San Diego Weekend!

The first weekend in January my girlfriends and I went to San Diego.

Arrived Friday night, checked into our Holiday Inn Express Hotel and drove to Coronado Island.

We ate at Lil Piggy’s BBQ. The portions were leaning towards the small size. We ordered (2) Three Meats Platter. Beef brisket, pulled pork, chicken, and ribs. Our sides: Mac & Cheese, Corn fritters with honey butter, and beans.

The BBQ Ribs and chicken were very moist. The other meats were pretty average. The corn fritters + honey butter = To Die For! The one thing lacking from this BBQ joint is its own original BBQ sauce. They had a mango Habanero one but their regular BBQ sauce needs some TLC. All in all, I’d come here again and I would know what to order but if I find out Phil’s BBQ is way better I am not returning to Lil Piggy’s.

Saturday: USS Midway

We ate lunch at Point Loma Seafood

Quite a busy and chaotic place. Everything tasted very fresh. Deep-fried shrimp–to die for. Cocktail sauce is very flavorful and really complements the fried shrimp. The fried cod was average. The crab cake was very different and I’m still not quite sure what to make of it. Their coleslaw is definitely nothing special.

Then we headed over to Balboa Park.  Lots of things to see and plenty of Museums to visit.

Then we went to dinner at Bronx Pizza.

Awesome prices for speciality pizza. We ordered one whitestone pizza half with spinach and garlic. Then we ordered a half deluxe and half porko: meatball, sausage, and pepperoni. The white sauce pizza is a MUST. The regular pizza was fine.

We then went to Old Town San Diego for some flavored tortillas. Yummy!

I’m alive!

I know it’s been several weeks since I’ve blogged.

Nothing new.

I’m still loving my job.

I love the people I work with especially my office mate. We get along so well. It’s awesome.

I went to SC/GA at the beginning of this month and need to post my foodie experiences.

I also went to the Georgia Aquarium which was amazing. I loved it.

My ex-bf’s mom let me borrow her car for the whole week which was incredibly sweet of her.

Still going on dates and enjoying it.

Not in a hurry to start dating.

I’m still drinking at least half a gallon of water M-F.

It gets kind of difficult on the weekends since I don’t lug around my half-gallon water bottle wherever I go.

I’m excited for Star Tours.

Oh, I upgraded my Disneyland pass to a Deluxe.

As the Maid of Honor for my cousin’s wedding, I’ve made the invitations for her bridal shower now to print them.

Kung Fu Panda II is coming soon!

Rio is such a cute movie, loved it in 3D.

I’m not enjoying this crazy weather. Sunny, cloudy, rainy, makes me bi-polar just like it!

I went to the Getty Center friday. I ate at the restaurant and walked around the exhibits.

Next time it’ll be the Getty Gardens.

Surprisingly it wasn’t traffic on my way home when I left the center at 5:30ish.

I got home a little before 7pm.

Honestly, Best Buy totally hates me. My laptop is perfectly fine but now my phone doesn’t charge when I plug it in.

I have to plug it in in different ways and move it around different ways to see what makes it charge. And even when I pay attention to how I plug it in it doesn’t really make a difference. It’s completely bi-polar.

I’m enjoying my volleyball class.

On my way to my volleyball class I saw BBG at the intersection waiting to cross as soon as I drove across. WEIRD.

What are the odds?

I must see World Of Color again.

They added Tangled and Pirates 4 to the show.

I miss blogging. I really do.

I think of blogging often.
I think of my readers.

I think of my subscriptions.

I think of my commentors.

Oh how I miss it all.

Life is good. God has been good and he didn’t come back yesterday so I have more days to live for him and get to know him better.

Marc is craving Roscoe I wonder when I’ll be able to go again.

Thanks to the Reich family I now know what book I should purchase, Fountainhead.

Also, I got to test out a nook. Pretty snazzy I like it a lot. Maybe I’ll buy one probably not anytime soon though .

Oh and I’m legit now. I have a key to the building and an access code to set up the alarm for the building.

Pretty cool right? I also have a Staff Id picture and all!

Well, I guess that would be an update of my past 2 months and what I want to do pretty soon.

