San Diego Bay

This is kind of out of order, but hey, just be happy I'm getting my updates, in, right?

On the Sunday of our trip, we met with some of my Aunts, Uncles and cousins down at San Diego Bay. I always like to visit with family, unfortunately, it never seems like there's enough time to visit with everyone.

Maggie had fun digging in the sand. Give her a shovel, and she's content for a good hour at least. She really wanted to go in the water, but after mommy and daddy discussed it, we decided ug, I mean, uh, no..

This is what a little girl who has had too much fun looks like. She hardly ever falls asleep in my arms, and after playing in the sun and the sand, she just passed out. !pobrecita!

Weird Al

Okay, Okay, so I am a dork. I honestly thought Mark would have blogged about this concert, but I guess I will have to.

Mark and I had the, ah hem...privilege to see Weird Al at our local fair last summer and when we saw that he would be playing at the San Diego County Fair while we were there, we figured we had to go, and we had to take Cameron, too.

You see, I had no intention of going to the concert last summer, no offense, Al, just didn't have any desire to go. However, I do love my husband and thought that I should go because he wanted to go. We almost didn't get to go last summer, but thanks to some friends of ours who saved us some seats (the concert was free), we were able to see it. I have to say, this guy is a great performer! He really did put on great show and was very entertaining.

So, when the opportunity came to see him and take our nephew with us, we had to do it. Mark introduced Cameron to Weird Al when Cam was only about 3 or 4 years old. Cam was infatuated with Star Wars and Weird Al had just come out with a few Star Wars parody songs, Cam loved them. We had to play them over and over again any time he was in the car with us. When we asked Cam if he wanted to go to the concert he was so excited. When we go to the concert, he was so excited. He decided he had to call one of his friends to gloat about being there, and lo and behold his friend was sitting in the same box seat section that we were, just 2 rows behind us! Thousands of people at this concert, and this kid and his family are within the 25 or so in our box. Amazing. Needless to say, that made Cam's night even better. Good Times.

Balboa Park and The Zoo (Pt Two)

After the Polar Bears, we also had enough of the walking and enough of the heat and met my parents up at the Merry-Go-Round. We were really looking forward to this part. I think my parents were, too, since they had their own car and could have left straight from the zoo! My dad had already purchased a good handful of tickets so that we could all enjoy the 5 minute ride many times! My sister met us there with her 3 kids, so Maggie had a lot of fun with her cousins.

This Carousel has been around for a very long time, it was one of my favorite things at the park when I was a kid. Something really special about it, is that it still has the Brass Ring game. You know the one, or maybe you don't. There is a machine mounted up high that releases lots of iron rings and one brass ring per ride. When your horse (or whatever animal you happen to be on) passes the machine you can reach for the ring. If you get the brass ring, you win a free ticket to ride again. When I was a kid, I was terrified of reaching up to grab the ring and falling off of my horse. So, I took the plunge, or the reach and......I got it!! I couldn't believe it! On my first try, I got the brass ring!! I was very excited, as you can see from the photo. :)

Maggie loves the carousel and the only reason she got off was because we were leaving to go on the train at the park. This was another thing that I loved when I was a kid. Of course, the seats have gotten a lot smaller than they were when I was little. Or could they be the same and I'm not so little. NAH! If we would have let her, Maggie would have gone around and around the train all night. Alas, Mark and I had already purchased Weird Al tickets for our nephew and had to leave for the San Diego County Fair.

This is Maggie and her cousins, Cameron, 13, Blake, 6 and Kayla, 5. We took Cameron to see Weird Al. We all had a great time. Cam even talked Mark into going onto a few "fun" fair rides. :) Uncle Mark is SO cool! :) hahaha

Balboa Park and The Zoo (Pt One)

On Monday, during our vacation, we went to The San Diego Zoo at Balboa Park. My dad took the day off from work and we made it into a real family trip. We started off our zoo trip by taking the tour bus in the park that hits the main parts of the zoo. It was fun to pass Maggie back and forth between ourselves and my parents to see the animals.

When we got off the bus, we took Maggie into the Children's Zoo, so she could pet some animals. We were a bit disappointed when they only had goats available, but Maggie didn't know any different, so I guess that's okay.

After walking around a bit, my parents decided they had had enough walking (if you ever go, prepare to walk...a lot!!!) and they waited for us up at the Merry-Go-Round outside the park. Mark and I took Maggie on the sky buckets to go see the polar bears, which are a must-see at the zoo. Walking into the exhibit, you could sense the polar bears were having fun, because the viewing area was packed with on-lookers. The bears were definitely putting on a show, playing with their toys and rolling around in the water.

Vacation To San Diego

This is Mark, Maggie and my brother, Neil

Late in June, we took a real family vacation ( our first, I believe) to San Diego to visit our family. Mark has a lot of our pictures on his web blog, Dad's Point of View. I didn't think I needed to add the same info onto this blog, but thought I'd fill in some gaps.


First of all, we had the pleasure of staying with my brother Neil and his wife, Liz, the first night in town. They took us to this really fabulous dessert place for dinner, and of course, dessert. The restaurant was called Extraordinary Desserts. I've tried to explain to everyone just how delicious our dinner and dessert was, but really, you HAVE to look at their web site to see for yourselves what I can't explain in words. After searching the menu for something for Maggie, the very helpful, um, waiter/ess, helped us decide on a grilled cheese sandwich. Of course, at this restaurant, it couldn't be just any grilled cheese. It was a smoked mozzerella pannini to be precise. She loved it!! I was glad, because it was probably the most expensive grilled cheese she's ever ordered (and ever will, unless we go back someday...). It was a lot of fun, thanks Neil and Liz for a great night out!

The next day, as you can see on Mark's blog, we went to visit my brother's old fire station on the beach. Maggie really enjoyed driving in the big truck. After the fire station we walked down the boardwalk to get a coffee. Neil and I visited while Mark took Maggie down to the water. It was really nice to see my brother. He and his wife are super busy, so I was glad that we got to spend some time with them.