La Jolla GeTaWaY

Eric is such a sweetheart! He surprised me with a late anniversary weekend to La Jolla. He arranged having his parents watch the kids and planned the whole trip without my knowledge (or help). He even made sure my friends either cancelled any plans we had or had them discourage me from participating in any planned events. They were all superb secret keepers. I was quite impressed.

After dropping the kiddos off on Friday afternoon we headed down south. I had no idea exactly where we were going, so when we pulled in to the Hilton Torrey Pines my jaw nearly hit the floor.

This is the aerial view of the hotel that includes a section of the golf course. No, I wasn't in a helicopter (thank you world wide web!) Yes, the famous golf course where Tiger Woods just won the US Open championship. It was pretty amazing.

We got settled in our room (which was luxurious), then headed down to the hotel restaurant for dinner. The food was delicious - we both had steak - but seemed a bit pricey for the amount of food we ended up with. The dessert was AWESOME. I think that's a first for describing food in such a way, but it was really good. Creme bruele...Yum. We almost ordered another bowl but the calories were already racking up in my brain.

Of course I didn't think that it would be cold in August, so we had to visit several stores that evening in search of a sweatshirt/jacket/whatever to keep me warm. After a failed trip to Walmart & Target we hit the jackpot at Marshall's (of all places). You'd think I'd learn that it's ALWAYS colder on the coast than inland at our house regardless of the time of year. A similar thing happened while I was pregnant...tsk tsk. Upon returning to the hotel, we stole a dip in the jacuzzi. We'd almost forgotten what it was like to relax...almost.

I have to apologize for the poor photo quality from here on out. I forgot our camera so we had to resort to the camera on Eric's cell phone. Except for some lighting issues, they didn't turn out half bad...

Saturday morning we headed out bright & early (after 9:30 a.m.) for breakfast. We walked around downtown La Jolla and found this great place called The Brockton Villa. We were seated immediately and had fabulous service.

I LOVED my breakfast so much I took one of the complimentary recipe cards. This is one I'll definitely make on my own. Some of the ingredients sound a bit odd for French Toast, but it works...trust me.

After breakfast we decided to spend a few hours at the beach. We huffed it down this HUGE cliff to Torrey Pines. The view from the top was gorgeous. Eric was brave enough to go to the very edge of this point for his picture while I was quite content with my "close-up."

As I've gotten older my appreciation for swimming in the ocean has wanned. But even I couldn't resist the beckoning call of the water. After Eric assured me the water was warm, I bit the bullet and went in. It was warm...certainly warmer than the water had been in San Clemente over the fourth of July, but not like bathwater warm. I enjoyed a nice half-hour in the water before retreating to my towel for some much needed sunbathing. Eric must have spent 3 hours in the water riding all the waves he could.

The view & the path

When we finally called it a day, was wheezed our way back up the cliff to our car. Once back at the hotel we realized something awful had happend...

SUNBURN!!!

Thankfully mine wasn't too bad, but Eric's was downright horrendous. His chest, shoulders and back looked like a lobster. Thankfully the hotel guest shop had overpriced aloe vera and other sunburn remedies available. BUT, none of it worked. Eric was in so much pain he started searching the web for other remedies that might ease some, if not all, of his anguish. Enter our second trip to Target in search of a "black tea, preferrably Earl Grey." Of course there was no EG so we had to settle for the store brand black tea. I had never heard of this particular sunburn relief, but Eric was desperate enough to try it and found hundreds of testimonials about its success. He had to make up the tea and dab it all over the burned parts of his body. Weird, I know. He thought it was working initially, but the power of the burn was too much for wimpy black tea. Needless to say, the rest of our weekend could have been ruined, but Eric stuck with it and was a real trooper (sorry, the mom came out in me just now).


My sister, Erin and her fiance, Kenny picked us up and carted us down to Qualcom Stadium for a Chargers pre-season game. This was our first NFL game and were eager to enjoy the experience that is a live sporting event. I thought Angels Stadium was a ZOO. That's NOTHING compared to the chaos we drove in to. The freeway backed up a good 5 miles before the exit so we went in the "back" way. The road leading in to the back entrance was backed up for almost 2 miles. Thankfully we were able to pull into a residential area and park the car. So we huffed it about 2 miles down a massive hill to the stadium thinking how much it was going to suck on the way back up. We got into the stadium and found our seats in the non-alcoholic family section about 4 minutes into the second quarter. We had a great time despite the rowdy Cowboys fans that had to be escorted out for disruptive behavior.

