Two Weeks of Vacation in 8 Posts

We just got back from spending two weeks in San Diego with my family and friends. Because I took an obscene amount of photos, I split them up into groups and made 8 separate postings. Enjoy the photos and sparse commentary.

La Jolla Shores II

Checking out a little crab

Realizing that the most fun we were having on this trip was at the beach I decided to spend our last day in San Diego back at La Jolla Shores again. My mom and I headed out together and got to the beach about noon and the weather was perfect. 90 degrees inland, 70 degrees at the beach and sunny. Beautiful! The boys had a blast and Sammy was happy to play with Grandma in a little wading pool I dug for him while I took Johnny out into the waves. The lifeguard informed us twice that we were in the most famous rip current section of beach and advised us to move down (which we had after the first warning, but apparently not far enough). To be safe, we went out directly in front of the lifeguard tower. We were all having a blast when I realized I needed to call Keith and my mom was on the phone with Bill at the same time. A few minutes later we realized Johnny was gone. I started to panic and dreaded the worst, that Johnny had gone back out in the surf by himself and gotten knocked over and sucked out into the ocean. I started asking people nearby if they'd seen Johnny and one man advised me to go to the lifeguard station. I ran over and soon after the lifeguard made an announcement. Immediately after the announcement we could see the tiny far off figures of a woman and little boy running toward the lifeguard station from way on the other side of the beach. When I picked Johnny up I totally started to cry. I had envisioned that this might really be the end of Johnny, either by drowing or kidnapping and it was horrifying. At this point, I was ready to go home, so we packed up and headed back.

La Jolla Shores I

Cousin Kayla
Cousin BrianAunt Amy (my sister) and Kayla

Grandma (my mom) and I met my sister Amy at a pretty section of beach at La Jolla Shores with her two kids, Brian and Kayla. The kiddos had a nice time playing in the sand and water until all their lips turned blue and we had to bundle up and head home. It was really sweet to see all the kids playing together. It is quite a handful to keep that many little kids safe near the water at the same time and it was nice to have 3 adults.

San Diego Zoo

Sammy doing a tonsillectomy on the gorillaCrocodile on a turtle pillow
Riding the kiddie carouselJohnny watching the otter's acrobatics

We spent an afternoon at the San Diego Zoo with one of my very best friends, Teri. The boys enjoyed looking at the animals somewhat, but were getting a little antsy not having more physical things to do. The children's petting zoo was closed which was very disappointing, and funny enough some of the highlights were things that weren't really zoo related ... like a little plastic tunnel to crawl through or a row of hanging rubber slats that seemed to be there to keep the direct sunlight off of the tiny monkeys. The acrobatic otter was very entertaining for the boys. My favorite part was talking to Teri and catching up. It is so very nice to spend time with great friends!

San Clemente Pier

Ava and JohnnyAva and Johnny jumping over waves with Sue

This was the first truly outstanding day of our trip, although even on this day we ran into more bad luck. What should have been a one hour drive ended up taking 2 hours and 10 minutes due to three large grocery store kind of trucks colliding which folded the trailer of one truck into a "V" and required the biggest tow trucks I've ever seen to haul it to the side of the road. Once we got to the beach we had by far the most fun outing of our trip yet. I met up with Sue who is one of my four very best and her absolutely darling daughter Ava and had a simply wonderful time catching up and playing and sunning. Sue is a warm, caring, considerate, funny and insightful person and one of my most cherished and dear best friends and I am SOOO happy we got together this time (twice before when I visited San Diego our plans fell through).

Scripps Aquarium and EBSP Children's Pool

Scripps AquariumSammy blowing fish kisses

We met my sister Amy at Scripps Aquarium with her son Brian to see the interesting sea creatures and play in some of the little tide pools they have there. The boys really enjoyed looking at all of the colorful sealife and playing with all of the hands on kid-friendly exhibits where they could simulate earth quakes, make their own mini-quakes by jumping up and down and watching the Richter scale, learn about DNA sequencing etc. Sammy seemed to like playing with the abalone shells the most while Johnny was fixated on going to the beach.

Ellen Browning Scripps Park Children's Pool

In 1931 Ellen Browning Scripps created a little man-made cove for children to be able to swim safely without a lot of big waves. This area is now a haven for sunbathing seals, which is still fun to see, but apparently not safe for swimming due to prolific seal pooping. We walked down to the end of the curved walkway you can see in the top photo and watched the seals and surf and then headed to a little beach immediately south of the Children's Pool.

Beach South of Children's Pool

I didn't expect to go swimming at the beach in November, so I didn't pack any bathing suits. I had planned to go to the tidepools but this was apparently a bad day for that due to the tide being too high, so we made a spontaneous decision to go swimming even though we didn't have a change of clothes. Once Johnny started swimming in his Nascar briefs, another little boy stripped down to his underwear and they had a great time playing together. This wasn't the best place for Johnny to play in the water as it was a very short sandy shore which had an abrupt dropoff. Both boys loved playing in the sand and surf, so we made a mental note that we'd make sure to get back to the beach before our trip was over.

Dinner at Teri's House

To top off a nice day at the beach we went to one of my oldest and very best friend's house for dinner. Teri and I were best friends in high school and thankfully have stayed in touch (some years we've done a better job than others). Teri made us a delicious meatloaf and saffron rice dinner with sauteed zucchini and sliced cucumbers. Mmmm! This was a yummy break from the lame dinners I had fixed us where we were staying. It was great to see how much her daughter Hannah has grown and changed. I still have vivid memories of her singing a song from Oklahoma to me as a little girl. Now she's quite a beautiful young lady ... takes after her mama in that way. Teri is one of my 4 very best friends and has been incredibly supportive and caring to me and helped me through some of my toughest times. She's so funny, sassy, warm and considerate ... I count myself very lucky to be her friend.