Best of The Week Awards

We've been away this past week visiting our daughter and grandson in the eastern half of the US.  Even though I (well, actually The Professor) lugged my laptop through the airports, through security, into and out of the planes, I connected to the internet with it only once while I was gone.  I think that next trip, I won't bother.  However, the lack of easy, constant online access other than via my phone kept me from reading and commenting on many blogs.  I'm working to catch up now that we're home.  And here it is already, Friday, and time for my favorite post of the week:  Friday Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.

A chance comment by my husband got me thinking about awards, specifically the "best of" kind.  My week held several "bests" to share.

1.  The Best Los Angeles Friend of the Year Award goes to our friend Kristie who still picked us up from LAX at 2:30AM after our flight was delayed leaving Minneapolis because of a mechanical problem with the plane.  Then she allowed us to crash in a freshly made bed until morning.  She's definitely No.1 Best LA Friend in our opinion!

2.  Best Grandson of the Year Award was an easy choice.  He's cute, he's three, he's our only one.

3.  Best Harry Potter Movie of the Year Award.  Again, it's the only Harry Potter Movie of 2011, but it was still great fun to see Deathly Hallows 2 with Kiti and her friend.  It was fitting that I was knitting the sleeves of a Weasley Sweater for Our Boy during the movie.

"You want me to sit here on the porch and have my picture taken in my new sweater?"

"Cheese!"



"Are we done yet?  I want to go back inside and play with my trains."

4.  After seven nights away, our own bed was given the Best Place to Sleep Award.  We love to travel and we especially love snuggling with Our Boy on the bed, but you know how it is--it's always wonderful to crawl back in to your own bed when you arrive home again.

5.  Finally, the Best Return to California Beach Walk Award--goes to Pt. Dume (DooMAY) Nature Preserve.  Wanting to put our feet firmly back on Coastal California sand after our truly lovely trip east of the Mississippi River, we stopped on the way home from Los Angeles along Pacific Coast Highway.  The last time I was at Pt. Dume State Beach was 12 hours before I went in to labor with my second child.  I was already a week overdue to birth our little girl and could barely waddle across the sand and certainly could not climb any rise or dune.  But waddle I did along the beach in the wet sand.  Fun memories.  Anyway, we decided to detour to the beach at the 'north' end of Malibu, found an easy place to park and hiked up to the Pt. Dume look out and then down to the beach.  Considering how crowded Zuma State Beach was, we were surprised at how deserted the tide pools at Dume were.  Of course, it's not easy to climb down the stairs to reach the beach and that certainly deters most beach goers.

Killer Stairs--they really are that steep

Pt. Dume Nature Preserve (and beach) is not for wimps. But until I become too old or too wimpish to climb these stairs, we'll be going back to enjoy the relative solitude of this wonderful beach.



This was Willow's Week in the Wild Wild West East.  How was your week?