Labor Day Weekend at Hotel Yorba

So we had the Bainters and Elliotts up for the long weekend. It was a great time, and a wonderful end to a nice long Summer. Although the weather will be nice here for another month or so, Jake is back in school, and you can smell Autumn in the air.

I spent most of Saturday cooking. I skipped the ham - couldn't get it together on Friday to get it all prepped. But I made the lasagna and it lasted all weekend.







And a layered salad and garlic cheesy bread.





Lauren made brownies from scratch - they were incredibly rich - almost like fudge. And Mike and Dolores brought Tiramisu.











And I also made Rice Crispie treats with a layer of chocolate and butterscotch.







Freakish thing on that. The "recipe" for Rice Crispie treats says to use 40 marshmallows. So I shook out what I though would be 40. And I had stirred the lasagna sauce and got some on two of the marshmallows. Check this out...


That's 38 in the pan plus the two I messed up. Amazed? I know I was.

Anyway, the weather was great - high 80s and low 90s. And we did lots.

Rachel, Jake, Dolores, and Lauren played the Mad Magazine game (that Rachel bought on eBay).


Mike and Paul played darts and pool...



Dinner was awesome. Everything was yummy. We drank V. Sattui wine. It was about 85 degrees with a slight breeze. Try to look past my enormous head and check out the sunset we were blessed with.


Here's me (with the lasagna sweats) and wife...

The next morning, we woke up to banoons. (That's an intentional typo because when they are there, I am usually awakened by Rachel screaming, "BANNNNOOOOOOOONNNNNSSS!")

There were peacocks in the yard that morning, too, but of course I didn't get a good picture of them. Incidentally, a couple of days ago I was working in my outdoor office and caught one my neighbors cats stalking one of the baby peacocks again. Papa stepped in and flapped his wings and threw out the tail feathers. It was beautiful. I filmed it, but it was across the yard and didn't come out very good.

Back to our weekend - so I got these great little clip on misters at the store that shall not be named. And I got a little hose y splitter at Hardester's. We spent most of the day outside under the shade with these little babies going. They worked awesome - 95 out, but we were nice and cool in the shade. Unfortunately, it's not so great for your book if you leave it in one place for very long.

And, of course, we tubbed quite a bit.


And I cooked up some ribs.

I'm thinking about moving the grill down to the deck. I bought a special pad on clearance at Mendo Mill. I then plan on taking $50 on up to Ray's, buying an assortment of meats and letting Paul cook them all day while I bring him as many beers as he needs.

Then there were naps...


I got it in my head that I wanted to walk along all of the rocks in the yard then turn around and walk back. I slipped on the turn and woke up Lauren.

Oh, and I also finally planted some stuff in the pond area...


We had so much fun that Mike and Dolores decided to stay an extra night.

I'm not one for arbitrary dates as milestones and such - like making a big deal about anniversaries - you should express your love for each other each day, each hour, and if possible, each minute. But I also like some traditions, and I like the idea of Labor Day being the end of Summer - and it was a great Summer. A lot of stuff happened: The 4th party, new job, the hot tub, exercise, Jake grew up in a blink, Dre's party, Rocky's visit, going to Ted's.

And it was all capped off with three days just having fun with family. You can't beat that.