Still alive...

I have come to the realization that I am probably the worst blogger ever. Luckily, I'm busy enough that it doesn't really bother me. :) In the next few weeks, I'll do my "usual" and blog about 15 things and back date them all, but for now I'll share a few InstaGram pics of the latest. 

Since moving to the beach, we have been enjoying a whole set of new activities. One of those being, hitting the zoo for a few hours on the spur of the moment. In Carmel Mountain, we were about 30 minutes from the zoo and if felt like a chore getting there and spending 17 hours walking around the biggest, most hilly zoo on the planet. I know this because I've been to EVERY zoo in the world (naturally). Now we are about 15 minutes from the zoo and we hit it up for 2-3 hours because it's beautiful outside and we don't have anything pressing to do. Gray loves the animals, I love the workout built in by climbing those massive hills pushing G in a stroller. It's a win/win situation. 

We have some plans see some fun new things in San Diego this week but we have been put off by some nasty winter weather (read: 50 degrees outside, intermittent sprinkling rain, windy), but seriously I'm not going outside to walk around in the 'rain,' because I can just wait a day or two rather than be cold-ish and wet-ish while being a tourist. I hope tomorrow is as pretty as today was (the "winter storm" was over by 9am), because I'm dying to get down to the USS Midway and see the new statue! 

Thanksgiving!

It's hard to believe it's already Thanksgiving again, right? It seems like we were just going to be beach and the SD Fair, now it's already November! We decided to stay in San Diego for the holiday and have a few military pals over for lunch. I spent most of the day preparing everything for tomorrow, so no real cooking will be happening in the morning just a lot of putting things in the oven. 

As I type there are three pies cooling on the counter. I'll have to get back to you on how that actually turns out after they are cut and sampled. I've never made a pie before tonight and I'm pretty sure I just invented a scrambled egg pecan pie... I have delusions of grandeur because my mom is maybe the best cook in North America, so after my pecan pie fiasco I think I've been knocked back into reality. The recipe said brown the butter, then add other ingredients. I added eggs first and they started to cook before I could add the other things in, so it was like egg drop pecan pie filling. Like I said, I'll just have to report back about that... 

Happy Thanksgiving from Gray! 

I may not say it enough, but I have so many things to be thankful for and I love having a holiday just to reflect on those things one day every year. I am most thankful for having the most wonderful husband on Earth, a crazy/perfect little boy, fabulous family, amazing friends, good health, a nice home, a warm bed, plenty of food to eat, and a Heavenly Father that loves me more than I can imagine. How can I not be thankful today? Happy Thanksgiving everyone! 

Beach time!

It would appear that Gray is his father's child. He loves the beach and would stay all day, every day if he could. I, on the other hand, am so pale that too much sun is never a good choice. That and I'm not really a fan of being covered in sand for hours up to days (in the car, in your bag, in your scalp) after each trip. I try to be a good sport and go occasionally, but I would much rather just look at it than actually play in it. 

Pacific Beach is a tourist haven in the summer months, so we are usually driving around looking for parking or wading through a ton of people for a place to lay our towels out. I prefer going later in the season on a week day. There is generally less people out and the weather is usually nice enough to go at least a couple weeks out of every month. The one thing that is strange about the beach here is that it can be FREEZING in May, and warm in November. It is usually warm all summer, all year really, but the weather isn't 76 and sunny all year around like San Diegans would like for you to think it is. I literally wore a hoodie in late May this year to watch Josh surf. 

This particular day there were tons of dolphins in the water. It seems like I see dolphins fairly often down there, but Gray totally missed them this day. I originally saw one fin and got a little freaked out (I even know that if you see a shark you are generally ok. It's when you don't see them that you could be in trouble.) then I saw about 4-5 more pop up. They were surfing and playing along the beach. Josh surfs with them often enough, and I'm pretty jealous about that. Maybe not jealous enough to surf with him... 

Not sure if I shared these two photos below before, but I just love them so much it can't hurt to re-share them. California has beaches different from anything I've seen on the East Coast or the Gulf, but they are all beautiful in different ways. Pacific Beach is no different, it just happens to have a different vibe than most of the beaches in San Diego. 

Boyz II Men!

I heard about a Boyz II Men concert coming to San Diego several months before it actually happened. It was the weekend after my birthday, so I thought maybe Josh and I would go together. The USMC had other plans, and sent him to Yuma for a month, which left Gray and I to do something fun all on our own. Luckily he is too little to have any opinions so I got to plan a super fun birth-week celebration which included a 3 day trip back to Disney and a Boys II Men concert in Oceanside! 

A friend wanted to go with us to the concert, so we got in line and accidentally found he house from Top Gun!! It's all fenced up so you can't go in, but it was still pretty neat to see. I did a little google research to see if it was the actual house and found out that the other houses on the street had been torn down or moved, but this one was saved due to its 15 minutes of fame. There are plans to move it to another location, but it hasn't been moved yet. 

