XMAS ADVENTURES WITH MY SON

I'd mentioned in a post from a couple days ago 

that my son usually takes a week off work after Xmas.

He stays in town with us,

 and he and I go find cool stuff to do.

We both adore plants and the beach so it usually involves the two.

 I came across these pictures from Xmas 2019,

right before Covid hit and am finally sharing them.

Hope you are a succulent fan like we are.

This is the Succulent Cafe where my daughter first turned me onto in 2018.

It's a ways down south from us towards San Diego along the coast

in a quaint little beach town called Carlsbad.

I adore their clever displays, 

especially the one above with the cuppe ens.

(guessing on the spelling of my mother's Italian word for a soup ladle)

But I couldn't decide which display I liked better,

like the one below with the oil funnels.

 A close-up.

Don't you love how the tail of the funnels cross over each other

 as well as the rusty areas?

Great design!

Zach's two favorites involved driftwood pieces above ,

and this hallowed out piece that I think was made from concrete below.

On the way home we took the sceneic coast road up thru all the beach cities

and stopped in Solana Beach at Zach's favorite nursery,

Solana Succulents.

We are always able to find great deals here.

I just had to put in this picture of Zach from 2009,

the first time Zach and I found Solana Succulents.

He was such a youngster then.

So glad he doesn't keep up with my blog,

he's be so mad at me for posting this old pix.

Ha ha ha

Irina Charney at Trios Gallery - Professional Artist

Two weekends ago on a glorious spring day my son and I set off for Solana Beach down San Diego way. My mission was to met Irina Charney and to see her amazing mosaic works in person at Trios Gallery where they were being showcased. This is an example of one of the many pieces she had on display there. I understand she lives nearby to us in Irvine, Ca. so I hope to one day visit her studio.

A close-up of one of Irina's pieces. Look at her amazing craftsmanship. Everything is so precisely laid out, and she uses a variety of glasses in her works which creates a little more dimension on her surfaces.

On our way home my son spotted a cacti and succulent nursery, so all of a sudden this boring trip with his mother was starting to look up. He is a plant science major (2nd year) at Cal Poly Pomona and he collects these plants so he was very excited to find a new nursery to browse thru. This one is called Solana Succulents and it's right on the coast highway running thru town on the beach side. It was a gorgeous day, not too hot or cold and we spent a good hour there looking at all the specimens. Of course we had to buy a few to take home with us :)

Here is my son Zach amongst all the cacti and succulents. He one day hopes to open his own nursery with orchids, carnivorous plants and cacti/succulents. I would love to be able to help him to make that dream come true, and maybe work there part time in my retirement. He is already starting to propagate his own plants and he's having a lot of luck with it.