Well we are finally in our spot for the festive
season. The resort has a nice hot tub and small but heated pool. We
have been going every afternoon for a dip. It sure seems weird decorating
for Christmas wearing shorts and having to turn on the air conditioning in the
trailer in the afternoons! I know, a little whiny right! Here is a
picture of Ray resting after decorating all the outside lights wearing the
appropriate attire and drinking the festive eggnog! I have decorated the
"Christmas tree and put up lights inside.
We have been doing a little bit of advance snooping regarding the shopping here as Kristi and Jason are flying in from Saskatoon on the 21st for 5 days. I think they will find lots to spend their Christmas money on. We are going to go to a symphony performance, the San Diego Zoo and a few other highlights during the five days they are here. Will update as I get a chance.
Escondido Christmas Parade
We hurried out the door yesterday morning to get our "prime spot" along the parade route to see the Christmas parade. It lasted 2 1/2 hours, and it was a beautiful morning. Lots of kids in Beavers, Cubs and Scouts, horses and a lot of drill bands and flag girls. There was even the Giza Temple guys with their little cars. Took a few pictures.
 |
| Scooters |
 |
| See the little dog? |
 |
| Baton twirlers |
 |
| Marching bands |
 |
| Police |
 |
| Spanish Ladies |
 |
| Golden Retriever Club |
 |
| The big guy himself, Santa |
December 10th - USS Midway
Today we went to the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier
Museum. Wow! First we stopped for Freya's amazing bucket list
stop... Dog Park .... off-leash, on the water Whoopee!
 |
Here I come Momma.... throw it again and again and again! |
After
she was thoroughly wet and calmed down somewhat, we continued downtown to the
USS Midway Museum which is on Rays must do list. Found a great parking
lot right next door to the ship under a bunch of shade trees for the dog. Ray
and I made our way over to the ship and had an amazing self-tour for an hour
and a half. (They give you a headset and a recorder.) Luckily you can go
in and out as you need. We had to put more $$ in the parking meter so we
left and had lunch at the seafood restaurant right on the water. That was on my
to do list! Fresh seafood, great view and marvelous beer.
 |
| You can see the USS Midway behind me. |
 |
| USS Carl Vincent. This carrier launched the attack that killed Osama Bin Laden. |
After the wonderful lunch Ray went back to the Midway to get the last few pictures. When we were first there in the morning there was school tours so it was hard to see everything then.
 |
That's
an F14 in behind |
 |
Ray the
Air Boss: "Negative Maverick the pattern is full. Now where's my
coffee". |
 |
Huey
Attack Heli from Vietnam era |
 |
"No Deb that's not Tom Cruise." |
 |
 |
| What do you think? lol |
A great
day was had by all! Especially when Kristi just called and it's -34C and
snowing in Saskatoon and Dad reports it's 2C in White Rock.
December 15th - Del Mar to La Jolla
The weather finally broke so we decided to take a
short trip down the coast to Del Mar and La Jolla. Beautiful beaches,
even some for Freya. She had a blast at the Del Mar dog beach. Dad
did you see all the other dogs! Wahoo! ( Sorry for the following picture
quality but my "new" instant camera takes fuzzy pictures).
We then
drove down to La Jolla following the coast. Beautiful beaches. We
saw a lot of wind surfers up and down the coast but as we were driving no
pictures.
For
lunch we happened on the "Konos" restaurant we saw in a 15 Travel
Best Bets. It's a small place that serves breakfast all day and usually caters
to all of the surfers, right on the beach. Their daily special today was
a fantastic cheeseburger for $6.95.
 |
Freya
requested a return to Fiesta Island dog park before continuing to the biggest
Christmas Store we have ever seen. Too bad there's no house to decorate
or hurrah we do not need to spend the money. Ray's never seen
so many Xmas villages, talk about drooling over all of the village pieces.
 |
| Polar Express |
They
also sold an extensive outside light displays. Great quality. But
oh dear where would we put it! Anyways a most wonderful day.
We decided to take a little tour of Coronado Island
after having Freya screened for Camp Diggity Dog Daycare. We plan to leave her
for the day on Friday when we pick up Kristi and Jason at the airport in San
Diego and tour a little bit of the city.
We took a stroll through the historic Hotel Del Coronado
(with its iconic red turrets piercing the taut horizontal lines of an azure
California skyline, the Hotel del Coronado radiates with a confidence of
gracious Victorian splendor that is without equal. Built in 1888, this classic beachfront respite near San Diego,
California has long been heralded as one of America’s most beautiful beach
resorts. A pronouncement underscored by its designation as a National Historic
Landmark in 1977.) I stole the wording from the press release!
Anyways, it sure was interesting and reminded us some of the old movies
of the resorts the stars would go to. There have been a lot of
presidents, movie stars and celebrities like Babe Ruth, and Thomas Edison who
have stayed there.
There was even a tree called a "Dragon Tree",
behind me, that was used as a backdrop for the Marilyn Monroe movie "Some
Like It Hot" which was filmed at the Del in 1958.
As we
walked down the path to the beach beside the pool area, we were astonished to
see ice skating!
Turning
to the left it was down to the white sandy beach where this guy was making sand
castles.
This
would be an excellent destination for a Christmas vacation with a
large family, something for everyone. They also had a lot of boutique
stores in the hotel. Kind of reminded me of the movie Pretty Woman.
Ray also took a picture of the wonderful display of Birds
of Paradise that are plentiful all around San Diego.
