San Juan Capistrano

It should not surprise you that the first thing I found by the mission of San Juan Capistrano is a Starbucks.  This girl needed her coffee fix.

If you've never heard of the Mission San Juan Capistrano, let me tell you a bit about it.

It's old.

It's a mission.

Swallows come back to this mission every year.

It's apparently a miracle.

The story begins in 1775, when Mission San Juan Capistrano was first founded by Father Lasuen, on October 30th.  I won't bore you with all the details, but suffice it to say, this place was amazing to me.

We had these audio devices that you can press a number in and they'd tell you about what you are seeing.  That lasted with me for about the first 16, then I gave up. There was too much there I wanted to photograph.

If you wanna read about the history, feel free.

  

 

 

 

The rest of the photos are here.

As the days go by...

You may or may not recall but about a week or so ago I was in San Diego with The MomUnit, Seattle SIL, Blueberry and Queen PopUp.  Seattle SIL was walking in the San Diego 3 day with Princess Lori and Princess Carla.  So since they were going to be down there we decided to make a vacation out of it. 

I hadn't been to SD since I was like 15.  I know I wasn't 16 yet because I was driving on a permit. The DadUnit and MomUnit rented a car and let me drive.  A HUGE no-no we later found out.  In my nervousness of driving on the freeways, and an unfamiliar car I signaled to change lanes with my windshield wipers instead of the signal. I've yet to live that down.

Anyhow...

SD is gorgeous.  It was nice to be back in Cali again.  I had forgotten how incredibly insane it was down there and the drivers...Holy cow...they are so unlike Washington drivers on so many levels.  First off, we're "polite" drivers. No cutting people off. In fact, if you do get cut off you assume it's a Californian driving.

We also use our signals when we change lanes.  Well, mostly. 

Anyhow...

SD was a blast. We went and did all the touristy things we possibly could and then some.  Blueberry, unfortunately, wasn't feeling her bestest, but she trudged on like the trooper she is. 

Day one in SD was Tuesday.  We decided to do the Hop-on / Hop-off trolley that took off out of Old Town SD.

Old town was awesome. It's not real by any stretch of imagination, but it's a nice area where you do get an idea of what "old" San Diego may have been like. 

Dia de los Muertos stuff was all over the place. Considering this was pretty close to DDLM I wasn't too surprised. But it did remind me of Mexico in a huge way.

This is my pal Don Quixote.  I wanted to buy him and put him in my yard. Blueberry said no.

But what would she know, I think the sombrero was squeezing her head.

P-Dot enjoying my beer.

The trolley took us all over SD and there are some interesting things about SD and some not so interesting things about SD. 

One of the interesting things is Coronado. A beautiful island - well peninsula really.  We ended up there on another day and spent some time looking around and enjoying the view.

The MomUnit and I had wanted to try some restaurants in the area that were part of the show Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.  I have an app on my iPhone called FlavorTown (Thanks Nils) that told us what was in the area. So Tuesday night we opted for The Blue Water Seafood Market and Grill.  Can I just say, without any reservations, BEST halibut tacos I've had in a long, LONG time.

Its not much to look at from the outside, and even less on the inside. Nothing fancy here, but really fresh and really delicious food.

They're ordering is interesting. You basically choose your species - what type of fish do you want, then you pick a marinade - like garlic butter, teriyaki, etc, and then you pick sandwich, salad, plate, or tacos.  Super easy and super delicious. Their menu is here if you wanna check out how crazy it was.

We stood in line for what seemed like forever, but it was well worth the wait. And in tradition of the crab hats, we took a photo.

You know the story about the crab hats right?

It started in San Francisco and Seattle SIL was going to buy one, and somehow the MomUnit bought us all some.  It's great. We can find each other anywhere we go.  Blueberry is new to the crab hat group and so she had to go through a small initiation. She had to baby sit and care for the crab hats.

Every night she had to put them to bed.

We named them this trip too. From Left to Right: Shelly the Mutant (that's Sherrie's hat and it's a bit different from ours), Abby, Norma, Clawdia, and Crusty - though Crusty isn't pictured here. Not sure where that old crab was.

She had to feed them.

And she had to carry them every where with her and make sure they could see what was going on. They get very cranky, these crabs, when they can't see what's going on around them.

This was the crabs in the overhead compartment on the plane. When the steward opened it to find room I thought he was going to wet himself.

She was a good sport about it and is welcomed into the crab fold.

I got endless enjoyment with posting on FaceBook that Blueberry had crabs. It never gets old for me.

Tomorrow I'll recount San Juan Capistrano for you. We visited the mission on Wednesday of our week in SD and I've gotta say, BEST THING EVER to do.  I love that old, historical stuff.

More Old Town Photos and SD photos can be found here.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that...

