Bike Riding & Golfing

Boy, what a busy weekend I had! Friday evening, hubby and I went down to the Square to get some frozen yogurt. We ate it in the little courtyard ... pictures below! Our town is pretty big (over 100,000) yet it still has that small town feel sometimes. Every time I go out to the store or a restaurant, we always see someone we know, which I think is so strange since there are so many people living here ... definitely a small world, isn't it??!! The second picture of this courtyard is one of our founding father's home from the 1800's. They fashioned the courtyard around it ... so cool! And in the third picture, to the left is a coffee house and to the right is an Italian restaurant with courtyard dining. I cannot believe how much my pictures are getting cut off ... I am missing a lot of these courtyard pictures. I will try working on that to figure out what is going on! Neabear just commented and she said if you click on the picture, you can see the whole thing. However, I will still keep working on the problem. Thanks, Neabear!

On Saturday, hubby and I took a 16 mile bike ride along the bike/walking trails. We had to get that done early in the morning because the temperature rose to 104 on Saturday. Uhgggg!!! These bike/walking trails in our area are really great! They go for miles and miles and miles through all of the neighboring towns. They are maintained by the parks district.

On Sunday, we playing 9 holes of golf at a local golf course with another couple and it. was. so. hot!!! It was at least 100 degrees and we were out there on the course. Crazy, huh??!!! Our friends brought frozen Gatorade ... boy, was that good!! See the picture of the squirrel? He got within 12 inches of me and then hopped into our golf cart. It was pretty funny! He is definitely used to all the golfers. That's my hubby swinging! We also saw jack rabbits and geese along the course. On the second picture, if you click on it, you will see my friend.

I just don't seem to have the time to post more than once a week! I will try to post more but once a week maybe what I end up doing.

Have a very happy and safe 4th of July!!!!

FATHER'S DAY WEEKEND

On Saturday, hubby and I went over to Jack London Square in Oakland to Salmon Aid 2009. It's like Farm Aid but MUCH smaller and instead of saving the farms, they are trying to save the Salmon. Here are a few pics of Salmon Aid. The band Albino playing with people dancing on the dance floor ...

My Fish Rueben sandwich ... the presentation isn't all that great but it. was. yummy!

Between our home and Oakland, you pass through the small town of Lafayette. On the hillside, someone got the permission of the owner of this piece of land and started putting crosses up ... each one represents those that have been killed in the Iraqi war. I remember when it was just a handful ... now sadly it's at 4990. They basically take up the whole block. It is very somber to stand before all of these crosses. You can also see them from the freeway. There was a time when the people that live around there were protesting them being put up because they were either "too scary looking" or caused too much traffic in their neighborhood. As you can see, they lost that protest! Some of the crosses are decorated.

We took the scenic route while driving to Oakland ... through the Oakland Hills and the upscale town of Piedmont (our son's neurosurgeon lives in Piedmont!). I knew you would love to see a picture of this house! Isn't it SOOOOOOO cute???? It was built in 1934 and it's just like an English Cottage AND it's for sale!! But definitely NOT in my price range!

On the way home, we went the other way and here we are getting closer to where we live. Aren't the hills pretty around our area? We are in the valley, surrounded by these hills. Of course, in the winter they are a bit greener!

On Father's Day, we just lazed around and then our son treated us to dinner! :-) Hope you all had a nice Father's Day Weekend. My Dad has been gone for 8 years now but I still miss him and think of him EVERYDAY!

If you get a chance, please check out my eBay auctions. They won't be listed until probably later today (Monday afternoon) but take a look ... I will have some cute things listed. Here is a link ... don't know if it will work but give it a try. My eBay name is LavenderCreekCottage. If you can't click on the link, just copy and paste.

http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/lavendercreekcottage

GO TO YANKEE CANDLE!

You have got to go to Yankee Candle this weekend!!  Look what I got ... the little Daisy defusers are just $5 each!  And the (hard to see) ceramic dragonfly (which comes with a bunch of tea lights) is just $10!  These are great for co-worker birthday gifts, etc.  I have a little dresser that I keep things like this in so when I need a quick gift, I just go to my gift dresser!  It's great!  

I also got this book at Borders today with a 40% off coupon!!  It is SO cute!!!  And it comes with patterns!

 

Have a great weekend!  What are you doing for Father's Day?  Don't know what we will do. There's lots going on around the Bay Area this weekend ... Salmon Festival at Jack London Square in Oakland, a Pirate Festival on the Vallejo waterfront, plus so many other things to choose from this weekend!!  Have fun!

The Antique Faire

Whew!  It's over!  What a lot of work!  My friend and I rented a space together to sell at our local antique faire.  This faire is held on the grounds of a house built in the 1800's, which is now a museum.  My friend ended up hurting her back so her husband and I were "selling partners" for a day!  Here is the before we got our space set up ...

Here is the after ...

A few pictures of stuff we were selling ... my very talented hubby designed and made the mosaic mailbox!  Some of the pics aren't that great because of the dappled sunlight.