We opted
not to stay for their Sunday Brunch at $78.50 a person and headed a short
distance over the Coronado Bridge to the Gaslamp Historical District and had
lunch at the Croce Restaurant and Jazz Bar. This property Jim Croce and
his wife were looking at purchasing before he died and his wife Inga decided to
go ahead and open the restaurant and jazz bar with live entertainment as they
had planned. We enjoyed eating on the outside patio listening to a live jazz
player just inside the door. Awesome.
 |
| This restaurant was featured on the Canadian Travel Channel, one of the 15 best bets in San Diego! |
It has been a very busy week. Kristi and Jason arrived at 12:30 pm on December 21 so the touring began! We started off with lunch at the Fish Market on the harbour. It was not as sunny as we would have liked but the weather was about 17 C and since they came from -27 C they were not complaining.
We called it a night/day, picked up Freya and headed to Escondido where the trailer is. Kristi and Jason were quite tired as they are 2 hours ahead of us in Saskatchewan so we all had an early night.
December 22nd
It was off to Carlsbad Outlet Mall after a quick stop at the Men's Wearhouse in Escondido for suits for Jason. The outside mall was surprisingly calm with everyone moving through nicely ... no crowded stores, just busy. Everything was up to 70% off for name brand clothes, shoes and purses etc. Jason and Kristi were in heaven. Ray and I just trotted along behind.
Kristi
and I shared a burger at Ruby's Diner - notice we are sitting outside and
Kristi is in a short sleeve shirt! Ray and Jason ate at a Japanese Place.
Great food, good company and lovely weather, what more could we ask for.
Made a turkey roll for dinner with all of the fixin's. While it was baking we
all headed down to the hot tub for half an hour. That sure helped with
the sore feet and backs!
December 23 - Temecula Wine Tour
We headed 30 minutes north to Temecula for wine country. Along the freeway you could really tell we were back in desert-like topography
We
started out early.... 9am. Had to see this early as we had tickets to the
the San Diego Symphony Holiday Pops concert later today after dinner located
right downtown San Diego.
Stopped by an orange orchard to show Kristi and Jason and Grandma was there too!
We
headed back home for lunch. Spent a quiet afternoon and ate dinner at the
RV resort Clubhouse that was free for all of the campers. Ray was under
the weather with a stomach ailment that lasted 24 hours so was unable to attend
the symphony with us. I drove the kids and myself downtown for the
concert. With the help of the GPS, a great backseat driver Kristi and a
very alert co-pilot, Jason we managed to arrive at our destination without
incident even though it was raining. (The freeway into town is 8 lanes
wide and 65 miles per hour.) The concert was amazing. They played
all of the traditional carols that we all grew up on with a few twists. They
also had the Master Choir and a Children's Choir. Kristi said that it was
the concert that she always wanted to see but had never managed to until now.
Even Jason was heard to sing a little in the sing along sections!
Christmas
Eve day turned out to be very rainy so plans were cancelled to go to the San
Diego Zoo. We were sure that even the animals would be hiding out from
the rain. We did a little shopping for booze for Kristi and Jason to take
home, took the dog to the dog park in the afternoon since the rain had stopped
and enjoyed a nice ham and scallop potato dinner that I managed to
"throw" together. As the day had brightened up we sat outside
for a couple of hours with the propane campfire enjoying the Christmas lights
that we had strung up. That was on Jason's wish list as being outside at
this time of year in Saskatoon is not an option unless you are walking very
fast with the dogs!
Christmas morning dawned sunny. We started the morning with "special coffee" and opened up the few presents we had accumulated.
Next off to the hot tub with mimosas in our stainless coffee mugs! What a way to start off Christmas Day.
Everyone had a shower so that helped with the
one small bathroom situation in the trailer! After a ham and egg
breakfast we were well-fueled to start our day. We took a leisurely trip
up the coast so that Kristi could see the Pacific Ocean. Freya was happy
for the walk too. We stopped at San Clemente, where my cousin Gord
McCormack used to live and he had mentioned to me to see the lovely beaches. It
was absolutely gorgeous.
Our
Christmas Dinner was at the Medieval Times Dinner Theater which was on
Jason's must do list.
 |
This was
our knight, the black and white knight. He lost! |
 |
| The King and Princess |
Recognize
this King and Queen? (above)
Oh look
Grandma was there too! (below)
 |
There's
Grandma again. She really is having a great time! |
There
was also a falconry display. This bird flew about a foot above our heads
as it flew around the stadium. It was pretty cool.
Thank
you Grandma for bringing your kids! They were great guests! Hope
you had a great time.
We all
had a fantastic time, and created great memories. What a visit! The
kids flew out at around noon today, heading back to Saskatoon with
well laden luggage.
Took a couple of days to rest and tidy. Tons of
laundry and unfortunately everyone else had the same plan so it was a much
longer project than I had anticipated. Oh well, the hot tub was awesome
in the late afternoon as payment. Yesterday, Friday, we took a tour of Balboa
Park and a few museums. What a beautiful park and to be so close to
downtown San Diego. Here are a few photos.
Balboa Park contains seventeen museums, we chose to see three. The Air and Space Museum, Model Train Museum and Human History.
After
walking around a few museums we decided it was time for lunch and chose a restaurant
from the "Diners Drive-Ins and Dives books that we have. Hob Nob
Restaurant famous for Lamb Shanks. Boy were they great.
