Fourth of July in San Diego

Many thanks to my friend, Lucy, who taught me how to make a collage and post it on my blog!

As the Fourth of July holiday approached, the temperature in Phoenix increased and the oldest daughter kept begging for someone to come and visit so she wouldn't have to celebrate "alone", my determination to just stay home and accomplish something for a while once again wained.  The oldest son and the daughter-in-law were happy to accompany me to the cooler climes for their celebration and the hubby encouraged me to go and have fun, promising he would find something fun to do on the 4th too.  (He said he was going to climb on the roof and watch the fireworks, which was almost worth sticking around to witness, but he actually went to a barbecue with the extended family and also enjoyed a break from the heat with a morning rain storm and temperatures in the 90s.)

Those of us in San Diego had a fun-filled day

which started with a 7:57 AM ward breakfast of pancakes, hash browns, bacon, sausage, orange juice and a stirring reading of the Declaration of Independence complete with signers' names and state of residence.  I am truly grateful for the founding fathers and the many sacrifices they made so I could live in this free country and agree that they should be recognized, especially on this day, but I felt bad for the boy scout who had to cook a ton of pancakes and then got recitation duty as well.

The oldest daughter, the grandson and I, along with the young women of the ward and their leaders, gathered last night to make decorations for the breakfast.  The daughter was in charge of pin wheel production and she did a fine job.

I was in charge of potty runs with the 2-year-old and he and I excelled at our responsibilities as well.  We were also excellent cookie and cupcake tasters.

After the breakfast we went home and focused on completing the daughter's patriotic wreath for her front door.  She glued,

while I pinned,

and the oldest son tried to keep the grandson entertained, with some wild chair spinning, so he wouldn't continually steal the spool of wire and unwind it all over the backyard.

His attempts worked a small portion of the time, but eventually the wreath was finished and placed in its official home.

Good job daughter!

After lunch some of us had rest time

and some of us went shopping at the Avenue "store closing sale" where we found lots of bargains.

We had a wonderful barbecue for dinner. The oldest son grilled the hamburgers to perfection and the corn on the cob tasted just like it should on the 4th of July, and then we each made our own personal patriotic fruit tarts

and gobbled them down. YUMMY!

This was followed by some quality time spent taking Fourth of July photos of the grandson.

Which he didn't think was nearly as fun as we did.  He did enjoy having his own opportunity to take pictures though

and pretend bull fighting with his uncle.

I'm glad he did cooperate for a while, because I like to have cute pictures of him to enjoy.

The daughter also made this cute quilt that you see in all of these pictures.  Didn't she do a good job?

We discussed going into San Diego to watch the fireworks over the bay, but decided we didn't feel like fighting the crowds and waiting for hours with the 2-year-old. We voted to stay home and take our chances that we could see the local display out the daughter's bedroom window.  

There were a couple of trees that got in the way of some of the blasts,

but over-all I really enjoyed reclining on the bed and watching the fireworks as the grandson danced around exclaiming with excitement.

It was a good thing we chose not to attend the big city show because they had a computer malfunction and the fireworks all shot off at the same time resulting in a huge display that  lasted approximately 9 seconds.

The son-in-law did his celebrating in Hawaii, the youngest son worked and then shot off fireworks at the park with his friends (and possibly the police), and the youngest daughter went to the rodeo and firework show in Idaho.  Hopefully they all had as much fun as I did!

Today I am thankful for

my American citizenship.
Freedom.
and the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Delaware George Read• Caesar Rodney• Thomas McKean Pennsylvania  George Clymer• Benjamin Franklin• Robert Morris• John Morton• Benjamin Rush• George Ross• James Smith• James Wilson• George Taylor  Massachusetts John Adams• Samuel Adams• John Hancock• Robert Treat Paine• Elbridge Gerry New Hampshire Josiah Bartlett• William Whipple• Matthew Thornton Rhode Island Stephen Hopkins• William Ellery New York Lewis Morris• Philip Livingston• Francis Lewis• William Floyd Georgia Button Gwinnett• Lyman Hall• George Walton Virginia Richard Henry Lee• Francis Lightfoot Lee• Carter Braxton• Benjamin Harrison• Thomas Jefferson• George Wythe• Thomas Nelson, Jr. North Carolina William Hooper• John Penn• Joseph Hewes South Carolina Edward Rutledge• Arthur Middleton• Thomas Lynch, Jr.• Thomas Heyward, Jr. New Jersey Abraham Clark• John Hart• Francis Hopkinson• Richard Stockton• John Witherspoon Connecticut Samuel Huntington• Roger Sherman• William Williams• Oliver Wolcott Maryland Charles Carroll• Samuel Chase• Thomas Stone• William Paca

Strawberries

The grandson is a big fan of strawberries. At dinner tonight we had strawberry spinach salad. Yum! The grandson decided he preferred his strawberries straight from the package without all the embellishments.  He started saying straw-ber-ries over and over again as he ate them one by one. It was so funny the way he was saying it, with his tongue wiggling all over his face, so I decided to make a video of him. Of course, then he just started being silly, but I love the surprise ending of this little movie.