Shoppers in our booth ... we had SO many people ask us if we had an antique store (which is a dream of mine!).  Everyone commented over and over how much they thought we were selling such great stuff!  :-)

The other sellers and their booths ...

The old house on the grounds ...

The gazebo in the backyard (lots of weddings are held here) ...

The old water tower ... love that!

All in all, it was a good day!  Perfect weather ... we had shade in our booth and we both sold a lot of stuff!!!  I wish you all could have been there!

Time to announce the winner of the "If Teacups Could Talk".  I first cut apart all of the comments ...

Fletcher heard this and decided to investigate ...

I decided to let Fletcher pick the name so I wadded up each comment and threw them in the air and he sniffed around a bit ...

And then picked one to play with ... 

And the winner is ...

Lisa!!  Congratulations!!  

Thank you to all who left comments.  I hope you keep visiting Yellow Beach Dog!  I will post again on either Sunday or Monday and let you know how the antique fair turned out!  Have a great weekend!

GETTING READY

I have been busy, busy getting ready for the local antiques fair that I am selling at this Sunday.  I made some cute little tags and got some string and am in the middle of organizing and pricing!  I have sold at this fair twice and have done pretty well both times. 

Don't you just love the vintage plastic refrigerator magnets???  So cute!

One of my co-worker/friend at work is having a birthday tomorrow ... in fact, we've had FOUR birthdays this month ... I am almost getting tired of cake ... notice I said "almost"!!!  :-)  I got her this cute teapot planter.

Tomorrow morning I will put a plant in it and then stop by Starbuck's on the way to work and get her a gift card to go with it.  And then ... we'll have MORE cake!!!

Don't forget ... if you haven't left your comment for the giveaway, please do so before Friday evening.  Thank you to all of you who have commented!  

By the way, I am trying to figure out what is going on with my pictures.  It keeps cutting off the right sides.  Hopefully I will get this corrected SOON!

Alameda & the Oakland Hills

 you haven't already left a comment to enter my giveaway, don't forget to!  Thank you to those of you who have.  And I agree ... Emilie Barnes is a wonderful writer!!  

On Sunday, hubby and I were planning to go to the Alameda Point Antiques Fair; however, when we got there, it was SO crowded so we decided to drive around the Oakland hills instead.  The Alameda Point Antiques Fair is held the first Sunday of every month at the former Alameda Naval Air Station (NAS Alameda) on the small island of Alameda.  The air station opened in 1936 and closed in 2006.  At that time, the City of Alameda acquired the whole base and all of it's buildings.  The intention was to renovate the buildings into housing, etc.; however, somewhere along the way the ball was dropped and most buildings are now falling down.  The TV Show MYTHBUSTERS films a lot of their experiments on the base.  My hubby remembers docking at this port when he was in the Navy in the early 80's.  Here are some pics (in order of their appearance:  the entrance to the air station, some old barracks, a cool old military house that is now rented out, and an old church).

From there, we drove up into the Oakland Hills.  Here are a few pics:

This picture is looking at the hills obviously from the street since there is a stop light in the middle of the picture.  These hills were the site of the huge Oakland Hills fire back in October of 1989, which was horrible!  As you can see, most people have rebuilt their lovely homes.  

I didn't get any close up home pictures but I love this picture of the entrance to a house.  You can imagine what the house looked like.  It's so hard to take pictures around here because there is always someone driving behind you.  If there is a spot to pull over, great.  But if not, I have to do drive by shooting (with my camera, that is!).

Then we climbed further up the hills and got these next shots.  This shot is for all you football fans!  It is a shot of the Cal Bears stadium at UC Berkeley. 

This shot is looking across the Bay to the San Francisco skyline (that the Bay Bridge).  SF is to the top right of the picture.  

This next one is looking out towards the Golden Gate Bridge, with Alcatraz in the foreground.  I just noticed that all of my pictures are getting cut off a little on the right side.  Do any of you have this problem?

And this last one is for Neabear ... it's the sign for Children's Fairyland!!

Weekend Fun

Yesterday hubby and I volunteered to work the Children's Hospital Oakland booth at our local Wine & Arts Festival.  Here's a picture of our booth:

These next two pictures I thought were so funny and sooooo California!  Valet Bike Parking! And there were tons of bicycles lined up!  Funny thing is, we almost rode our bikes but took our car at the last minute!

I really wanted to get some shots of the surrounding park where the festival was being held but hubby was wanting to go eat.  This park has a huge duck pond with a huge fountain in the middle.  

And now ... drum roll ... the Giveaway!!  Leave me a comment between now and next Friday, and if your name is drawn, I will send you a copy of Emilie Barnes "If Teacups Could Talk".  I have this same book and love it.  I have made several of the recipes and they. are. yummy!

Also, Cindy at My Romantic Home is hosting a giveaway, too.  Run over there and say Hi and leave a comment!