better than in every restaurant, just perfect. And since we know how to make Margaritas, it's our drink for the evening and night time :)

I send you a lot of sun!!

little tanned greetings
mElinus

what happened the last 3 days?

The day after we went to the outlet shopping center we decided to see something from the inner country. We drove 1 hour NE to Temecula. It is a city which is famous for the old town, with its wine bars, lil' shops and a lot to see. 

(from anne4property.com)

We walked along the historic streets on wooden sidewalks with music playing from the lamppost and the sun burning our skin by at least 96°F/ 36°G.

It was pretty warm but I thought it's OK, only the guys complained about the heat. When I went to the tourist office, the lady told us it isn't hot today because it's under 100°F. 

:)

(from temecularealestateandliving.com)

Later we drove further east to the wine country of Temecula. We visited one winery and bought 2 bottles of wine at the Callaway winery  (still in the fridge).

....

The next day nothing really happened, we went to the beach in La Jolla and had dinner with our incredible hosts. This evening was amazing, we had so much fun and absolutely delicious strawberry Margaritas. Stella and Richard are awesome!!!!
....

Yesterday the weather wasn't perfect to go to the beach and so we decided to stay in San Diego and visit the 

Festival of Sails and the USS Midway. 

We also watch the sun set and it was soooo romantic!!!


Thats for now and all of you who took the challenge to find out whats wrong with the picture from my last post, will get a post card, just write me your address in Facebook.

I wish you all a great week!!

coffee thirsty greetings
mELinus

shopping and other surprises

Yesterdays was a day full of surprises and I will have one for you too. After a late start in the day we drove to an Outlet about 20 minutes from San Diego and shopped until the credit card got hot.

outlet center

When we realizes we wont make it through the whole center, we decided to go back to the car and drive home. But we wanted to see everything and so we drove to the end of the outlet center and then we saw this:

border fence

We have known that the boarder to Mexico is not far from San Diego and the outlet is even closer, but this close, we never thought that. We shopped the whole day and did never realize that the fence from the boarder is just a stone throw away. 

boarder and Mexico 

To our left was the shopping center and to our right was Mexico. We were stunned.

borader with shopping center

It was a very difficult experience for us and we talked about it a lot when we drove back to San Diego. But the day was great we have been very exhausted of all this undressing and dressing again. The best thing was, it's Labor Day weekend and that meant a lot more savings for us. Yayyyy!!

AND NOW 

something new for you. Please look at the following picture and tell me what is wrong in it. Write a comment under the post with your thoughts and I will pick someone and she or he will get a postcard from sunny funny San Diego!!!

Whats wrong in here???

So lets start and have a nice day!

finger crossing greetings
mElinus