Last month when my sisters and I rendezvoused in San Diego for a week, the woman in charge of restocking our breakfast each morning at the motel was very friendly and told us she was going to Carlsbad to pick strawberries for her anniversary.  Since we were planning a trip to Carlsbad too, we decided that sounded like a fun adventure.  The daughter, the son-in-law and the grandson accompanied us to the strawberry fields.  We (read Kathy) paid a premium price for the berries and the experience, but it was fun.

Carlsbad Strawberry Fields - April 20, 2012

and we picked some very, very delicious strawberries that the grandson called pineapple about half the time.

La Jolla Cove

On Sunday when I was telling one of my friends that I had decided to go to San Diego she asked me what fun things I was planning to do. I told her I really wanted to go to the beach and see a whale, since this is whale watching season. It seems like even though I have been to San Diego a lot in the past 6 months I haven't made it to the beach very often, so that seemed like a good goal.

Well, Monday it was rainy and cold and Tuesday it wasn't really raining but it was wet and cold. That left today for our beach excursion. The oldest daughter, the son-in-law and the grandson had been to LaJolla Cove and seen lots of seals so the youngest son wanted to go there. I thought that was as good a beach as any and so off we went.

When we got to the beach the oldest daughter did a fabulous job parallel parking on Coast Blvd. (even though she swore she couldn't do it and got a little freaked out) and we were off to see some sea life.

We watched this group of seals and sea lions from the cliff above the Children's Pool for a while.


It was fun to watch them flop through the sand, swim in the surf and to see the mamas taking such good care of their babies.

Then we decided to move on and see what else we could find. We saw a beach with a few animals and people up quite close to them so we headed down the stairs for a gander.

The seals and sea lions seemed completely at ease with us checking them out. We got close enough to take a couple of pictures and then moved up the beach to let the grandson play with his sand toys.



and to take a few pictures of ourselves.

While we enjoyed the beach, people continued to move up close and watch the seals and sea lions. All of the sudden we heard a voice from the cliff above us, "Ladies and Gentlemen! Please move away from the seals.You are too close. Please move away from the animals."

Everyone looked around to see who was speaking. When it was discovered that the spokesperson was just a regular lady and not someone in authority, everyone kind of just went back to what they were doing.

Apparently, this was not the desired response and the woman decided to get closer to the offenders. She climbed the fence and rushed out to the edge of the cliff above the animals and once again began loudly urging the people to leave. She yelled, she cussed, she stomped her feet and ranted. I thought she was pretty scary and so did the sea lions and seals because all of the sudden they began to look concerned and agitated where before they were quite peaceful. The woman continued to carry on and other people decided to yell back at her. She took pictures of the "criminals" and they took pictures of her. She never aimed her camera as far over as we were, so apparently we weren't on her list of "stupid, idiotic, humans".

I thought it was interesting that this individual sincerely cared about the wildlife and really wanted them to be safe, but in her zealous display she probably caused more harm than good. The mommy seals only felt endangered after she appeared on the scene.

Sometimes I think I do the same thing. With the best of intentions, I rush in and try to enforce my will on a situation and often I end up making things worse. Maybe I can remember this experience next time I want to jump in and "fix" something. Evaluate if it really needs to be fixed and if it does, thoughtfully figure out the best way to handle it, hopefully without raising my voice.

When the excitement died down we climbed back up the stairs and headed over to La Jolla Cove. On the way we saw lots of ground squirrels eating the flowers. They were pretty cute.

The grandson liked to tell them "GRR..." and watch them run. He thought it was so fun until one of them ran down the edge of the cliff out of sight. Then he was really worried because he thought it had "falled down" into the water.

After we strolled through Scripps Park we stopped to watch a big group of seals and sea lions sunning on the cliffs above the cove. As the tide rolled in the waves would come up and splash over them, but they didn't seem to be bothered. We decided these were the anti social animals of the area because their cliffs were pretty inaccessible to the humans.

La Jolla Cove has an underwater ecological area with artificial reefs so apparently it is popular with scuba divers. It was interesting to watch people swim out into the cold ocean to explore. Most of them were clad in wet suits, but one brave soul was wearing nothing but a speedo. Scary!

The grandson got kind of bored of watching the sea life and decided to try his hand at street entertainment. Here he is playing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" on the bench and singing along.

