Goodbye San Diego!

Our last day in San Diego turned out to be a day spent in airports. Our flight out wasn't until 2:30 but we were told all the flights were overbooked & people were being bumped. Off to the airport we went at 11:00. Remember here when I talked about packing?  On the trip home I wanted a light carry on so I put as much stuff as I could in my big suitcase. They didn't weigh it on the flight to San Diego so I didn't think there was anything to worry about. Well, I thought wrong.

50 pounds is the limit. Lucky for me the airline peeps said it was ok. Otherwise I was about to start digging stuff out to put in Lydia's suitcase. As usual I overpacked. It's really ridiculous the stuff I bring "in case". We were able to check in so we were good to go. We ate lunch & then found these great rocking chairs.

 I've never seen rockers at an airport. They were also right next to an outlet so we were able to charge our phones & play Words With Friends while we rocked.

The week we were in San Diego, the NFL had their Rookie Symposium where they teach the guys how to transition in & out of the league. Needless to say NFL players were everywhere & the majority of them seemed to be on our flight. I was crossing my fingers that I wouldn't have a big lineman next to me. Those plane seats are small & I didn't want to be crammed up next to someone I didn't know. I'm funny about that stuff.  Lucky for me this was the guy I got.

I know it's not a great picture but I was trying to be discreet. His name is Riley Cooper & he was Tim Tebow's roommate & one of the Wide Receivers at Florida. He'll be playing for the Philadelphia Eagles. He was very nice.

Then we got to Dallas & that's where all the problems started. Between the time the Pilot announced which gate we needed to go to & getting off the plane, the gate changed. That was the first of either 5 or 6 gate changes. I lost count. Everytime we got to the correct gate they were changing it. We ate at Chili's & then proceeded to go to yet another gate. Somewhere during all the gate changing the flight was also delayed. NOW we have a problem. We were scheduled to get to Baton Rouge at 10:05 pm. I was scheduled to go to work the next day. I am a MAWMAW. I need a MINIMUM of 8 hours of sleep. When I don't have it, I'm cranky, have a headache & my stomach usually hurts. Combine all that with actually being at work & we're talking EPIC FAIL!! Thank you American Airlines. Everytime I looked at the screen or heard an announcement I was scared it was going to be another delay. Luckily, it didn't happen & we got to Baton Rouge at 11:10. I think I was asleep for 1:00. I slept until 6:00 & pony tailed it to work. It wasn't a good day.

And THAT was our San Diego trip!!!

Toodles

San Diego Tuesday

Yes I realize that I've been home from San Diego for almost two weeks. I'm almost finished wrapping up. Tuesday I hung out with Laura, Lydia's boss' daughter. We went back to Seaport Village to ride the Seal. When I posted that on Facebook it created a lot of confusion. Apparently, some people thought I was literally riding a Seal. These are people that know me well. I have no idea what they were thinking.  I guess they thought it was some sort of swim with the seals like you do with the dolphins. Anyway, this is the seal I was riding.

It was fun! We got to see all sorts of stuff.

It didn't smell very good out here. Those boxes the birds are standing on are "bait boxes" & it's full of fish. My favorite part of the tour was this.

I loved seeing all of the sea lions. They were so fun to watch. This one was putting on a show for us. He jumped on & off of the buoy. That black looking thing in the right corner is another one that was swimming around. They're very graceful! A lot of them appeared to be very lazy. Like these.

They just laid there using each other as pillows. I learned something on the tour too. The reason that these are light colored is because they're dry. They have some sort of oil like substance on them & when it dries they're light. These two were having a big conversation. See they have their mouths open?

I wonder what they were saying??

More birds. They were everywhere!

 I know this picture looks black  & white but it only looks that way because it was so cloudy.

There was a boat having an issue with these guys.

That would be a gun strapped to his leg.

Once we got back to Seaport Village we had lunch at a cute little restaurant called Edgewater. The one problem I found with San Diego is the lack of Dr. Pepper. Nobody had it. At this particular restaurant I ordered unsweet tea. I always order it unsweetened & add Splenda. Well, I should've had my camera ready because the waitress looked at me like I'd lost my mind. Apparently, the South is the only place that drinks sweet tea. Oh well. I got my tea, filled it up with Splenda & was happy!

After lunch we took the ferry to Coronado Island. This was the view of the Convention Center & downtown from the Island.

I was a little disappointed that this was the only beach I saw the entire trip.

Apparently, we should've taken a taxi or something to another part of the island & we would've seen the Pacific Ocean. The island was bigger than what I thought & I didn't realize people lived there but it was a little city. There were some shops & restuarants at the ferry landing. As we were walking around we saw this outside of a little museum.

I love Dr. Seuss. I think his books are so funny! We went in & looked around.

