San Diego in Pictures

I thought I would just share some of the pictures I took while in San Diego...

I found it challenging to get a really great picture of "The Kiss" the challenge being that they are like 50 feet tall and what I really wanted was an angle that showed their faces...

However, I do think it is the body language that makes this (picture) sculpture so powerful...

I love the couple in the right corner of the picture trying to copy the statue...

They didn't get it, I had to fight the urge to position them just so...

While I have no desire to sail the world aboard a ship I have always loved large sailing ships...

I think they are beautiful!

And I've always wanted to climb the later all the way up to the tippy top...that would be fun!

I always enjoy checking out the architecture in different cities.... 

While I'm generally not a fan of palm trees...

I couldn't help myself and took a few shots of them...

Our hotel was ginormous...

It had two towers and a lovely pool...

Very nice place to stay in...

Especially when it is FREE! :)

The USS Midway is parked in the harbor and is now a museum...

This ship was active in the Persian Gulf War....

It is an aircraft carrier which means its a floating airport...

It's HUGE...

they said 4100 sailors were on it at one time...

A floating city!

Not a perspective you often see... :)

This window with the writing on it is in the control tower...

On it are the names and aircraft as well as destination for each mission...

As soon as one returned it was erased and the new name was written on it...

What I found really interesting about that was the soldier who wrote the information had to write it backwards and quickly since he stood on the opposite side of the glass from the Captain...

It hurts my head to think about it...

I have a soft spot for veterans and I fell in love with this guy...

He gave us a very informative tour of the control tower...

 Apparently the feeling was mutual because he made me captain and I got to sit in the chair!

I've always like the idea of flying in a fighter jet...

I love to go fast...

But I know I would toss my cookies...

It wouldn't be pretty...

The map above is from the Persian Gulf War...

It shows placement of troops and other highly important details...

Very top secret stuff...

This is my attempt to take a picture with my phone while riding a bike...

My goal was to get both of us in the picture and our bikes while not crashing...

Two out of thee aint bad...

I was fascinated by these obscenely expensive yachts...

I can't fathom how much money you would have to have to own, run, maintain one of these...

This one comes with a garage which has not one but two boats parked inside...

Boggles the mind...

Frychik

San Diego - Bike Ride

One of my favorite things to do in a new city is explore it...

but walking is slow which is fine if you are happy with a reasonably small area to explore in...

I really, really wanted to get back over to Coronado which would have been a rather long walk...

So it occurred to me that I could rent a bike for the day, take the ferry over and with ease and speed explore the entire island (actually an isthmus but that's the geography teacher in me coming out) 

So with one of Jeff's Drs wives as my companion we headed out on our super cool cruiser rentals...

On the ferry...

The view of "The Kiss" from the water...

 

San Diego is a really pretty city...

I'm always charmed by cities on/near water and near parks...

Its just the perfect combination for me.

With a quick 10 min ferry ride we were on Coronado...

Which has the harbor side over looking San Diego with a fantastic bike trail along the waters edge...

And not a hill in sight :)

We rode around to the other side where the gorgeous Pacific Ocean was waiting for us...

It was a perfect weather day...

We regretted not packing our swim suits, beach balls and lounge chairs..

But that didn't stop us from kicking our tennies off and frolicking in the surf up to our knees....

My toes are very naked...

Sorry about that....

Sigh...that's where I was a week ago...

I would like to point out the utter absence of fall colors though...

I'm really loving our fall colors...

but more on that in a different post...

So very pretty...

My feet back on the ferry waiting to return to the city...

 

Jeff and I headed out to Old San Diego to a Mexican restaurant that we had enjoyed when we were there in June...

There are train tracks that run right through the middle of downtown on their way to Mexico...

We hopped on one and headed north got off ate yummy food and hopped back on...

 

Then we went and saw Gravity in 3D...

I'm not a 3D fan...

But you MUST see this movie in 3D...

It was a good movie...

However I was STRESSED!!!!!!

Let's just say I have absolutely ruled out Astronaut as future occupation...

Frychik

San Diego - sunsets and kisses

So my big shot husband had a conference in San Diego last week...

I don't have a job...

So naturally I tagged along...

Free hotel...

Free food...

Free time...

Why not!!!!

We left sunny Portland and landed just over 2 hours later in sunny 

San Diego...

I've decided I like San Diego very much...

And that's saying something since I'm in general not a fan of California...

We stayed in the Marriott on the Harbor just across from Coronado Island where we stayed in June... 

I was very hopeful we would get over to Coronado during this visit...

But more on that later...

We arrived in the early evening...

Checked into our hotel and then headed out for a walk and then dinner...

I love landing in a new city and heading out for a walk...

its the best way to figure out how the city works...

It was a beautiful warm evening...

It felt like summer...

All along the harbor is a great walk with parks and shops and ships and views of the city...

I didn't bring my camera along this stroll...

Which turned out to be a HUGE mistake...

This was one of the most beautiful sunsets I have EVER seen!

These pictures were taken with my iphone and I have added some filters...

However, trust me when I tell you that that is pretty much how it looked to us...

It was stunning! The clouds and intensity of the colors was breathtaking... 

and me without my trusty Nikon...grrr

After dinner we walked again...

and we discovered "The Kiss"

This is one of my favorite photographs from LIFE magazine at the end of WWII...

As I understand it a spontaneous kiss between strangers in Times Square just after 

news that WWII was over...

As you can see there is a massive statue of this moment...

It's located in the shadow of the massive USS Midway which we would tour in a few days...

Then we headed back to our nice hotel room...

And we may or may not have kissed...

I'm not telling! :)

Frychik

Things are different around here...

On Saturday my first born child turns 19!
It's very different celebrating a child's 19th birthday than celebrating a child's 1st birthday...