I found him entertaining even if no one else did.

It was a beautiful afternoon and a fun way to end this trip to San Diego.

Can't wait to come back again. Maybe next time I will actually see a whale.

Making Sugar Cookies

Today the oldest daughter and I decided we wanted to make some sugar cookies. The grandson thought it was a great idea.

First we had to make the dough.

We have a favorite sugar cookie recipe that came from our next door neighbor, Kate. Every year we would go to their house and make sugar cookies at Christmas time and this was the recipe that we used.

Holiday Sugar Roll Out Dough

1 ½ cups sifted powdered sugar

1 cup margarine

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

½ tsp almond flavoring

2 ½ cups flour

1 tsp soda

1 tsp cream of tartar

Cream sugar and margarine. Mix in egg and flavorings. Stir dry ingredients together; blend into sugar/margarine mixture. Refrigerate 2 – 3 hours. Heat oven to 375. Bake 7 to 8 minutes.

After the dough sits in the fridge for a couple of hours you need to put a lot of flour on the table where you are going to roll out the cookies.

This is more fun than making the dough.

A lot more fun.

Then you get to cut out the cookie shapes and put them on the pan and cook them.

You have to get really close to make sure the cookies are cool enough to frost and make sure you blow a little if they aren't.

Then you make the frosting.

Icing

1 cup powdered sugar

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp vanilla

Water to make icing consistency.

Try to remember to not add too much water because then you have to add a lot more sugar :).

Then you get to frost your cookie. You have to concentrate really hard and make sure you do a good job.

Then you get to eat your dog bone cookie.

That is the funnest part of all!

We like making sugar cookies!

I Just Can't Seem to Stay Home

Since the day the youngest son moved back to Arizona, about a month ago, he has been wanting to take a trip back to California. I didn't encourage him too much because I thought it wasn't really necessary. When I realized he was going to go whether I encouraged him or not I thought, "that's OK. He can go if he wants to, but I just saw the grandson and the oldest daughter for a week and I don't need to see them again". We are planning a trip to California in March for Spring Break and that isn't that far away. I was decided.

However, as his departure got closer I just couldn't think of a good enough reason to stay home, so I asked him if I could tag along. He was happy for my company, as long as I agreed to pay for some of the gas. So...

Once again I find myself in San Diego and I'm happy to be here.

Who wouldn't be happy to see this cute, smiling face?

Tonight, after the grandson went to bed, we played Scattergories and then the oldest daughter and I put a puzzle together. It is a Dowdle puzzle of San Diego. It was fun to work on and had some interesting details.

The grandson's favorite part was the temple.

I am embarrassed to say my favorite part was the buff surfers.

We had a hard time figuring out why there were legs waving out of the top of one of the buildings, but once we completed the scene and read the words we realized they weren't legs but elephant and giraffe heads poking out of the zoo.

There's lots of exciting things to see and do in San Diego and I'm excited to see and do them for the next few days.

Today I am thankful for

one on one time with the youngest son.

Sunday dinner that I didn't have to make.

an amazing Gospel Doctrine teacher who loves the scriptures and makes me want to love them more.

Major Upgrade

Today one of the items on our to do list was a trip to the grocery store since there wasn't a whole lot to eat in the new house. While traveling through Albertsons, all of the sudden the grandson got really excited and started chanting something over and over again. I stopped to figure out what had gotten his attention and what he was saying. It was pretty obvious that he was intrigued by a balloon flying over one of the checkout counters. It was a Disney Castle complete with princesses.

and the words he was repeating over and over again were "Shad's house, Shad's house!"

Apparently he thinks this new house

is a big improvement over the old, 2 bedroom apartment. Or maybe he just thinks his mom and I resemble some very beautiful young ladies and since we were waving out the windows it must be his house.

Beach???

For the past two years I have spent a week at the beach in June with a few other women. The first year I took my oldest daughter and last year my younger daughter accompanied me. At the end of last year's trip we were informed that the condo that we have stayed in was going to be torn down and replaced with a time share hotel and we would need to find a new place to stay. We were all very heartbroken.

For the past couple of weeks I have heard rumors that the condo is in fact still standing and that a beach trip was being planned. Even though I hadn't been invited I was feeling sad that I had my oldest son's wedding scheduled during "Beach Week" and I wouldn't be able to attend. Today I received a message on my answering machine that the beach trip is on and taking place a week earlier this year (June 6-June 13) and that I am invited to join the fun if I am interested.

Interested??? Why of course I am!

Do you think it's selfish and unrealistic to consider going to the beach the week before my son's wedding? The daughter who's turn it is this year to go thinks it's a marvelous idea. I'm still tossing it back and forth. Decisions, Decisions.