Until next time and I hope it won’t be several months or weeks til I post again. This was fun. I need to do it more often!

We love food…

Enjoy food pictures from our family vacation:

In N Out

For lunch we had In-N-Out, let me say a lettuce wrap is hard to enjoy without tomatoes, needless to say the juice from my burger was strictly from the patty and the sauce.

For dinner we went to Splash Cafe at Pismo Beach.

Of course, I didn’t get clam chowder because I can’t have soy, rye, etc.

Notice the tomatoes and carrots?

I had grilled chicken and veggies. I gave the “untouchables” to my mom and sister.

Saturday for lunch we gps-ed this place called Alex BBQ at Shell Beach.

My sister had a bbq pulled sandwich. It was good. I only had the meat though, no bread, ugh.

I didn't eat the french fries.

I had a bbq wrap. Infested with tomatoes, I had asked for no tomatoes since the wrap was sun-dried tomatoes. I didn’t have a reaction since I took Benadryl afterwards, luckily.

Can't you just taste it?!

My brother and dad shared ribs. It was juicy, moist, sweet, so good.

We drove to Morrow Bay afterward. As always it was foggy. They had a farmer’s market. We walked around, tried different organic fruits, sampled organic drinks. At the end of the Farmer’s Market, Kettle Korn greeted us!

Kettle Corn-medium bag $5

The bag fed all 5 in my family including the trash can, aka John, my brother.

JOCKO's

Sunday lunch we went to Jocko’s Steakhouse in Nipomo.

Oh minor detail we got there at 1:30 the wait time: 1 hour-2hours. We waited an hour.

My parents got the Spencer-steak. It was amazing! We tried some

My sister and I shared the pork chops.

Pork chops, rice, and apple sauce.

We could have shared it with John and there would have been leftovers.

The orders came with veggie plate (pickles, banana peppers, carrots, celery, and olives)  salad, bread, beans, and dessert for each person at the table.

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Last Sunday we went to Sakura of Tokyo in West Covina for a surprise dinner.

The hosts had ordered the boat to be shared with four people. First they brought out miso soup. Then California rolls-2 each person. Then came the boat. It was literally a boat.

Boatload of Food-Sakura of Tokyo. Taken by panorama.

The boat had fried chicken with sesame seeds, teriyaki chicken, teriyaki beef, and tempura-shrimp, zucchini, green beans, and squash.

Chicago July 5th

*To be updated as pictures are received*

Toured Joann’s campus, University of Chicago

Ate Girodano’s Pizza for lunch (11ish)

Then roamed the city!!

Chicago River

Couldn't really support the NBC logo!

Found lego man at the mall...

Millenium Park

Reminded me of Disney Concert Hall

The Bean

Joann & I at the bean

We also went to a White Sox-Angels Game…unfortunately the angels lost.. Pics to be uploaded

Random Man I NEEDED to take a picture with!

Navy Base: July 4th

Sunday church-Ben fell asleep, as usual.

Sunday was basically travel day.

Again, Ben sleeping…

Saw a full rainbow while driving to pick up Joann

Traveled to Chicago from Indiana.

Picked up my cousin from her Mansion!

Traveled to Zion to pick up Kris.

Traveled to the Navy Base for the hour-long fire works show. Maybe it was an hour and a half. Either way, the fireworks show was long and AMAZING. The one thing I noticed was that after each segment the sky cleared unlike in California the smoke would remain and fill the sky with smog so that by the finale the background was white. It was awesome! I absolutely loved the fireworks show.

Well before the fireworks show ended we walked around-there was a carnival/fair type stuff set-up. Food, games, & rides. Very very cool stuff.

Its called an Elephant Ear. It had cinnamon and powdered sugar on fried dough-ish stuff. It was ok.

After the fireworks show, we left and drove back to Chi-Town.

Drove around the town and saw the town lit up getting excited for sight-seeing the next day!!!

MIA-CHCAGO: No More.

I’m back from my trip.

Specific posts to come!

Highlights:

• I shot a 9mm
• Set off fireworks
• Saw a full rainbow
• Navy Base hour-long firework show
• Chilled with my baller cousinJoann!

The best tour guide ever. She was all up and ready to go 24/7.

