Ringing in the Holidays

Dan's parents spent a fun-filled week with us this month. Until they came, I didn't feel like the holidays were even remotely close (the 75 degree sunny days in San Diego didn't help), but we knew Thanksgiving was just around the corner once his folks got here! Somehow we managed to fill 80% of their time with sporting events. The other 20% was a mix of shopping at Costco, taking walks outside, fixing and eating meals, and playing Carcassonne (the new board game we're obsessed with). Okay, we did sleep a little bit in there, too.

It was really beautiful that week. Here are some lovely photos that Dan's mom took as they were walking around Pacific Beach, where we live.

The day after they flew in, we drove to Anaheim to watch the NY Islanders vs. Anaheim Ducks game. Dan has enough Islanders paraphernalia to clothe a family, so we all raided his closet and wore team colors.

Our friends Chris and Adessa live in Anaheim, so they joined us for the game too!

Dan and I both had Veteran's Day (Nov. 11th) off from work, and we spent the day enjoying the beautiful sunny day in La Jolla. One of the perks of having visitors is that we have an excuse to visit cheesy tourist attractions. We paid $4 each to walk down a long steep staircase into one of the sea caves beside La Jolla Cove. You can also kayak on the bay into several of the caves, which Dan and I plan to do at some point. Except Dan keeps saying "we'll do it when the water isn't so cold," which means that it may never happen, because the Pacific Ocean is always cold.

Mom & Dad Jester inside the sea cave

We walked along the water and saw some of my favorite local wildlife

I think pelicans are by far the coolest sea bird. They look like pterodactyls when they fly! And there were tons of sea lions at La Jolla Cove that day. These young ones were really cute.

We did a lot of walking and worked up an appetite for our picnic lunch at La Jolla Shores. Dan is filching Oreos while I'm getting the "real food" out.

On Friday night, we cheered on Dan's high school football team. They won the game and got into the playoffs for the first time! Go CCA!!

On Saturday night, there was another Islanders game against the Los Angeles Kings so we went to our 2nd hockey game of the week. On our way up to L.A., we stopped by Farrell's, an old-timey ice cream parlor that Dan grew up with on Long Island. I had never been to a place like that before, but it must be one of the best places to take your kid on his/her birthday! We must've seen 6 birthdays being celebrated in the hour we were there.

On Sunday, we went to Dan's roller hockey game (hockey game #3 if you're counting). It was the championship game, and although Dan's team put up a great fight, they unfortunately lost. But Mom & Dad took us out to Macaroni Grill afterwards, where we drowned our sorrows in plates of pasta.

Dan and his two biggest fans

On their last day, Dan left work early and the three of them went fishing off the pier in Pacific Beach (it's shown in all 3 photos at the top of this post). While fishing sounds like lots of fun in theory, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have enjoyed touching/smelling/seeing the bait or the fish for that matter, so I was probably better off at work. :) We had a great time with them, and we can't wait to see them at Christmastime - only a month away!!

Five Hours of Driving for One Awesome Spades Game

Was it worth it? Absolutely!! Our friends, Chris & Amy flew through Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago on their way to Taiwan to adopt their precious daughter, Ava! They had a layover for several hours, so Dan & I drove to LAX to spend time with them between flights. We got to know Chris & Amy through our church when we lived in Denver, and the four of us love to play Spades. It was always our game of choice when we were together. Amy had the foresight to bring a deck of cards in her luggage (love her!), so we played a few rounds for old-time's sake while we caught up with each other. The guys tried to make a come-back before the game was over, but the girls declared victory before we had to see them off on their next flight. Everything went really smoothly in Taiwan, and Chris & Amy arrived home with Ava this week - she is officially their daughter and an American citizen! We're looking forward to hearing more about their new adventures as parents of that sweet baby girl.

Uncle Dan & Aunt Debby

Dan's brother & sister-in-law, Tim & Dawn, and our three nephews, Benjamin, Nathan, and Aaron came to visit us for a week! We had so much fun with them and loved getting to spend one-on-one time with their family. The boys grow up so quickly, there are new aspects to their personalities every time we see them. The week was full of fun activities, and we had a blast seeing everything through their eyes.

We set up our camping tent & sleeping bags in the office so Benjamin & Nathan would have their own "room." Nathan was sleeping hard when I took this photo!

Benjamin's rubber fish became infamous - you never knew when it would fly across the room and hit you! Dan kept putting it in the fridge and threatening to eat it for dinner. :)

Aaron's favorite room in the house - so much toilet paper, so little time!

Our first big adventure was Legoland! Benjamin and Nathan love playing with Legos, and Legoland is tailored for children under the age of 7, so it was the pefect place to spend a fun day!

This ride was actually a lot of hard work! You had to pull yourself up with the rope before getting to free-fall to the bottom.

We raced down the slides and Nathan beat us all!

The guys raced against some other teams in a fireman challenge, where they had to drive their firetruck to a burning building and extinguish the fire. We all got our exercise at Legoland!

Crashed out in the car at the end of the day!

On Sunday afternoon, we spent the afternoon at a playground on the bay

Everyone enjoyed playing in the water & sand, except for Aaron

This sums up his feelings about the wet, sticky sand between his toes! He had a lot more fun on the swings.

On Sunday night, we went to the roller hockey game to cheer Uncle Dan's team

Dan's team won 11-2 and Dan scored 3 goals! Whoo hoo!

I was able to get off from work a little early on Monday and meet them at Old Town

Nathan got to dress up like a soldier

Then we went panning for gold. Dan's excited about all the gold they're finding! Maybe Nathan and Aaron will buy dinner tonight.

Tim & Dawn took the boys to the zoo one day

Watching the animals

Joining the animals

Those days without naps are a killer!

