Our California

Everyone who has ever lived here, or even visited here, has a unique perception of LA depending on their experience. We lived here for eight glorious years, some of the best of my life. The kids were at home, we had Rich's brother and his family here, we had great friends here, our life was filled with a variety of activities. Here is a very brief tour of some of the places we've visited this week as we celebrate our anniversary and the AMAZING years we lived here...beginning with a shot of the front of the anniversary card Rich gave me because it is definitely celebratory!!!

This is where Rich lived, in Valencia, when we got married.

This is a view of the Commons on the College of the Canyons campus in Valencia, the community  college where Sandee and I both attended.

Both Sandee and Greg graduated from Canyon High School in Canyon Country.

Greg attended Junior High here and the Sierra Vista campus also was the location for the services of the church they both attended.

The best burgers and fries you would ever eat are at Cousins in Canyon Country.

This is the house where we lived for the eight years we were in California. It's not a great shot but I do also have several of the inside! Yes, the folks who just bought it in December were kind enough to let me tour the whole house. It is so cool to see a home you lived in eighteen years ago so I didn't have the gall to ask her to close the garage so I could get a good exterior shot...giggle

After seeing our house, we stopped at the little park near there to share with the girls the Cousins burger I had saved for them...yummmmm

From there we drove up Soledad Canyon to Acton. Along the way, I got out at Shambala Preserve and took photos of the tigers. I loved this guy's face! And it's a good example of the 35x optical zoom on my new camera.

After driving through Acton, we headed toward Agua Dulce and stopped here at Vasquez Rocks Park. The afternoon light was perfect for many great shots of the massive rock formations...can you say "sculpted by earthquakes"...gasp!

This is the house Sandee and Shawn bought and had a large addition built onto in Encino before they moved to Arizona seven and a half years ago.

Not that we spend all of our time eating, but Tommy's is pretty much an LA institution and the chili fries are still pretty much fabulous!

Rich got to spend all the time he wanted perusing the innumerable treasures at All Electronics. This is his idea of mecca...and there is nothing like it anywhere in Chicago.

Last night we had dinner at Benihana's in Encino. If we were all in town, this is where we always celebrated our anniversary when we lived out here.

And here we are, the four of us celebrating yet another anniversary of that auspicious day in 1986 when we all got married in Aspen, CO after a day of skiing the magnificent slopes there.

I should get ready for today's adventures since it's nearly noon...yikes! Since the internet is actually working right now, knock on wood, I wanted to take advantage of it and get a post published.

Lovin' Life ~~ Past & Present