Fourth of July at OB

My 2nd fourth of July in Ocean Beach... it's the usual: the beautiful waves and sunset, the trashed beach from irresponsible families, sipping on cocoa as the weather cools down, the pier lighting up, the fireworks, and (not pictured) the marshmallow fight. We brought about 8 bags with us this year. It was a nice night.

Jason's lil' brother visit

Jason's little brother Mark, his wife Rita, and their 1 yr old boy Nathan were able to come out and visit for a week. I had to work most of the time, but did get to spend a couple days with them. The kid is so cute! Just a few shots from the Cabrillo Pt lighthouse and Ellen Browning Scripps Park in La Jolla.

Another one turns 30

This is the year most of my friends are dropping in on 30 one by one. For Tony, we met up at the Orange County campground, San Clemente State Beach. Here's a trick...all the spots were supposed to be reserved, but it turns out for coastal camping, many spots are reserved by surfers looking for good waves. No good waves = lots of opens spots. Just get there very early in the morn to get on the list. http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=646

And with an Tony gathering comes good food & drink. Good food while camping means a fire's in order, including the building of said fire. Tony chopped the wood by hand... kind of. Zena got her apron from Italy.

The most ambitious cooking I've ever seen while camping is this caste iron grill top paella. As you can see, it turned out beautiful.

Other yummy food included fish freshly bought from the seaside market that morning.

Carlos relaxing.

My sweet Jason.

And the Tony and Zena...

Ah, Dame Edna, possums

I've been excited for months about Dame Edna's first last tour. She was in her usual sassy-classy form. http://www.dame-edna.com/index2.htm

It was our first time at the San Diego Civic Theatre and we marveled at the ginormous chandelier in the lounge area. Really, it's the size of a small cruise ship. We chatted up the lady serving drinks and she said when the kids visit, sometimes they like to throw pennies or skittles down it from the balcony, hence the the large net now covering the top.

A Day with Becca

Becca graced us in San Diego for a day. Following my brilliant navigation to go hiking at Torrey Pines State Reserve, we ended up at the Salk Institute: http://www.salk.edu/

The architecture is a mesh between concrete modernism and an ancient Egyptian style fountain.

There were several bees enjoying the architecture, too. One got swept into the fountain and as Becca pulled him to safety, he thanked her with a little prick to the hand. Her fingers ended up swelling almost twice normal size.

After a few more hit & misses, we finally found the entrance to the reserve. It's not that it's actually that hard to find, but I was convinced there was a back entrance...and I was wrong. The trails aren't long, but there's a lovely one that heads on down the cliffs to the beach. http://www.torreypine.org/

And Jason joined us to finish off a fantastic day while munching on the exceptionally yummy food at Arrivederci. I got the squid ink linquini and seafood right below...yum yum yum. http://ristorante-arrivederci.com/

Alas, Becca did have to go home to LA. To next time!

Fun-time at Michaels (click on me)

Michaels is one of those stores where we can wander away too much time while envisioning crafty projects that will never come to fruition. This was us waiting for our movie Coraline to start.