So a lot has happened since Nov 11. I'll get you caught up over the next couple of days, but I wanted to just check in to make sure my one reader knew I was still a blogger.  I have a lot I want to say and can't seem to find the time to put it all together.

This weekend was Thanksgiving.  I hosted a turkey day at my house for the Pantry Goat, her mother and the LandLords.  Thanksgiving dinner is an easy one for me. It's full of traditions though and I find myself smiling throughout the day thinking of all the traditions.

So many people get wrapped around the axle when it comes to Thanksgiving dinner.  And as a project manager I can say one thing, it comes down to planning.  Really. It does. The process to cook a Thanksgiving dinner can be broken down into simple little work packages and put into a work breakdown structure. And I just totally PM-geeked out.  Sorry. I can't help myself.

This year I found myself thinking about what I am thankful for. So many friends are doing 30 days of Thankful on Facebook that it got me to thinking about what I'm thankful for. I'm not sure I can name 30 things, but I can sure give it an ol' college try.

1. My parents.  I miss dad a lot this Thanksgiving and will continue to miss his presence for every holiday here on out. But beyond just having great parents who raised me well, I'm thankful for them teaching me how to cook so I can make a Thanksgiving day dinner.l

2. My family.  While we don't always like our family. It's given to us instead of us picking them.  I'm mostly ok with most my family (now those who read this are wondering if they're in that list).  At the end of the day though, they're your family. Like them or not.

3. My job. Without which I couldn't live where I live, do things I do, and be who I am.

4. My healthy.  Still working on making it better, but am every so thankful for what has taken place this year with my weight loss.

5. My cat. I know. That's corny. But I love the little bugger. He's slowing way down these days and it makes me said. He's got his own Facebook page now too.  He's really giving his last years his all.

Five is good.  Those are the most important ones to me today. Tomorrow may be entirely different but for today, that'll do.

Over the next couple of weeks I'll be recounting my days in San Diego.  We had a blast and I can't wait to share the adventures and photos with you. Until then...nighty night.

Some nights, I stay up cashing in my bad luck

The song Some Nights from Fun. has been stuck in my noggin for days now. I have tried everything. Listening to it. Singing it out loud. Playing the video. Nothing. Absolutely nothing will allow it to depart my brain. So that's why the first line is the subject line.

I had to laugh today because on Tuesday when I posted about voting I was thinking I'd do NaBloPoMo this year. I had a plan. I had topics. I was ready to go.  Today was the first time since then I thought about blogging. Maybe next year.

Tomorrow I am heading to the great city of San Diego. Seattle SIL, Princess Lori and Princess Carla are all walking in the San Diego 3Day next weekend and I, along with my new co-pilot Blueberry will be stalking them.

And since we have to be in San Diego anyhow, we decided to take a bit longer and spend some time seeing the city. It's turned into our Hunting Wives adventure for this year. The crab hats are packed and we're ready.

Also joining us is the MomUnit and Queen PopUp.  It should be a blast. Though admittedly I haven't seemed as excited as I think I should be. I think its because I was already gone for 14 days very recently.  Still, I'm sure upon my arrival to warm, sunny, San Diego I'll be just fine. 

Stay tuned for stories and photos.

Vote!

In case you missed it, today is Election Day.  A day, I for one, take very seriously.  It’s my right as an American, and a right that was fought for long and hard by women long before me. The day I turned 18 I registered to vote.  I have only missed voting one time and it was because I was lame and forgot. 

Washington is a mail-in ballot state. A couple of weeks ago, in our mail boxes, our ballots arrived. I tore into it like a child tearing into a present on Christmas.  I wanted to see what was on there and start my process of voting.

Grabbing a black pen, I sat cross-legged on the couch with my cup of coffee, my cat, my voters pamphlet, and my ballot.  Together we’re changing history.

The interesting thing about voting, and being an American, is we’re a democracy.  Because of the sacrifices made from members of the armed forces, our freedoms – be them of speech, of religion, etc – comes at a high cost to maintain those freedoms.  And while those freedoms are being paid for by lives and blood of men and women, my job is to vote. 

In my gaggle of friends and family I have people who are Republicans, Democrats, and some who just don’t care (I feel the most sorry for them – they don’t get to complain about politics in my opinion. If you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain. Period.)  And often my Republican friends and I do not agree on politics.  That being said, usually (there are exceptions – and those exceptions and I are no longer friends), they respect my opinions and I respect there’s.  When we discuss politics there’s never a thought in our minds that we’re going to change the other person’s view.  We discuss, we even argue, but at the end of the day, we fall on the same side of being Americans who get a voice.  I try to remember that not all nations (and certainly not women in all nations) have that right. And while we may fall on different sides of an issue, I respect people enough to let them have their opinions.