There was a whole little Dr. Seuss section.

Then we decided it was time for a snack. There was a little cupcake place that we thought about. There was a Cold Stone on the island!! I was really excited! While we were waiting these guys joined us.

I'm so not a fan of birds. At least not this kind that are everywhere. While we were walking around we found a little place that rents bikes  & things. We decided to do this.

Y'all can stop laughing now. It was fun but harder than I expected. I have a whole new appreciation for the Pedi Cab Driver/Pedalers. We had 2 people pedaling this thing & it wasn't easy. I was the official "driver" which meant I did the steering. I did fine. There may be a curb or some bushes that would dispute that but nobody was hurt. We thought for a minute or two about riding over to the other side of the island but after a bit we realized that 30 mins. on this thing was going to be more than enough. We did have a little incident. We thought we were in the right place when a man very rudely said that we weren't supposed to be on the sidewalk. Well, we'd just seen a sign that said "Bike Path" so we told him & he snippely (that's probably not a word) pointed us to the bike path. I didn't say anything but I wanted to tell him "I'm from Louisiana & we don't have bike paths because it's too freakin' hot to go outside!" I bit my tongue. The bike path turned out to be between a lane of traffic on a busy road & the lane where cars parallel park.

Not to mention the fact that the bike lane just ends. Yes ENDS. We were approaching a red light & boom, no bike path! I had to make a left turn across traffic. That was no easy feat. I don't even like making left turns when I'm in a car.

After our little ride we headed back to the city. Lydia & I had tickets to the Padres game Tuesday night. We had soooo much fun! The Concierge was able to get us great seats! We were 7 rows behind the visitors dugout. The Padres were playing the Rockies.

Tony Gwynn Jr. was just called out at home. See how good the seats were!

The only former Tiger on the teams was Brad Hawpe. This was the only glimpse we got of him. He was hurt & also didn't play because of the whole righty lefty thing.

We walked back to the hotel & decided to have a snack on the walk back. We spotted a Ghirardelli Ice Cream Parlor in the Gas Lamp District.

I had a chocolate shake & Lydia had a banana split sundae. It was sooooo good!!!! Okay, enough of that. It's making me hungry.

That was all for Tuesday. Good thing cause this is probably the longest post in the history of the world! Slowly but surely I'm catching up!

Toodles!

San Diego - Part Deux

I left off on Sunday. Lydia & I decided on "Little Italy" for dinner. These little things were all over the place. They call themselves "Pedi Cabs".

We decide to use this mode of transportation. That proved to be not such a wise move. We got in/on & were about 6 feet away from the hotel & Lydia was talking to Scott when we heard this awful noise that sounded like a gunshot.  

Scott even heard it on the phone. We had a blowout!! Nothing to fear! There was another pedi cab right there to pick us up. The only problem was that he didn't have any idea where Little Italy was. I thought that was really strange. We decided to walk. We ate at a delicious little Italian restaurant & had some wine.

For dessert we stopped at Yogurtland. It's one of those places like Menchies & Boscos where you go in & fix your own yogurt & put whatever toppings you want. It doesn't matter if I have yogurt or ice cream I put Reeses peanut butter cups on it. When I saw these I got a little giddy!

They're so tiny! I'd never seen these before. They were about the size of chocolate chips & were perfection in my yogurt! These were our creations.

Something I haven't mentioned is how dog friendly San Diego is. When we were out walking around, everywhere you looked someone had a dog on a leash. On the patio's of restaurants, in the hotels & yes, even at Yogurtland.

They were all really well behaved. They didn't bark or beg for food. It was weird. On our walk back to the hotel we spotted this.

We thought it was odd for the Mexican Consulate to be in Little Italy.

Toodles!!

San Diego - Part One

We left Baton Rouge & had a layover in Dallas then on to San Diego. All my worrying over the weight of my suitcase was for naught. They didn't even weigh it! Luckily, the flight was uneventful. When we arrived in San Diego we took a shuttle to the hotel & got checked in. We stayed at the Westin. It was really nice. We were going on the "Sight & Sip Sunset Cruise" that evening so we headed over to the convention center to pick up our tickets. Lydia was able to check in for her conference as well. At this point I found out about the free shuttle provided by the conference. It went back & forth from the hotels in the area to the convention center. Due to my lack of sense of direction, this came in handy for me. We headed back to the hotel & changed clothes & then we were off.

When we saw this yacht we were very excited!

Then we were told that wasn't our yacht. This was.

It would've looked really great if it hadn't been parked next to the other one. It was nice enough but not really what I was thinking when "they" said "luxury yacht".  We had drinks & ate a little.

We weren't really impressed with the shrimp. See how small? Definitely not what we're usd to. It looks like it was probably shrimp out of a can. I guess we shouldn't complain considering that may be the only kind of shrimp we get if they don't get the oil spill under control.

