Oops, I see the blog has been neglected.  So sorry about that.  On behalf of the blog author, that would be me, I’ve/we’ve had one of the craziest weeks since we’ve been “out west”.  I’ll get into that soon, but for now I just need to digest it.  It’s all good.

On a happy note, we’re taking a much needed trip back to our home this Thursday.  We’ve been tossing the idea around all winter and finally it’s warm enough to return.  Sometimes all we need is a good dose of “home sweet home” to recharge our batteries, no?

Since we’re on the heels of our trip, I don’t know how much posting I’m going to get in, but I do plan to post as time permits.

Last night was filled with fun and laughter amongst friends.  We met at our place and all 5 of us piled in our car and pointed our nose in the direction of a Brazilian restaurant up the road.

We were greeted with music.  He waved for the camera on our way out.

Q and Karen ~ Karen is in town from NJ to see Q.  I REALLY like her!  Isn’t it fun to take pictures of couples in the early boyfriend/girlfriend stage?

Phil ~ So happy he carved us into his schedule.  At the end of the night he said “we need to do something like this at least once a month”.  I concur.

And I got to sit next to my very favorite person in the whole wide world.  I love him, I DO!

Sorry, no pics of my dinner.  I will say it was amazing though.  I’m just kinda in a food funk right now and I need to get back on track.  Too much fun, too many distractions and I know “TOO MANY EXCUSES”!  I’ll be back in touch with reality soon enough.

The points of interest were to meet up with our friends, gallery hop and have dinner by the sea.  This was yesterday (Saturday), I didn’t get home in time to post.  Thus the Sunday Post.

So mid afternoon we met up with Dan and Kathy.

And set our sights on the galleries.

Admiring works of art was a delight.

Such a picturesque fountain outdoors. It’s hard to see but water is streaming down the front.

We The People, the title of this painting.

Hubby and I fell in love with this work of art. The gallery will be e-mailing me the details of the artist and painting.

The essence of our home (Southern California). Beautifully Done!

No words needed

Can you imagine what a great conversation piece this would be? Hubby and Dan quickly picked up on the Democrat theme.

And the Republicans right along side. I love the idea behind these paintings and if I were an interested buyer, I would want them both. Sorry about the glare from the glass.

What a great way to spend an afternoon with friends.

Dan made reservations earlier in the week and requested a window seat. So glad he did!

The view from where hubby and I were seated

And the view from their seats – sorry about the blur

It was one of those crisp, cool and rainy days so we did not get to enjoy the beauty of the sunset.

Dinner is served – grilled salmon with horseradish mashed potatoes, vegetables and asparagus-chile sauce.

There was absolutely nothing left on my plate.

Hubby and I split the Crème Brulèe Cheese Cake. Again, the plate was cleaned.

We enjoyed a relaxing dinner with friends and look forward to our next visit with them.

On the way home, I did steal a piece of Hubby’s chocolate; it was a gigantic yummy turtle. Didn’t take a picture, but I’m being truthful.

On another note, I squeezed in my last hour at the gym.

It’s been a wonderful week!

Yesterday was a full day with my friend Beth. We met at 10am and we made our way to Point Loma, just about 5 miles from her place. I had no idea what to expect, all I knew is that I was going to get to enjoy the ocean.

We arrived at Point Loma where we made our first stop at the harbor

And watched Navy ships

Cruise from the harbor out to sea

We were the audience and enjoyed lots of commotion in the sky and observed lots of touch and go at the base across the way.

And watched sailors pass by

Again ~ zoomed in

Another Navy ship heading out

I think this was the refuel ship – zoomed in

After a nice long visit at the harbor, we made our way up to the lighthouse.

Point Loma Light House (1855 – 1891) – The lighthouse stands over 400 feet above sea level. In January 2004 the National Park Service completed restoration of the grounds of Point Loma.

After spending time at the lighthouse we then made our way downward to the other side to enjoy views of the cliffs along the sea.

