The beauty of Sullivan's Island

Here is just one of the houses I took a photo of while I visited Sullivan's Island. Can't you just imagine sitting on one of these porches (or do you call them verandas) and sipping ice tea and whiling away the hours?

It's been close to thirty years since I visited Sullivan's Island, the home to some dear friends who moved there in the eighties.

I'll never forget when I arrived at the airport one August evening after a grueling flight. I am a Southern California girl and a stranger to the storms of the east coast, but when my dear friend's moved away I just had to go for a visit, not realizing, I probably should have chosen a different time of year to visit. Anyway the night I arrived they had one of the biggest storms of the season and I could see lightning ricocheting from the airplane. Whew! I was sure happy when I landed and was greeted by my friends.

Once safe in Howard and Vicki's house the storm continued through the night and I wanted to climb under the bed and hide. I've never been through an earthquake that frightened me half as much as that storm, but the storm did pass the the rest of the week was just as lovely as could be. The photo below is just how I remember the beach on Sullivan's Island.

My friends had been constant companions for my husband and I before they made that giant leap across the country. We had dinner together on a regular basis. Vicky is a terrific cook and she seemed to love spontaneous get-togethers which was a good thing because I wasn't much of a planner. We lived only a few doors down from each other when they lived in California. Vicky was a stay at home mom like myself and Howard was a professor at the local university. I'm sure Howard and Vicky could never know the grief I felt when they moved away. I find it is difficult to find friends where the husbands and the wives are as mutually connected as we were.

Here's Vicky on Sullivan's Island with her youngest daughter in tow. Vicky and Howard's girls are all grown up now as are my own, but I will cherish the memories forever.

While I was there they took me on a tour of Charleston and I was so impressed with the southern charm of that city.


Missing you Howard and Vicky...sending love to the girls!

Easter Attire

When I was a kid my mother loved dressing my sister and I alike. Looking at the expression on my sister's face I'm not sure she always liked it, but there is no way to know because she was always making faces in almost every photo my mother took. L.O.L.

My mother passed that love of dressing my sister and I alike to me. The photo above is of my three girls all dressed alike. It gets a little harder to find those outfits when there is five years between your last two children, but somehow I managed, if not by sheer tenacity!

It was my turn to pass this tradition of matching Easter outfits to my eldest daughter who now has three sons. It's like watching my girls grow up in male form, because the spacing of her boys is so close to how I spaced my three girls.

Happy Easter

I have lovely memories of my mother getting my sister and I out of bed at the crack of dawn to go to the Hollywood bowl to the Easter sunrise service. It was dark and cold, but she assured us it would be worth it to see the sun come up and celebrate the wonder of Jesus having risen from the dead. She would take a thermos of hot chocolate and blankets to keep us warm until the sun came up. Afterwards, Mom always took us to the Pancake House for a breakfast of crepe Suzette's.

I really don't know where she got the energy after working hard all week to provide for us. I am much lazier than my mother was, and I'm not sure I properly appreciated all of her effort until now. I wish I could tell her one more time "thank you" for all of her effort to insure we would grow up with faith and mercy and a belief in "Someone" greater than ourselves. What a gift she gave my sister and me.

Of course, she dressed us in cute Easter outfits and there was always an Easter basket to hunt for and a chocolate bunny waiting for us, but all of that was just icing on the cake, compared to the example she set for us as a woman of faith.

Happy Birthday to my Firstborn April 14, 2011

It was love at first sight from the moment I laid eyes on my baby girl thirty six years ago today.


She was the first of my three precious daughters to captivate my attention. She was a lively, energetic baby girl that came into the world with an intuitive sense of the environment around her. She was so innately sensitive, I got the feeling from looking into her pretty blue eyes that she knew exactly how the people around her felt about her in an instant. She wasn't one of those babies that wanted to be held all the time. She was affectionate, but she wasn't a clinger...the minute she got her hugs and kisses she was off your lap anxious to discover more of her world.

Amanda was smart as a whip with an attention span to match. She was curious and independent and loved having people around. She still does. She loved her baby dolls. When I brought my middle daughter home after she was born Amanda stood on the porch proclaiming "my baby doll, my baby doll!", as she saw me draw near with her baby sister in my arms.

