A time to share: Be Safe Son

(click on pictures to enlarge)
Took the family on a Little vacation sort of...
Our son Eric is being deployed to Iraq again soon. Probably in a week or two. The Military doesn't see fit to let the boys come home before deployment to see their families. Instead they would rather the family spend a lot of money to come see them, what I mean is... rather than an airline ticket to send our son home for a week BEFORE heading to another country to possibly get killed, they make us buy four airline tickets and stay in hotels for the duration of the time we want to spend with our loved one. Now, having said that...
We had a great time in San Diego! I just had to get that off my chest! :)
We left Seattle and the pouring rain last Friday at about 11 am, and arrived in the afternoon to a beautiful November sun shiny day!
Friday was a get unpacked in the hotel day, and go out to dinner at El Torito's. The restaurant was just a short walk from the hotel. This would be the night we finally get to meet Eric's girlfriend, Kim!
She is a beautiful young lady and seems to love our Eric!

She was a bit reserved at first, and that is to be expected, meeting Eric's whole family all at once would be a bit daunting. All went well and we enjoyed a nice evening together.
Saturday was a day for the boys to play together and the ladies

to enjoy some female time together too! Eric took Ryan and I golfing at the Marine Corps Miramar Memorial Golf Course.

It was a pretty nice course considering it is on a military base!
Palm trees all over and sunshine too!
I shot a 91, I also had a nice birdie on one of the par fives.
Eric hit some monster tee shots! Ryan scrambled his way around the course!
We enjoyed our time together!
The ladies spent some time at Pacific Beach, getting to know one another!
Saturday night was the Marine Corp Ball. Eric took his lovely friend Kim,

and they enjoyed dancing and fine food!
We enjoyed fine food that evening as well. Katie chose to have us eat at the Inn & Out restaurant. It was our first (and hopefully last) time eating at one of these hamburger joints. Everyone liked it but me. The french fries were a little to "light" for me. They were simply weird. But at least the meals were reasonably priced! I liked that! Inn & Out joints are a big hit in California, It has to do with the teenagers I guess?! Just there kind of thing to do, like a fashion statement, a place to meet and go, a hang out for them.
Sunday we drove to Mission Bay to play some volleyball. My kids are all kind of crazy,

and full of energy! It was a very windy day. We goofed around at the park

and had a lot of fun! We got kind of chilly so headed back to our hotel for some hot tubbin. After that we drove to "Old Town." That's a place in San Diego that has lots of stores along the sidewalks, kind of like Seattle's Pike Place Market,

but Mexican style. A little like going to Tijuana Mexico without the danger. Lots of Mexican restaurants. We go there whenever we are in San Diego. Our favorite restaurant is a place called Guadalajara's. I highly recommend it!
Monday! Disneyland!!!
Joan and I discussed making the one and a half our drive to Disneyland in Anaheim.
We didn't tell Katie until we got to our hotel, and we let her in on the secret, I was surprised by how excited she got! Katie was with us 12 years ago when we last went to Disney, she was three at the time. Of course she didn't remember any of it!
We

had a great time at Disney.

Since it was a holiday, they stayed open til midnight. Normally at this time of year they close at 8 pm and do not do their fireworks show. This was the first time we have seen the fireworks show! It is really excellent, highly recommend! All done to music and choreographed! Very nice!
My favorite ride was splash mountain! Ryan's was Pirates of the Caribbean.
We also enjoyed Buzz Lightyear! I scored the highest but have no proof. It is a funny story, but no one will believe it!
Since we were a group of five, and two people rode in a Buzz Lightyear car together, I rode alone. You have laser guns and shoot at targets for points! I decided to use both guns, one in each hand. Your score is tallied when you are finished. I score 81,200 with my right hand and 17,100 with my right!
I beat everyone in our party, (the boys scored somewhere in the 40 thousand range) Kind of astonished everyone, including myself! They didn't believe me, but they have a way of emailing your picture with the scores. My email didn't make it back to my email address, but at least "they" got to see it before we sent it, so I was validated! Too bad the email didn't come thru, it was a neat picture of me being intense with BOTH guns blazing!
I visited the magic shop in Disneyland. It was a big disappointment to me. I figured since it was the magic shop at Disneyland, the place "where magic happens" and the home of the original magic castle,

they would have an awesome magic shop! Wrong! Tiny and limited. I think I am a better magician than either of the two people working at the shop while we were there. That was kinda sad to me. I really wanted to spend some money there, but I didn't find anything of interest.
I drove us home from Disneyland. Eric's drivers window does not roll up. Twas a cold wind blowing on the left side of my face. It was a late evening, we got back to our hotel around 1:30 in the morning.
So, Tuesday we all slept in! All except Katie. She fell asleep in her clothes, too tired to change when we got home late Monday (actually Tuesday morning) night!
The hotel we were staying at served free breakfast and Katie didn't want to miss it. The rest of us just wanted to sleep in, I think every vacation needs a "lazy" day in it! Anyway, she woke up at about 9:25 am, the breakfast was served until 9:30... Yep, she made it on time for breakfast!
We finally got up and showered, Eric took us to lunch or breakfast, depending on your view point... to a place called the 'Naked Cafe'

where they served healthy type food. It was actually very good!

We visited Pacific Beach, San Diego on Tuesday, and it was a a windy day and we had fun tossing

the Frisbee around. Later we witnessed a spectacular sunset!

We headed back to the hotel for some warming up in the hottub and then walked on over to Benihana's!

Again, it was a wonderful meal and a good time. Eric had a problem though. He became ill and couldn't enjoy his meal. This was the only downer during the whole trip.

Wednesday, we visited Old Town, San Diego, and the flight home.
Usually when you are at the end of your vacation you can't wait to get home. This time it was different. We had such a great time that we wanted to stay and play!