I know I don’t stand alone in feeling that this campaign season has been a brutal one.  The name calling, the mudslinging, the out and out lies (on both sides), the finger pointing, it’s all be so draining. And has caused me, more than once, to grab my hair and scream “I can’t take it anymore!”  There are nights watching campaign commercials where I want to not vote for certain candidates because of the horrific, untrue commercial they aired.

Politicians, to me, have a tough job. They really have to try to please everyone. But just once, ONCE, I’d like a candidate to have a campaign that is more positive. More open minded and welcoming of others who may not believe the way they do. I wonder how many more votes that candidate would get for being that way.

I think we all need to take a step back, stop being so grade-schoolish, grow up and go vote. And despite who wins, as Americans, we can work together to do all the things that need to be done to keep our future one that is cherished.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday to the best mom I've ever had! = )

Sydney - And I Don't Mean Australia

The last leg of our cruise was to Sydney, Nova Scotia.  It can in no way, shape or form be confused with Sydney Australia. While the weather was perfect, it was not what I would assume Australia is like. Still Sydney Nova Scotia was a nice stop for the cruise.

 

Upon departing the ship you are immediately blinded by a HUGE fiddle. And by "huge" I mean H-U-G-E!  I had no idea at the time why this huge fiddle (I was corrected when I said it was a huge violin BTW) is doing in the Sydney harbor welcoming passengers from all over the world. 

I knew, it turns out, next to nothing about the region.

It's called the Big Ceilidh Fiddle. And it turns out its nothing more than symbolic of Cape Breton's cultural heritage (Cape Breton is where Sydney is located).  The towns folks thought this 55 foot tall fiddle would best represent the musical delights on the island.  Of which, I did not partake.

 

The 55foot tall fiddle is 20 times larger than a standard fiddle.  It's considered the world's largest fiddle (I'm checking with Guinness Book just in case) and weighs about 3 tons. 

The Sydney harbor was nice. It was the one harbor where you could get off the boat and actually take a reasonable walk into town. 

My excursion in Sydney took me to the "Heart of the Island."  The description of this excursion led me to believe we'd be making a couple of stops on the island to get a real idea of what the island had to offer visitors. But it turned out my excursion included an hour drive to a Scottish Heritage Village. 
 
Don't get me wrong. The drive out there was beautiful. The fall colors were certainly in full color in Sydney. That added to sunshine and a drive a long Lake Bras d' Or. Which, it turns out, isn't a lake but an inland sea.
 

 

Now this Scottish village was interesting. It had several buildings that were replicas of what would have been around during the centuries.  They had characters at each building telling you about their life during the time period the house or town building was a part of.  Interesting.

My favorite building was this little church on the hill.  Every time I saw it I had flash backs to Little House on the Prairie for some reason. (Pa was such a good cryer.)

My other favorite structure was the Black House.  A house built out of stone, mud, and grass - it just amazed me.

Other structures were an old Mill, a black smith, a school with a swing and some officer houses. I, obviously, didn't live in the Scottish highlands in the 1800's nor did I live in Nova Scotia in the 1800's so I have no idea how accurate this little village was.  It was cute, quaint, and I learned something.  So I guess that's good enough for me.

The black smith was working hard on making a nail.  Or so he said.

The general store was stocked with some old goods. I love seeing old stuff like this. See the Hersey's cocoa in the bottom left corner?

The woman in the officer house next to this well said she and her family had to walk about a mile for water.  When I left the house, this well was sitting outside and I heard one of the other guys in our group say something to the affect of them having limited intelligence since the well was right outside.

One of the character actors in one of the turn of the century houses.

P-Dot was going to plow the fields if she could only find some horses to pull this plow.

Instead she found herself a swing and enjoyed the afternoon.
 

Once back into Sydney I decided I was going to walk through the town. The MomUnit, Bev and Kathy were going to get off the boat and wander around. There was a small chance I'd run into them. 

After walking a couple of blocks, I found the fudge store. All bets were off.  I stood in line with two folks in front of me. My heart was set on some chocolate and peanut butter fudge.  As I got to the front, I found out the last piece was sold to the couple in front of me. Damn them.

I left defeated, and hungry.  That's when I stumbled across this little pub.  I figured I might as well get some lunch. As I walked in to look around, there was the MomUnit and Bev having lunch. Apparently they had gotten off the boat and were told the best lobster roll around was at this pub. And seeing that the MomUnit's main goal this trip was a lobster roll - of which she hadn't found yet - I shouldn't have been too surprised to see them there.

We went back to the boat and spent about an hour wandering through the little shops they have on the pier. 

One of the shops was a small shop for the fudge company I had visited above.  They had peanut butter and chocolate fudge. I saw it.  The couple in front of me bought it! Dammit!

I went on without my fudge.