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I started out as a broadcast journalist, but fate took its course when I literally fell in love at first sight with my husband of 43 years. I then taught school, of various subjects and age groups and now write about food, health, humor and life.

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Carine-what's cooking

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Thursday, July 04, 2013

Celebrating a New Mom

Celebrating a New Mom

 

As I mentioned in my last blog-Samantha (my wonderful inherited daughter) and I took a road trip back to our old stomping grounds in Orange County, California to enjoy her baby shower!

 

It’s so hard to believe that Jackson Dale is almost here! 

 

Sam and I left after breakfast last Thursday and started our road trip.  We were using our daughter Sarah’s car-as we were picking her up on Friday afternoon from John Wayne Airport.  Sarah had been working in Colorado Springs for a month and we knew we were going to have a lot of luggage and baby shower gifts to bring back home and her car was the biggest.

 

Back to our road trip.  First off, remember that Sam is 8 months pregnant and I have a very “glass-like” skeleton.  We stopped in Quartzsite-the last town before the border to get gas.  We know that once we go those added 8 miles-the price of fuel rises by $.60 a gallon!

 

While there, we decided to go to the ever famous “Daniel’s Fresh Jerky” store.  We have seen their signs for years and yet-never once stopped!  Very nice people and the store was so cute.

 

Sam and I bought 3 kinds of jerky:  carne asada, garlic and rosemary and then a peppered turkey.  We nibbled on the turkey on during the rest of our 7 hour trip.  We stopped in Blythe for another “potty” break and some lunch. 

 

Blythe is NOT exactly the type of place you want to spend a lot of time in-but it’s a fairly large town.  A nice clean Subway opened up there a while back and it’s much better to take our break there than in the rather “icky” Mobil Mart or Denny’s up the street.

 

From there we made it to the Morongo Indian Reservation (near Palm Springs) for a break and gas fill-up.  We know that the gas station there isn’t much more expensive than at home.  This made it possible to beat the afternoon “Orange Crush” and the “El Toro Y”-we did opt to spend $6.50 on the toll road which dropped us off at Sam’s mom’s home.

 

It was 5:30.  Spent a bit of time saying hello before taking off for my sister’s house in Laguna Hills.  My sister and family and parents were waiting to have dinner with me.

 

The rest of the weekend including a fun 3 hour gabfest with my dear friend and colleague Ilene Schneider before picking up Sarah.  I was thrilled to see my daughter after a month apart!

 

It was family dinner night on Friday.  Saturday my sister and family did an American Cancer Society walk while Sarah and I got our hair taken care of-I’ve been too anxious about trying yet another stylist and Sarah needed her roots touched up.

 

Later it was Sarah’s turn to see friends and Sam was enjoying the time with her mom and siblings.  I went with my sister and we put together some dinner at the house.

 

Sunday came FAST!  Sarah and I went to the bakery/café and had some breakfast together and picked up the cake.  We joined Sam and family and began the trek over to where we were doing the shower and plowed through the set up.

 

Sam’s mom, Linda, did a phenomenal and creative job on the decorations and food!  Everyone agreed-this was something that she should find a way to market and go into business with because it was just that great!

 

We were absolutely thrilled, happy and exhausted by the end of the shower and all of us went to our perspective beds and went to sleep. We three knew we were in for quite the packing job (which my brother-in-law Dave did) and a long drive home.

 

Before we left-my dad did slip and break two fingers.  Sigh.

 

Sam slept most of the way home, Sarah refused to let me help her do the drive and we basically did the same stops in reverse on the way back-including another stop at “Daniel’s”! 

 

Steve loves jerky-so I bought him the 3 best sellers, a jar of BBQ rib rub with Jack Daniel’s in it and some dried cantaloupe for me. The girls also bought some jerky.  Sarah bought some of the odd flavored/interesting micro-brew soda pops.

 

We got home totally exhausted and happy to see our families. 

 

Steve had the boys-whom he told a huge fib too-told them that “mommy had to go back to Colorado and she would see them next week.”

 

Dyl knew better-but Aidan was pretty sad.  What a wonderful sight it was to see their faces when they realized that Sarah was there with open arms, huge hugs and kisses.

 

Yes, going away is always a fun time-but getting home, well, it’s always better.

# posted by Carine-what's cooking? @ 3:18 PM

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