This is the USS Midway. It's a Navy aircraft carrier. It's available to tour but I passed on that.

I have a story about this. When I was like 4, my daddy brought me to the movies & what did we see?? Midway! Charlton Heston starred in it & it was something like a 4 hr. movie. I sat through the entire thing. What a perfect child I was!!

Here's Lydia & I.

Notice how not sunny it is? Yeh, so much for the sunset cruise. There was no sun to set. We had fun but it was a little disappointing. Come to find out, the cloudy, gloomy weather is common for June. The locals call it "June Gloom". Funny, I didn't find any mention of that in all the time I spent on the internet trying to find things to do while in San Diego. Now, the temperature on the other hand, was FABULOUS!!! We actually wore jackets & sweaters a good bit of the time. There was no walking outside feeling like you were slapped in the face with heat & no sweating. 

After the cruise we walked through the Gaslamp Quarter. Like Lydia said, "it's a lot like Bourbon Street without all the strip clubs". It's also much much cleaner!!

Sunday morning we went to Seaport Village. This is a little area full of shops & restaurants. It's on the bay & is a really cute area. Lydia & I walked around for awhile & then she headed over to the conference. I stayed & hung out.

I've always loved watching ducks. I don't know what it is but they're just fun. See that turtle in the middle picture? Well, I took a few pictures of it & I walked by again later & it was in the same spot & that's when I realized Mr. Turtle wasn't real. Real ducks but a fake turtle? Go figure.

More to come.

Toodles!!

Working on 5 hours of sleep!!

Yep, that's right 5 hours! I'm back from San Diego. I had a great time but I'm exhausted! I was doing fine until we got to Dallas yesterday & had to change gates 5 times & have an hour delay before finallly getting to Baton Rouge at 11:15. Yes, I know an hour delay isn't a major thing BUT when you're me & require a minimum of 8 hours sleep to function getting home at midnight instead of 11:00 isn't fun. Especially when  you have to get up at 5:30 to go to work the next day. I did it, I made it & I don't want to do it again. My eyeballs hurt from having my contacts in so long & my head's been killing me all day. Needless to say I'm in bed & will be asleep shortly. I'll update all about the trip this weekend. We really had fun & I took a lot of pictures.

Toodles for now!

Down In The Count!

In 4 days Lydia & I will be in San Diego. Dean told me that he checked out the weather & the forecast says it will be in the 60's the entire time we're there. Great! Sort of. I'm not complaining about the weather. It will be really nice to get away from the hellish heat we're having here. HOWEVER, I don't know how to pack for that kind of weather. Dean said it will be perfect & he doesn't understand the problem. APPARENTLY, he's forgotten that we live in Louisiana. We don't have perfect weather EVER. How should I know how to pack for it when I don't even know how to dress for it?? It's either cold, freakishly cold or freakishly hot with more humidity than should be allowed. I guess I'll just pack a bunch of stuff that I can layer. I just don't want to exceed the weight limit for luggage & be forced to pay more than I'm already paying to check a bag. With all the new fees, gone are the days of bringing 32 tops on a trip! In my defense it was a trip to Omaha for the College World Series & we didn't know if we'd be there 3 days or 10. Of course being the optimist that I was back then (YES Vicki, we really were that good!!) I was packing for 10 days. It's a good thing because LSU was there the entire time & won the National Championship & I wore 31 tops!!

Update on the McDreamy front. I still haven't seen him. I've got more conflicting information as to where he's living while he's in town. My sources tell me that he either bikes or runs the LSU lakes everyday. No, I haven't been out there. Remember hellish heat? Too much humidity? Yeh, I'm not willing to go out there without a guarantee that I'll see him. Not to mention if I were to see him & get lucky enough to take a picture with him, I'd look horrendous because of the aforementioned heat. Seriously, yesterday I started sweating walking from my door to my truck at 7:00 am. Which is all of about 15 steps! Anyway, after checking out some tweets & doing some stalking detective work, I discovered an hour after that he had lunch at Zoe's Kitchen today. Now, if I could only figure out where he's going before he gets there we'd be in business.

Toodles!

The Countdown Begins.....

I'm glad we didn't have a lot of plans this weekend because we ended up really busy Saturday. I had my hair cut & highlighted Saturday morning & then I stopped at my parents to visit & have lunch. We had Sonic. It was soooooo goood! I love Sonic but there's not one close to my house so it was a lovely treat! I went home & Dean's cousins Cassie, Cody, Emma, Leslie, Cory & Sam were there swimming. Isn't Sam cute?

Her first birthday was Friday. Here she is with her mama, Leslie, opening her gift. I just realized I didn't get a picture of the gift. It was a cute little swimsuit.

