San Diego Visitors!

My parents came to visit us in February! For two weeks! We had the best time, and it was a rare treat to have them all to ourselves for so long. Their first weekend with us was Valentine's Day weekend, and we wanted to do something special. We found out that Bill Cosby was coming to San Diego and bought tickets to see his comedy act. Our original plan was to go out to dinner before the show, but it turns out that it's a terrible idea to try to make a reservation at a restaurant on Valentine's day afternoon - who would've thought? Waitresses laughed in my face that day (well, over the phone at least). But we made our own pasta dinner at home and it was delicious, so who needs Macaroni Grill anyway? Bill Cosby was fantastic, and it was thrilling for me to see him live after watching almost every episode of "The Cosby Show" as a kid. He's 72 years old now, and just as funny as ever.

Dan and I each took a couple of days off from work to do fun stuff with my parents, but San Diego was an easy place for them to entertain themselves on the days we both were working. They spent plenty of time at the beach, went to the zoo, visited museums, and even took a 2-day excursion to Giant Sequoia National Monument, which is about 6 hours north of us in the mountains. In the evenings we enjoyed just cooking dinner, playing games, and watching the Olympics together.

We had another big celebration while my parents were here - my car hit 200,000 miles! Okay, so I've been saying for months now that my car has 200,000 miles on it, but I've been known to round numbers up - just ask Dan. (Me: "I'm hungry. It's noon already!" Dan: "Nope, it's 11:42." Me: "Whatever, I'm hungry.") I came home one night from work saying that I only had 7 miles to go before hitting 200,000, so of course we all piled in the car and wandered aimlessly around our neighborhood for 7 miles so we could celebrate together. There may have also been ice cream involved. I was driving and shouting out status updates ("3.2 miles to go! We're hanging a left!"), Dan kept snapping pictures of the odometer so we wouldn't miss the big moment (interfering with my ability to turn the steering wheel, I might add), and my parents were in the back seat laughing at how crazy we are. But hey, my car has been through a lot (most recently a mad jaunt to Mexico without us) and it's still running well AND fully paid off! If that's not a reason to celebrate, I don't know what is.

Anyway, it was so wonderful to have my folks here, and we did our best but they still left us to go back to TX. :)

We also had dinner with some friends from Denver! We got to know Gary at our church when we lived in Denver, and since we moved to CA, he married Kristen and they had their daughter Lizzie, who's 1 year old now. They came to San Diego for a vacation, and even though we'd never met Kristen or Lizzie in person, by the end of the night we felt like we were old friends.

We love having visitors! And our spare bedroom is empty now! (hint hint)

Laughing it up at the Bill Cosby comedy show on Valentine's day

The man, the legend

Our beautiful summer-like weather in San Diego

But my folks chose to trade climates for a couple of days at Giant Sequoia, where they had a lovely snowfall.

I spent the day with them at Balboa Park, where we visited museums and walked until our feet hurt

The 200,000-mile moment

Going out for ice cream to celebrate!

Visiting with Gary, Kristen, and Lizzie