She also lived in a place referred to as The Mansion.

• Had my laughter breakdown

I have not broken down with severe laughter in 2 years. Obviously, I was due for one.

I laughed til I fell out of my seat onto the floor of the van, shaking uncontrollably, crying.

• Have a new picture of Ben sleeping.

Wednesday: Horseback Riding

Thursday Ensenada, Mexico

Enjoy the slideshow. We went horseback riding on the beach. Got caught in the rain . The most awesome experience ever.

Afterwards we went to the La Bufadora for some shopping-ponchos, hammock, t-shirts, coconut, bracelets, postcards, magnets, blankets, etc.

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San Diego Weekend

This weekend I attended a Ladies Retreat in National City at Bible Baptist Church.

I got to see Jireh and Jackie! I haven’t seen them in years…

Lunch was awesome-bbq chicken, pancit, lumpia shanghai, and rice. yummy yummy yummy…

The only downside, I was in a complete food coma. I couldn’t concentrate on the speakers and my sole goal was to not fall asleep. ACCOMPLISHED. What did I glean? Sadly, nada…

For dinner, Olivia and I went to Sushi Diner.

My favorite roll was with baked salmon on the outside…ah, I am more than willing to go just for sushi diner. Any takers?

We stayed the night with Pastor Willie Del, Auntie Amy, & Grace!

For Sunday lunch Pastor treated us to New Panda Express Buffet. We tore up the seafood section!

In the evening, Olivia and I attended Pastor Ernie Merritt’s church in Escondido, Fundamental Baptist Church. We stopped at Rally’s for some fully loaded fries.

We also stopped at Jack in the Box to use the restrooms. We discovered the coke factory in a computer. Their soda dispenser was a touch screen computer with you choosing a soft drink, sprite, dr. pepper, coke, dasani flavor, etc. Say you chose sprite, you then had the choice of sprite cherry, sprite raspberry, sprite peach, sprite lime, sprite grape. OH MY WORD! Olivia and I probably spent 15 minutes in front of the computer pressing all kinds of buttons and trying everything! We walked away with vanilla coke and cherry coke.. ah… refreshing!

That evening they paid of their church debt. Such excitement!

Planning a trip down to SD for Sushi Diner, New Panda Express Buffet, and Jack in the Box… any takers?!?!?

Memorial Day Weekend

Saturday: Laguna Niguel

PCH View

An absolutely gorgeous beach day. The weather was perfect. We were visiting someone who lived right on the beach front. You walked out of his house-you could smell the ocean water and feel the ocean breeze. It was about a 2 minute walk from his home to the beach.

The beachfront…

Sunday: Carnival Night at Jeff’s & Miriam’s

It was extremely hot in the house. Bodies every where playing very creative carnival games. I believe I drank about 6 water bottles maybe more and several more cups of water. My team got 2nd place-Olivia, Marc, Rima, & Jaclyn.

I also won the spin-ny wheel game…perfectly guessed Marc’s weight and Hiroshi’s height. Totally off on Buddy’s weight, but hey, I won the game!

Funny happenings: Olivia almost being set on fire by Miriam. The scare in the closed kitchen with Miriam & Olivia, Ricky totally bumping his head against the spin-ny wheel wall mount while playing golf. Olivia totally ramming her forehead on the wall mount. Fried snickers–I ate 5 it was so good, no worries though I weigh 100 lbs, I actually weighed myself. I lost about 20-25lbs since being home from college. CRAZY!

Monday: Long Beach/Manhattan Beach

Breakfast: Chick-fil-ABreakfast burrito: chicken, bacon, hash browns, tomatoes, peppers & onions, and shredded cheese. I could not finish my food-so filling!!!

Olivia and I went to Long Beach-Queen Mary seawalk. Drove around some then ate at Roscoe’s chicken and waffles in Long Beach. This place was huge compared to the Pasadena one. The wait was also significantly longer- a little more than an hour.

PCH: We encountered many drivers… this is my favorite: The driver passed the line and was sitting in the intersection. She could have reversed some but apparently didn’t want to. (She was Asian-I made sure to look)

We also drove out to Manhattan Beach. Olivia has pictures on her camera. It is really pretty out here. I’ve seen quite a few movies with that pier-now I know where its at! I’ll probably take Ben to this beach depending on if he gets in on Friday or Saturday-August.
SAN DIEGO this weekend!!!