The path we trod

Huge boulders

A sign I’m here

I stand amazed

Me

Amazing views

And we climbed along the coast

It was worth the effort

Our descent

We timed the coast side for low tide, so happy we did. Can you see the water line along the cliffs?

A little closer to show the high tide line better

The sounds of waves crashing and views of birds passing was so relaxing

I wanted to take in each and every step along the way. What a peaceful day.

Ever changing landscape along the coast

The path down

Looking back from whence we came

What a treasure at the end of the stairs. It felt crazy standing where waves were crashing at high tide. So happy Beth thought to find out when it was going to be low tide.

This is the spot where we decided to park it for a while. We stopped to just take it all in.

From the same area

I’m still here but not for long as we needed to head back to the condo to get ready for dinner.

So we picked up late afternoon

And went back to Beth’s

View from her balcony just before we all left for dinner

Back over to Fred’s in Old Town for dinner. We’re finally enjoying great Mexican food again!

Love the ambiance there – Rolling out homemade tortillas

Cooking them on the grill

Cheers to great friendships, amazing ambiance and delightful dining outside. Shot taken as we were leaving.

Love our friendship and these days spent together. I still feel like I’m back in yesterday, thanks my friend.

I’ve been blessed with friendships but am thankful that after 20 years I caught up with a very dear friend (Beth) of mine. We met at her lovely condo in San Diego and walked from there to Seaport Village.

Here’s the famous “war is over” statue of the sailor/nurse embrace in Seaport Village and me.

Again from a distance

We stopped for a spot of coffee and after two rounds we ordered lunch. This was such a nice place to visit and catch up with each other.

After lunch we hit the shops

A reminder that this is a shop I must go back to.

We kept reminding ourselves that we weren’t on vacation, in fact, this is home! Beth just moved out here just one month before me, from a totally different state than me. We enjoyed feasting our eyes on the trees and flowers here in paradise.

The White Bird of Paradise

Have no idea what this big leafy thing is called but we were intrigued.

Enjoyed the park like setting amongst the little shops where ducks played underneath the shade trees.

We walked along the marina

We climbed the steps at the Convention Center and found this statue at the top. It was named Flame Of Friendship – How profound for us as our friendship rekindled after 20 years.

Looking out from the top of the Convention Center there was a beautiful view of the Coronado Bridge and in the distance waving her hand was the mast of the BMW Racing sailboat.

And then made our way into the city

Didn’t have to wait long for the trolley to zoom by

Passed by Kansas City BBQ where a scene from Top Gun was filmed back in the day.

After we had our fill of walking in the city, we went back to my friends condo to polish off the remains of the afternoon.

I was delighted to be able to watch this gorgeous sunset from the balcony of Beth’s condo.

She and her hubby have floor to ceiling walls of windows that provide amazing views all the way around.

And that concludes my day with Beth as I had to get back to pick up my dearest from work so that we could go out to dinner.

May our friendships blossom and grow with the time spent together. I look forward to our next meeting. Right, that’s tomorrow as we have furniture shopping…to do together.

I was so excited to hear where hubby’s group was going to dine. It’s a place that’s intrigued us for the nearly two years we’ve been here. And today made our first experience there, now we wonder what took us so long to finally go.

Here is what makes up some of the exterior of the restaurant.

And this is what the interior is all about

Random group shots

One of the guys from the group rolled in ready for the occasion.

And my most amazing husband that loves taking me to these cool “work” functions.

We went to a surprise birthday party Saturday evening and the birthday boy was quite surprised his wife pulled it off without him knowing anything about it.

A little snippet from the party

The birthday boy and his sweet wife are in the top left corner. Since I take most of the pictures, I forget so many times to have someone take our picture. I’ve got to remember to start doing that. I did get hubby and the only one of me is in the long black jumpsuit over at the fridge.

We all enjoyed the evening filled with music complements of Guitar Hero. Hubby and I were so amazed at how good these guys were that we just sat back and let them have at it! The last time I played the thing, it booed me off the stage, but I’ll be back! Hubby has plans to get this game for us and we can’t wait to play and sing with everyone.