This is his first sugar or at least was supposed to be...we believed it was best to not feed him any sweets his first year of life.  However, his rotten uncle Cary did give him an illegal ice cream cone that summer....Did it have an affect on him? I have no idea...he does have a Massive sweet tooth!

Probably the biggest change is the fact that he isn't here and we won't even see him on his day :(

Which I'm struggling with mightily...and I'm not sure if I'm going to beg my husband to drive to WW for one night, so we can see him.  Normally that wouldn't be a big deal but next week we are flying to San Diego on Sunday morning (which means we would have to drive home late Sat. night after Josh's soccer game which is another reason to go).  We then fly home on Wed and drive to WW Thur. morning for a soccer tournament...



But the facts are that on the day of his birthday Sat Oct 5 we will be here all day with no plans and that just feels wrong!!!!
But what if he ends up with plans all day with his college friends and doesn't really want his mommy and daddy showing up...



I do realize that there is a point in life when you don't see your kiddos on their birthdays...I'm just not sure I'm ready for it...Now I just mail a bday card order a gift to be delivered to his dorm room and call it good?

Ugh things are definitely changing around here...




Happy 19th to my first born...you are loved!

Frychik

Fire in the kitchen...

So in addition to our heat pump failing and the remnants of a typhoon outside there was also a kitchen fire on Sat.

Its surprising how quickly something like a kitchen fire can happen...

I have this awesome electric teapot that my mom bought for me.  It looks like a teapot you would set on the eye of the stove and turn on but you don't...or at least you really, really shouldn't.  This teapot has a base which plugs into the wall and you just flip a switch and it heats up...and the best part...it turns itself off when it is hot! So no annoying whistle blasting through the house when you've become distracted doing something else....

On Sat. we bribed my mom and step-dad to come over for lunch so he could fix our heat pump...it was stormy so of course hot drinks were needed...As we made our first batch of hot drinks, I clearly remember taking the teapot off of the handy dandy base and setting it on the stove top so my mom could use it...then we all settled in the living room...after awhile one of us ( I will not say who) returned to the kitchen to make another cup of coffee.  Naturally seeing the teapot on the eye of the stove he/she just turned the heat on and went back into the living room to wait for the water to heat...

In the mean time I get up to use the bathroom...as I'm finishing up I hear the smoke detector going off...odd I think.  As I head towards the kitchen I notice as I pass the living room that it is empty and there is a significant amount of smoke billowing from the kitchen into the family room...As I enter the kitchen I see three of my family members frantically performing various tasks...opening windows...water was running a smoking melted teapot in one hand...

Apparently when the individual returned to the kitchen to check on the teapot it was engulfed in FLAMES...but thankfully (I'd like to pause here and say I was mildly disappointed that the fire didn't catch on just enough to destroy the cabinets around the stove...I have been wanting to redo that area not to mention there would have been an obvious need to call firemen...) he/she was able to get the fire out as soon as the teapot was removed from the stove...

 What the bottom of the teapot should look like and what it looks like after it has caught fire...

 

We have wanted to redo our stove, oven situation for awhile and last fall had some people come by and give us a quote on the job.  During lunch on Sat. (before the fire) we were discussing all the problems with the kitchen, one of them being that our wooden cabinets are nowhere near code for how high they should be over the stove top...we also discussed the bare wires under the cabinet and the fact that we no longer had a working fire extinguisher in the house...

and then there was a fire...

Its just like when I brag about not having a speeding ticket in a long time...then you get one!

I think I will pick up a fire extinguisher today...

Frychik

Typhoon!

 So last weekend Jeff and I were once again home alone.  Ty was off on Bible Conference which meant we could do the things that Ty does not enjoy...
So we decided it would be fun to grab a couple of friends who are also biking enthusiasts and head over to Sauvie's Island and bike the island with stops at the pumpkin farms. That was when the weathermen were forecasting a lovely 70 degrees on Saturday...

By the next day my friend was texting me with the updated forecast...apparently the remnants of a Typhoon were headed our way....maybe not such ideal biking weather...

And indeed the weatherman was correct it rained and rained and the wind even blew, so we hunkered down on Saturday...

There were other things distracting us that day...first off we noticed our heat pump was having trouble...
Then our gutters were having trouble keeping up with the rain so my handyman headed out in the storm to try and fix things...






By Sunday things were plenty soggy but I was restless and needed to get out...
Plus being born and raised in the NW a little rain and wind doesn't scare me none!

We decided to head to Sauvie's Island with our rubber boots and rain jackets...Not because we needed pumpkins...I was thrilled when my garden produced 20 gorgeous pumpkins this year!
But I love pumpkin farms and I love farmers markets, and I love flowers and I love animals and this place has all that and more!

Then we headed into the big city to tromp around in our boots...

We wandered and discovered a cute diner on Gleason called "Byways" - being Portland I was a little concerned about the theme of the restaurant...but I was delightfully surprised when it was a travel motif :) The walls were covered with plates, postcards, license plates, banners from different states.  Plus they had a shelf that ran the entire wall with all kinds of travel souvenirs like mugs, salt and pepper shakers, etc.  And the food was good too!

Checking my boots for leaks :)

By Sunday night the house was getting chilly...my wonderful step-dad had diagnosed the problem and was more than happy to fix it but the part was locked up in a store that wouldn't open until Monday...But thankfully it wasn't too cold outside and it only got down to the low 60s in the house...

Thankfully none of our trees fell over.  Our damage was limited to a trellis and some rose bushes that need some help standing up straight again...

So the good news is that the Fry homestead withstood the onslaught of the typhoon remnants...

The heater is purring away and pumpkins I did not have to pay for line my walkway...

I love fall!

Frychik