On to the concert! It was in an open air concert venue, right next to the water. The Oceanside pier doesn't give good concert views, but I'm sure it still sounded nice to those lucky people who were on the pier that night. They sang for close to two hours, and they sounded amazing in concert. I was also impressed that after 20+ years, they still have all those fancy choreographed dance moves! 

Passing out roses. The 40-50 year olds were loving it! 

Gray on stage after the concert ended.

The venue has stadium seats, so we sat down with Gray instead of fighting the crowd for a closer view. Gray danced, ran, drank lots of water, and whined because it was hot, but I think he did a pretty well at the concert. We did go stand close to the stage (within a few feet of the Boyz) a few times, but Gray was more interested in dancing than watching the concert. Not a bad first concert experience for the Monkey.

Disney (Part 1)

Josh was spending about a month in Yuma, so we decided to take Gray to CarsLand as a little family day away before he left. We took Gray to Disneyland in March (after Josh's deployment) but CarsLand didn't open until the summer. Gray was freaking out about the commercials every time he saw them, so we wanted to take him to see Mater and McQueen. 

Of course we hit the high points and saw lots of characters in our one day visit. We rode Midway Madness (Toy Story ride), which is maybe our favorite ride. Gray met Goofy, Donald, Buzz, Woody, and McQueen, Mater, Red, and DJ from Cars. We had to hop over from California Adventure to Disneyland to ride a few things, but we spent a large portion of our time in CarsLand. 

Next in line for Midway Madness! 

Midway Madness is a 4D arcade game. It's excellent! 

Buzz! 

We did a few random rides before heading to CarsLand because we weren't sure Gray would ever be ready to leave. We took him in the main entrance (there are several ways in) and I'm pretty sure we blew his mind. He stopped in the middle of the street and just stared, then started pointed and yelling "CARSLAND!!!"

If you have ever been to Disney, then you know that they do everything (literally everything) in the theme! The bathrooms had little cars on them to tell you boy's vs girl's restrooms. Flo's was a diner with a huge rear view mirror on one wall. The flowers made from reflectors from the movie were scattered around town. Sarge's had a flag and mail box outside. It was like walking into the movie. There is a little glass case with the three piston cups that Doc won, hidden Mickeys, lots of fun Mexican stuff in Ramone's. They really did a great job making Radiator Springs real for fans of the movies. 

However, there are only 3 rides and Gray was too short to ride on the super cool McQueen (racing through Radiator Springs) ride by about 1.5"-2". We LOVED CarsLand, but I felt that it fell short in that regard. It looks amazing, but I wanted more. More rides (at least 4, but 5 would have been great) and maybe a museum like in the last movie. It was awesome, don't get me wrong. The other major problem with CarsLand is the sheer number of people. The other parts of the park would be fairly dead, but the lines at CarsLand were crazy. There were people everywhere! 

Frozen in disbelief. 

Sarge's Surplus

Mater at the Cozy Cone. 

Inside Flo's V8 Cafe!

Waiting on lunch at Flo's.

View from Flo's.

Ramone's. 

Luigi's.

Luigi's Tire Ride. 

McQueen and Mater drive down main street to the Cozy Cone and switch out for pictures. 

Stanley. 

DJs Dance Party! 

Mater's ride. 

And maybe his favorite part of the day...
Meeting his two favorite Disney characters!  

Summer Fun!

How about a random post with a bunch of pictures that totally don't match? OK! 

Josh celebrated a birthday, and Gray picked out the cake. There were so many dirt movers on the cake, we almost didn't have enough room for all of the candles. Gray still talks about this cake! 

We stopped by the Pacific Beach firehouse because Gray saw a firetruck come back and was dying to check it out. The firemen were so nice, they let Gray get on one of the trucks and try on one of their super heavy hats! 

Gray got a new hat from the Padre's store, and he wore it constantly until he lost it. Luckily they had not sold out of them before the next game we went to and he got a replacement (that I quickly tagged with my phone number)! He is very serious about coloring in this picture. Or returning crayons to the box.

Fun times at the Safari Park!

Gray lined his boots up by his Daddy's. Awww.
Had to get a shot of that! 

Gray is officially a big boy. No more crib in his room! 

Leaving a Padre's game with Daddy! 

He is so cute, but I'm so scared this is going to end in the ER. 

He is getting TOO big! 

Babysitting two big girls. Fletch is dating both sisters on the sly.  

Skateboarding in the neighborhood! 

Josh taught him how to ride on his bottom. Much less scary for me! 

Sprinkler time! 

Rinse off after playing at the beach! 

Walking Fletch in the neighborhood.  

Beach Day! 

Fletch recovering from a walk. 

Gray gets a hideous hair cut/style.
He looks in the mirror and says 'My hair looks stupid.' 

Bike rides to dinner in Pacific Beach.