Dan got to spend a day with Tim & Dawn & the boys at Balboa Park, Coronado, and Torrey Pines

Benjamin & Nathan love exploring and climbing things, so they had fun wherever we went!

This is one of the only shots we got of everyone. We saw a "Lego Jester" at Legoland and had to get a group photo!

San Diego has a ton of family-friendly places, and Tim, Dawn, & the boys had a great vacation. We enjoyed spending as much time as we could with them, and hearing about their adventures each day. We miss them and wish we all lived closer so we could see them more often. But we counted the days until Christmas, and we'll see them again in 70 days! We can't wait!

Miramar Air Show

Dan and I went to the Miramar Air Show last night at Miramar MCAS to see their twilight show for the first time. We had been to the daytime show years ago with Dan's parents, and I had seen it again since then with my coworkers. It's a fantastic show that culminates with the Navy Blue Angels' performance. They run the show for three days every year in Oct., and last night they had a one-night-only twilight show, which we (well, mainly me, but Dan was game) wanted to check out. We got to the base just as the Blue Angels performed at the end of the daytime air show, then waited through a long intermission while they set up for the night show. It did not disappoint! Here are a few highlights we enjoyed.

They added lights and sparkler effects on the planes and people who performed during the night show. Here's a video of a guy (the announcer said he was a paraplegic) flying a hang glider that was shooting off fireworks. The effect was beautiful!

The night took a turn towards redneck when they strapped jet engines to this truck and ran it down the runway at full speed. Awesomeness. You can hear Dan laughing at the end of the video. :)

They had a big fireworks show set to patriotic music at the end of the evening, and the grand finale was the "Wall of Fire." Fun times!

Labor Day Weekend & Saying Goodbye to San Diego

Ha ha, gotcha didn't I? Dan and I aren't saying goodbye to San Diego, our friends Eric and Jenn are. More on that later - first I want to talk about our super fun Labor Day weekend in TX with my mom's side of the family! It's become a new annual tradition for our extended family to get together at my Uncle Brian and Aunt Margaret's ranch house over Labor Day instead of trying to coordinate time together at Christmas. Christmastime get-togethers worked before several of the cousins got married, but now there are just too many family schedules to work around.

Unfortunately, our weekend started with a bang - literally. We spent Friday night at my parent's house and loaded their brand-new Hyundai Veracruz on Saturday morning. And then ... accidentally backed out of the garage with the car hatchback open. It wasn't pretty. The "safety glass" in the back window hit the top of the garage door and it didn't just crack the glass - it shattered it into a million pieces! I guess the idea of safety glass is that it gives way if a person hits it in an accident, instead of holding strong and forcing the person's head to give way. It was a horrible, sickening way to start the weekend, especially since the car was so new. But we cleaned up the best we could and drove it to the dealer and picked up a rental while my parent's car went to the shop.

Cleaning up all the glass that shattered inside the car and garage. Don't worry, Steve and Dan stopped smiling as soon as my dad turned around.

**Warning** DO NOT use your fingers to pull glass out of the crack in the seat. This could happen to you!!

Sad Mom with a sad Veracruz

Once we got to the ranch house, though, the weekend was great! We had the best time catching up with our aunts, uncles and cousins. There are so many fun things to do around the ranch house, like playing whiffleball, eating, card games, ping pong, eating, relaxing on the back porch, riding the 4-wheeler, eating, stargazing through a telescope, tree-climbing, napping, laughing at each other, and eating. Our cousin Kolby would disagree that tree-climbing was part of the *fun* since he got roped into climbing a monster tree to rescue a kickball, while everyone else stood around laughing and calling out generally unhelpful suggestions. And Dan is probably the only one who would classify napping in the fun category, but hey, there's a little something for everyone at the ranch house!

Great Uncle Jim and Great Aunt Astrid

My mom with Cousin Beryl Ann and Aunt Merle

Praying before the meal

Playing a family whiffleball game

A great shot of everyone playing whiffleball with the ranch house in the background

My cousins made up an awesome new ping pong game called "One Bounce". It was the source of many many hours of hilarity.

The cutest members of the family, Addi, Jackson, and Laura. That's a cricket on Addi's arm. Jackson is also holding a cricket in his hand, and this photo was taken right before he ATE IT. I wish I was kidding. My cousin Emily took these awesome pictures of the kids.

Emily, photographer extraordinaire

Emily also took some family photos of us with her nice new camera. Somehow she managed to get fantastic shots, despite the "I don't want my picture taken" crankiness and "I can't sit still and smile nicely" goofiness going on that I'm sure didn't make it easy for her. I won't name any names, but it wasn't me, Dan, my mom, or Paul. Anyway, a few of my favorites are below. It was a perfect weekend full of family time, which we fully appreciate every chance we can!

This is where I suggested that my Mom & Dad kiss in one of the pictures, and Steve said "Well why don't we ALL kiss!" He's trying to sell Paul on the idea, but Paul is having none of it.

The following weekend, we had dinner with our friends Eric & Jenn and Dave & Cynthia and their kids. Eric & Jenn are quitting their jobs as pathologists for the Navy (do you "quit" the Navy? or "un-enlist"?) and moving to North Carolina, where Eric has been hired at UNC. They have two kiddos, James and Sarah, and Jenn's dream of being a stay-at-home mom will finally come true. They're so excited about the next chapter in their lives, so we're excited for them, too. Even though we wish they could start a new chapter in San Diego instead so we could have more time with them. They're an amazing family and have been a part of many of our happiest memories here. We're going to try to meet up with them when we visit Dan's family in VA, so we'll see you guys on the east side!

Left to right: Debby, Eric, Jenn, Sarah, James, Cynthia, Dave, Olivia, and Dan

We'll miss you guys!!

(How awesome is the crayon in James' mouth? He liked them better than his dinner, I think.)