The weekend after we went to the Grand Canyon, Jon and I left for San Diego. He was scheduled to meet his manager there on Monday, so we left the children with Jon's sister in Queen Creek, AZ and flew over to San Diego for the weekend before his meetings. We flew into San Diego early Saturday morning and checked into our hotel then headed to the beach.
Jon, was like a native ... going out into the ocean, boogie boarding and swimming in the waves. I was a little less active ... walking out into the waves and splashing around for a while, then returning to my towel on the beach to read a book on my phone. Yeah, I'm a party pooper ... oh well, at least I got in some relaxing.
On Sunday, we found a church to attend, then walked around the San Diego California LDS Temple grounds. There, we met a nice elderly man who was the "walking visitor's center." Literally. He had a bunch of binders and pamphlets on a rolling cart and was sitting in the shade, just waiting for someone to come along to hear information about the temple.
On Monday, we went over to Old Town San Diego and walked along the historic main street. There were tons of vendor wagons parked all over, and I set out to find the perfect souvenirs for our children while Jon went to his meeting. The above pictures are of "gourd" animals. Those animals were carved into the gourd and then painted. They were gorgeous art pieces that my two older girls (one loves owls and the other giraffes) would have loved ... but I was not willing to pay $16-26. In addition, I wanted something that was more "ocean-y."
As I was on my search, I found a vendor's wagon so humorous as I walked by and realized that these little frogs were made out of seashells. They were definitely one-of-kind.
I walked around for a while, just enjoying the feel of Old Town ... all of the historic sites and Mexican flavor to everything. The fountain on the left was just outside a Mexican Fiesta. On the right is an old dress. It is on a dress form that stands outside an authentic haberdashery and millinery. I loved walking through there and fingering all the antique lace and trim, looking at all of the gloves, hats, ties, and jewelry. Why don't they have stores like this anymore? It was an extremely relaxing experience ... not the fast paced feeling that shopping for accessories is today. While I was there a mother and daughter duo walked in and the mother kept saying, "Do you know what a haberdashery is? A haberdashery. You don't remember what a haberdashery is? Well, a haberdashery is ..." I think she just enjoyed saying haberdashery. Really, try it out, it's like poetry.
I also visited the first schoolhouse in San Diego. I thought the discipline posters for both student and teacher were quite funny. Imagine any of that happening now. I loved that on the "Instructions to the Teachers" it says that "Women teachers who marry or engage in other unseemly conduct will be dismissed." Does that mean that getting married is also unseemly conduct? Ha ha ... it just made me laugh.
Unfortunately, the school was closed. So, I had to press my camera lens up to the window in order to see inside the schoolhouse. So drab and boring compared to all the colors thrown up on the walls in public schools today.
I then went over to the first printing house and got to stick my camera lens (yet again) through bars and up to plastiglass windows to get these photos. It's amazing how far we've come with the written word.
In my search for the "perfect" souvenirs for my children, I came across these scorpions in glass bead bracelets. I thought about getting them for my boys, but then realized that we could probably catch our own scorpions (we had three in jars at home at the time).
On the main street in front of the "modern" stores, there were men who were making flowers out of these grasses. I think that's what they were. It was amazing to me. This particular man offered me a rose and then was kind enough to pose for a picture for me. How accommodating!
This is a picture of the restaurant that we ate at for lunch. You can just barely see the Mexican (robot) sitting there under the tree waving his hand. I think that brought in more business than the building itself. But, the food was oh so good. They brought out a creamy green chile salsa to accompany the more mundane, yet fresh, regular salsa. It was amazing ... it was all I wanted to eat.
Later that evening, I met up with Jon, his manager, and his coworker, Cynthia (who lives in San Diego). His manager has to "okay" each of the team's home offices every two years. It was Cynthia's turn, so their manager (Dave) checked out her office and then they did some planning and talking about the Spanish requirements of the team. Every time Dave visits one of his team member's home, he wants to go and do something fun with them as "team building" activities. So, we all piled into the jeep he rented and headed to Belmont Park to ride the "Giant Dipper." It is one of the largest wood rail roller coasters in the United States. And, when you get to the top crest, you can look out and see the ocean ... because it is right on the beach. It was an amazing view and I so wanted to take a picture, but was too afraid that my camera would fall when we lurched forward down the track. At any rate, it was so much fun to run around and be a kid again ... until our Mexican food decided to thwart our fun and give us all upset stomachs.
The following day we were to fly home. But, before we left, we went back to Old Town to try to get into the schoolhouse again. Which was locked again. But, there was a well not too far off into which Jon took a peek only to find that it was filled with dirt and rocks.
Then, we went back to the temple and participated in an endowment session before heading to Seaport Village. We walked through an art exhibit, and I snapped a few photos. Again, thinking of my girls, I took a picture of these blown glass flowers, and this bronze giraffe.
We walked around and just enjoyed the atmosphere, including this little pond and bridge, and the pirate store. I had a really hard time not buying some kind of pirate paraphernalia for my boys.
We walked along the pier, and I snapped some photos of a restaurant on stilts. ... I don't know that I could eat in there ... seems too unstable for me.
We walked along the cute sidewalks, and joked about the tour bus, before we got to the last store we stopped out. I was on the lookout for a thank you gift to give to my sister-in-law, and found the perfect one here:
It is a candle shop! The girl there is hand carving a candle. The picture on the right shows what the candles look like when they are lit. wicks are dipped into sometimes 12 layers of different colored wax, then hung to cool for a few minutes before she starts to carve them. There were so many intricate designs ... I was so impressed she free handed them.
In all, it was such a nice break away from home. But, I was so glad to get home and get ready to head out for the reunion on my side .... which had it's ups and downs as well.
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