Friday began at midnight…

Midnight

Olivia didn’t get a chance to close her expense account-unfortunately, she remembered as we walked into our room. I promised her I would go with her after I took a shower. So at one a.m. down we went to visit Jeff. Our watch-night with Jeff was quite interesting.

We met Deon from Swaziland. He reassured us that Jeff was lying and his name was really Sanele. Even though Jeff says his passport says Jeff.

Deon ended up giving his number to me when we left to continue our packing at 2a.m. Apparently, that completed my cruise experience! He looked like he was 16 years old and reminded me of Jaden Smith. We had no camera with us considering we thought we were going to take care of Olivia’s account and go to sleep.

So, we said goodnight to Jeff & Deon and walked to the elevator. As the elevator doors were closing this lady sticks her hand between the closing doors and says “OW!” I push the button to open the doors and we could clearly tell she’s drunk. So we quickly step out of the elevator, “I’ve been walking up and down this hall looking for my room for 2 hours! Please help me!”, she says. We guide her to Jeff & Deon. It was quite entertaining-she knew her room number

Jeff: Yes ma’am where is your card?

Drunk lady:E109-EMPRESS! I need to go back to my room!

Jeff: Ok Ma’am someone will escort you over please have a seat.

Drunk lady: I just want to go to my room it’s E109 I’m not retarded!

Jeff: Ma’am where are your roommates? Your friends-they just left you?

Drunk lady: Ugh, they found guys from the bar and left me.

Olivia: Oh, that’s not very nice. You don’t have very good friends.

Drunk lady: Yes, please take me to my room! E 109 EMPRESS

Olivia: Are you ok? Do you need a trashcan? When you get to your room don’t lay down ok? You’ll choke on your puke.

Drunk lady: Oh, I know I won’t do that.

Olivia: That’s what they all say. You should throw up in the sink not the toliet cause you’ll probably hit your head.

Jeff: Here this young man will help you to your room (Security guard)

Security (snaps a picture of her) : Ma’am please take a seat.

Drunk lady: you don’t know where the Empress deck is? DECK E?! I’m in 109.

Security: Ma’am yes ma’am we know but just rest a little for now.

Drunk lady: I know what my room is I just need help! How do you expect to help me if you can’t even take me to my room right now?!

Security: Ma’am its ok just calm down for now. Just rest.

Lady security then escorts her to her room. Honestly, I don’t know how people could live like that. It was very disgusting and she definitely made a fool of herself in front of everyone. The sad thing is that she’ll wake up and not know what happened. Of course, she’ll do it many more times afterward. This quote/statistic was posted everywhere on the tables of the decks.

Anecdotes are 17% funnier with alcohol.

Think about it.

After that incident we talked a little more about the liquor procedure with passengers. Apparently, the bartenders are not supposed to serve alcohol when the consumer has clearly had enough. Yet, the tips are tied in with the amount of alcohol sales the bartenders don’t exactly follow that policy. Yeah, I know.

Twilight

Olivia and I walked back to our room to finish packing and to grab her camera. At this point, we decided not to sleep because we wouldn’t be waking up for the sunrise if we did. We changed into jeans and packed the camera and tripod-to take the most coveted picture we’ve been wanting. Before we left though, Olivia also had room service-tuna salad sandwich, Caesar salad, new york cheesecake, orange juice and hot tea for me. So, out we went with the food we didn’t eat to keep Jeff company- in reality we needed to leave the room so we wouldn’t disturb Dar & Renae and to keep us from falling asleep.

Here are our pictures:

With Jeff:

With Richard:

At the Atrium:

We went back to the room around 5:30 and finished packing and getting ready. We woke the girls up, oops. We really tried to be quiet. We left the room around 6ish to watch the sunrise. We were a little early but it was definitely worth it! We were also able to stop by and say bye to Jeff. We got back to the room around 6:45 and waited around to disembark.

Sunrise pictures to come… Still waiting for Dar & Olivia..