Cookie Day!

We took off early (for us) yesterday and braved the freeways to Long Beach to spend the day with Stephanie and Pierce.  It was a little over two hours of freeway driving and we did encounter some traffic slowdowns in spots.  The stressful part is just that there is so much traffic!  Six lanes each way with a steady stream of cars and trucks. This is on a Saturday, mind you.   It is just mind boggling!  What would "traffic time" look like?  

We got to the kids' place about 11:30am and visited for a few minutes before we walked to downtown and found a place for lunch.  We couldn't believe the number and variety of restaurants in the downtown area.  We went to Pierce's favorite place and had a nice table outside.  That was critical because we had Maggie with us.  We knew it would be a long day and couldn't leave her at the RV.  It worked out well - Roger and I had a bench to sit on and we put Maggs between us.   She sat there and was very well behaved so was rewarded with some fish from Roger's fish and chips lunch.  Then it was back to the apartment for cookie baking and decorating!  Steph and Pierce have a kitten named Olive who, unfortunately, had to be banished to protect her from Maggie whose DNA would tell her to attack the cat - NOT something we wanted to have happen. Olive was put in a large closet that had glass paned doors.  If you look carefully at the picture below, you can see Olive staring down Maggie.

Roger and Pierce playing in the dough!

Maggie and Steph cutting out cookies

More and more cookies coming!

Oven Duty.

Maggie and Olive having a staring contest
through the closet door.  We were there
about an hour or so before Maggs spotted
Olive who had been banished to the closet/
dressing area of the studio apartment.
Once she discovered Olive she went a
bit crazy and started barking at her.
Poor little thing didn't know what to
think.  After we calmed Maggie down
the two of them spent quite a bit of time
just checking each other out -
 though the glass.

The finished product.

 We had a great time!  We figured out we have been making cookies with Steph for about 20 years now!  She and Pierce will be taking some to Reno to share with Tony, Mike and Erica.  They are both very excited that they have a week off from school and jobs and will visit family in Reno and Tehachapi over the holidays.  

They had gifts for us - perfect ones!  A book of fine woodworking patterns for Roger and a book of 500 crochet stitches for me.  They said they weren't hinting at anything, though!