She has set a fine example with her compassionate mothering and I know my grandsons will sing her praises long after they have grown and left home to have families of their own.

She was strong willed and many times stubborn, but that will has made her character what it is today. She loves the Lord with all her heart and has been an inspiration to me many times over.

Today Amanda has three sons of her own and made me the most grateful Nana ever!

How did I get so blessed?

The Surf Rider Inn

When my sister was about ten and I was about 8 my mother would pack our swim suits and get us in the car and drive us to a hotel called the Surf Rider Inn. Being the glamorous woman that our mother was no one questioned her about us being guests of the hotel. She just walked in like she owned the place so her little girls could go for a swim. We loved her for it, even if she was being a bit naughty.

I Googled Surf Rider Inn and found this vintage photo of the place that gave my sister and me such pleasure on hot Saturday afternoons. I will always cherish those memories!

Anybody Remember Wink Martindale and P.O.P.?

When I was a kid a popular D.J. and dance show host was Wink Martindale. He went on to host T.V. game shows and various things, but he got his start in radio. I think I was 10 years old in this old photo standing next to Wink. The photo was taken at Pacific Ocean Park (more commonly known as P.O.P.)


My sister is on the left and I am on the right in the photo below. P.O.P. was a twenty minute drive from where we lived. We loved the rides, especially the one where you kind of spun out over the ocean. It was terrifyingly fun!


When I Googled P.O.P. I found this great old video on You Tube that made me feel the thrill of my youth all over again.

My girlfriend of nearly 50 Years turns Sixty

El Rodeo Elementary

When I was 10 years old my mother and sister and I moved into Beverly Hills. My mother wanted to be close enough to Elizabeth Arden's where she could walk to work, and to live in a neighborhood with a much better school system than the Los Angeles County school system.

Moving and leaving friends and familiar routines is never easy for children. El Rodeo Elementary School was where I first met my friend Brook. Being new to the school and feeling awkward and very out of place, I needed at least one friend and Brook befriended me early on.

I remember going to her house on Benedict Canyon and thinking she lived in a palace. My mother and sister and I lived in a one bedroom apartment where my mother slept on a pull out sofa in the living room and my sister and I shared the only bedroom. By comparison, Brook lived in a house that had a swimming pool and tennis courts and a spiraling staircase, with a maid that made the best fried chicken I'd ever eaten.

Lucky for me, Brook's parents both loved me and liked having me around. Brook's dad was a movie producer and her mother a housewife. I always wished my mother had someone to take care of her so she could be at home when I came home from school, but that was not her fate.

I'll never forget Brook's bedroom with her canopy bed and velvet bedspread that Brook was not allowed to sit on. Brook's mother wanted to keep that bed looking very pristine, I think. Brook's mother was an accomplished seamstress and I remember her mother coming into Brook's room to fit her for a dress she was making. From the outside looking in, I thought Brook had the perfect life.


I remember meeting Tyrone Power ( a very famous movie star at the time), in Brook's living room. I was awe struck. I think sometimes Brook might have envied my life a little too. Her parents were very busy and my mother lived her life for my sister and me. The grass is always greener, right?

When Brook and I were in high school Brook invited me to her sweet sixteen. We got dressed up and went to a fancy Italian restaurant where we met a well know comedian at the time, while having dinner. I'd have to ask Brook (my memory is shot), but I think his name was Bob Morrow...I could be wrong.

The photo below was taken at Brook's Sweet Sixteen slumber party. I 'm the dork on the right, she's the one on the left that looks like a model.

Brook's dad had a t-bird at the time that he let Brook drive around town, so much fun! She did something to upset her father at one point and that was the end of us driving around in that cute little t-bird.

We kind of lost touch our senior year as I recall, but immediately reconnected years later a the Hamburger Hamlet in Westwood when I was in town for a visit with my first born baby, years later. We have been there for each other for many important events, both happy and sad, over the years.

Brook's birthday is on March 20, just three days after my anniversary and a couple days before my youngest daughter's birthday March 22.

This photo was taken at Mr. Honey's sixtieth birthday party. That's a real friend that will drive two hours for your husband's birthday.

Hoping your sixtieth is fabulous and this will be you best year ever, dear Brook!