Q (that’s what we call him) he’s the guy on the drums. He’s the kind of guy that’s always laid back, calm cool and collected. Not so when he’s behind those drumsticks. He was quite the highlight watching him get so into it. Q broke his original drumsticks and had to purchase a very heavy duty set. Now he’s good to go! Go Q!

It’s back to snowing this morning and I’m praying for spring more than ever. It’s so hard to enjoy the beauty of the falling snow when I know the builder is putting our home on hold because of the weather. I guess the only thing I can do at this point is embrace the weather and leave our home in God’s hands.

Alright People, this just makes me totally MISS our neighbors (Dave and Frannie) back in TX. My old neighbor Frannie just sent pics of their crawfish boil over the 4th weekend and man do they ever know how to do it up right! Wish we could have been there! We were there for their 4th party two years ago and we had so much fun!

We were neighbors with Frannie for 5 + years and I speak with her more now than I ever did in TX. Sure we had the party’s and visits with them, waved when we saw each other driving away, visited when we were out in our yards and during the holidays while out stringing lights, ya know all the neighborly things we do with neighbors.

Well Frannie and I have become best email buds and we have officially named us as best email friends. It’s true, as we send notes back and forth about our days almost every single day and this has gone on for weeks now. And we’ve been known to pass notes several times during the day.

It’s so sad we didn’t visit more often when we were neighbors as I miss seeing her but what a joy this has been to keep up with Frannie and also hear what’s going on back at the old home front. But I shall say that I want this to be a reminder to spend more time with my neighbors and get to know them while we’re here, because there is no promise that we’ll be here forever.

Quinton, the gentleman who works for Bobby, the same guy that helped Bobby move our furniture in months ago. We just learned that his mother passed away yesterday. Quinton is a young man in his late 20’s and he’s so young to be losing his mom. His last conversation with his mom was this past Sunday (Mother’s Day) and he says she went so fast. She’s had a bout with cancer but seemed to be doing fine. He said she was not feeling very well after this last chemo treatment but he wasn’t prepared for her to go this soon. Can you say a prayer for Quinton’s family with us during this time of sorrow?

I just received some pictures from my girlfriend Monika back in TX. They recently spent some time in FL and I got some of the cutest pictures of “Little Nicholas”. It’s so hard to believe he’s already had his 1st birthday, my how the time goes by.

We’re leaving for TX this coming Saturday and we will be spending two weeks at home. Bob is going down there on business but only has to work a day (next Tuesday). So Monika and I have already made plans to spend that day together. And then we are making plans for our families to spend some evenings together as well. And I can’t wait to give little Nicholas a big squeeze.

I’ve posted a few pictures of Nicholas below.

What a glorious day with friends. Stefania and I met downstairs and made our way over to a wonderful place for breakfast (the same place Jennifer and I visited yesterday). What a lovely breakfast we had and we both enjoyed the wonderful French toast and coffee. We visited there ‘til around 11:30 and then made our way from there to lunch. We met our friend Evelyn at a different place for lunch where we once again had a very nice long visit. We all enjoyed homemade soup in a bread bowl followed by coffee. We visited until 3:00pm and had to literally pull ourselves away from the table as Stefania had to get back. I’m overjoyed to have met such wonderful friends here at the hotel and we all plan to stay in contact. As a matter of fact, I’m already looking forward to Stefania’s next visit.

A picture of Stefania and me at breakfast

Evelyn and Stefania – Stefania stooping to pet Felix (Evelyn’s cute dog). We are just out front of the restaurant an old home converted into such a nice cozy restaurant.

The benches continue to line the front but now the boots have been filled with holly.

The owner of was delivered her new 8 week old pup while we were having lunch. She was bombarded with questions like what’s her name. She kept telling guests, I don’t know, I just got her. She was beaming and it was so obvious that she fell in love with her cute little fella immediately.

Evelyn and Doug have already found their home and will be moving in just before Christmas. We’re already looking forward to our continued friendship long after we are out of the hotel and truly what a joy it has been meeting such wonderful new friends.