IMPRESSION: I prefer my NFL games on DVR at home. This way you actually see the plays in the game and don't get distracted by EVERYTHING else (and you can fast forward). I was still glad to experience it all in person though. Thanks Erin & Kenny for inviting us!

Sunday morning dawned with Eric in even more pain from his sunburn and sleep deprived as he couldn't lay on the bed. We decided to check out the hotel's breakfast buffet before checking out and heading home. All I can say is DISAPPOINTMENT doesn't adequately describe how let down we were by our dining options. We could have eaten the same things at the Best Western's complimentary continental breakfast bar just a few miles down the road. Oh well, it didn't completely spoil our weekend. Overall, our kid-free GeTaWaY was a success. I'll be planning next year's adventure, so send your suggestions of fabulous places to visit.

Upon returning to Eric's parents' we anticipated the eager squeals of our children wanting to welcome us home. NOPE. Not a chance! They were too preoccupied with their toys and playing with Grandpa. It took them a good ten minutes to realize we were actually there. We could have left them there another few days before they would have missed us. Sigh...

OLDIES, BUT GOODIES

Well, I've been lazy with taking pictures this summer, so I have been at the mercy of all my friends when it comes to photo documentation of some of the things we've done. In all fairness, my two main picture taking friends (Shannon & Wendy) were in the process of moving. So here is the recap of our summer so far. WARNING...it's a bit long.

JUNE

3rd Annual Go-Kart Races

(a tradition started by the Cameron's that we {not necessarily me} WILL carry on)

We had 3 races. I raced in the first heat and got second place (in front of a couple of guys). I think I scared the heck out of them when I took a turn too close and nearly took both of them out in the process of spinning out (sorry John & Dave). But, it worked well enough. I got second place which advanced me to the finals. Eric was in the second heat where he took second place as well. It was a head to head match up in the finals. Not really since Eric finished third and I finished seventh, but I was one of only two girls in the final among 8 guys. After getting bumped around the track in the finals, I am pushing for just one girl's race next year and the guys can do two. NO MORE CO-ED RACES! They're maniacs out there and the girls are dropping like flies. I'll have to start working on my "racing name" for next year.

I should have been a model (yeah, right)

Eric makes this look cool

Our group

Dr. Todd's Residency Graduation Luau

Our good friend, Dr. Todd, finished his residency at the county hospital in Mo Val and his sweet wife, Wendy threw him a luau to celebrate. It was a going away party of sorts too since they moved their family to Texas for a one year fellowship before settling in Montana. We had so much fun eating, socializing, and playing games. Good times with good friends...

Boys -vs- Girls

(not really)

I loved this cake!

It's an arm in a cast.

It wouldn't be a luau without a photo by the tiki man

JULY

GIRL'S NIGHT

Going Away Party for Wendy

Of course we love our friend Wendy so much, we couldn't let her leave us without a big party. We pigged out and enjoyed laughing at each other during karaoke. Thankfully there is only one video recording of that and it's no longer in California. If it shows up on YouTube I'll know exactly who the culprit was! :) The karaoke was fun but we quickly realized that we didn't most of the words to the majority of the songs we wanted to sing. We ended up all singing as a group to the different songs being selected. We gave Wendy a scrapbook with pages of each of our families so she'll NEVER forget us (like that could happen). She cried. And for the record, I actually did a 2 page scrapbook spread. No...pigs were not flying, but it was a worthwhile cause.

Just the girls

FHE at John's Incredible Pizza Factory

We had one final hurrah before the Cameron's moved to Texas. We got together for family night the Monday before they were set to head out of town at John's Incredible Pizza Factory. We had fun chowing down at the buffet and all kids enjoyed having an entire room to eat and have fun in. It was nice. After dinner we took the kids over to the arcade where they had loads of fun and won lots of tickets for prizes.

Enjoying the fine cuisine

These boys LOVE their mom

Good friends

And we haven't even gotten to August. We're staying busy...