  

Emma's 2nd birthday was Monday. Here she is with her mama, Cassie, opening her gift. It was a cute little pink dress/swimsuit coverup.

This was the best we could get of Emma with her big brother Cody. It's still cute!

After they left I got in the pool. I wasn't in long when my neighbor stuck her head over the fence (we do a lot of communicating this way!) to see if I wanted to join her & Suzy (another neighbor) for a pedicure. Of course I'd just dunked my head under water so I had soaking wet hair. Oh well, I put on a hat. So, in the last two weeks, I've gone to Hooters for lunch with NO makeup on. We did that after the garage sale a few weeks ago. Everyone was starving & didn't feel like taking time to "get dressed". Anyway, so I did that & I went to the nail salon with a wet head. I can't figure out if I'm just getting too old to care or I'm just that lazy. The pedicure was very relaxing. We were also very excited to see it storm while we were there. We haven't had a drop of rain in a week & the pool water is ridiculously hot! The rain cooled it off a bit.

Once the pedicures were done we all went home to get dressed because we were going to neighbor Suzy's for a dinner party. When I left for my hair appt. I thought the dinner party may be at my house because Suzy's AC went out & she didn't know when the repairman would make it there. It all worked out though. The AC was fixed, dinner was delicious & the company was delightful.

Today has been a very relaxing day. I went to Ross. I haven't been there in awhile. I always forget about it so I decided to go check things out. I thought about while reading blogs. One of the ladies found some cute stuff there. Dean was cutting grass so off I went. I found a shirt for $5. It's nothing special, just like a pull over type thing but hey it was $5. I can always use an off white top. Then I found this.

 

I LOVE it! The best part? It was $5!!! I haven't decided where I'll put him but it will be somewhere out by the pool.

My countdown has started. In 6 days, I'll be in SAN DIEGO!!!! I can't wait. Lydia & I leave Saturday morning!! She's not nearly as excited as I am being that she has to leave little Logan. I'm sure she'll manage to have a little fun!

Toodles!

Happy Good Friday!!

I'm sure most of you have the day off. Unfortunately, I don't. One bad thing about working for a newspaper is the lack of holidays. Newspapers don't close so I don't get many. Oh well. I have a job. Although, it was rather hard to get up this morning while Dean was still sleeping. See this little thing.

Yeh, it's a battery & thanks to it I did not get a good nights sleep.  At midnight I woke up to a very distinct beeping sound. The smoke detector needs a new battery apparently. I couldn't believe Dean was sleeping through it. I'm the one that can sleep through anything. Why didn't I wake him up? Well, I really figured it needed some weird battery that we didn't have & I didn't know what he'd do about it so I figured I'd let him sleep as long as he could. I put a pillow over my head & attempted to go back to sleep. I could still hear the beep but the pillow made it not so shrill. SURELY, Dean's going to wake up soon. He didn't. I finally fell asleep. I woke up again (I don't know what time it was) & didn't hear the beeping but was too afraid to take the pillow off my head for fear it really was still beeping & I just wasn't awake enough yet to realize it. At 5:30 when it was time to get up I told Dean about the beeping. He said he got up at 3:30 & changed the battery. He slept through the beeping for 3 HOURS!!!! Unbelievable!!! At least I didn't wake up when he was chaning it! Why is it that the batteries always go dead in the middle of the night? When we were in Vegas we got a call from the security co. saying that our alarm battery was going dead. That call came at 2:00 am Vegas time. Does this happen to anyone else or is this another one of those things that only happens to me????

I didn't do the Wii last night & I didn't go walking or biking. I did work in the yard. I didn't do a whole lot but I pulled weeds which requires me to a lot of squatting. When I was done I felt like I'd done about a million squats. I can feel it today too. That's a good thing right? This means I've done some sort of physical activity every day since Sat. except Tues. when I did nothing buy lay on the sofa!! I was planning to still go for a walk but after the yardwork I was too busy booking my flight! What flight you ask?? I'm going to SAN DIEGO!!!!  Wooo Hooooo!!! Soooo excited!!!!

I'll back up. Yesterday, sis-in-law Lydia was telling me that she was chosen to go to a Convention for work in San Diego in June & I mentioned how nice that would be & she invited me to come along. Woo Hoo!!!! I'll be hanging out by myself some but I'll have time to hang out with Lydia too. It's a great opportunity to visit a place I've never been & I won't have to pay for a hotel room! This is where we're staying.

Looks nice huh? I booked the flight last night. We leave June 26th & come back on the 30th. Lydia isn't nearly as excited as I am because this means she has to leave little Logan. It'll be my job to keep her mind off of that. If anyone's been there & there are any must do's or must eats, let me know!!

Toodles!!!