San Diego - Shopping and Chargers!

Deans friends from work are Chargers fans, and Dean is not but he doesnt hate the Chargers. So we decide to go to San Diego, and make a weekend of it. Dean and his friends would go to Charger game and us girls would shop. Sounds good to me. So in the picture on the far left is Deans Seargent Jason and his wife Maria, and then next to them is Scott and his wife and I cant remember her name that is bad, and then Deans partner Jose "louie" and his wife Tina. We met everyone down in Old Town on Saturday, and then Scott he is a former Marine he booked the hotel he said it was nice and got us a deal? hmmm.. I was not so excited about that, I am very picky about where I stay, but I kept an open mind. So after Old Town, we go to Hotel Circle and head to the Town and Country Resort.. Hmmm that sounds nice. Resort? The place was huge that must make it an resort. We pay and get checked in we decide to go to the room and meet back downstairs at 1700 to head out for dinner. We get to the room, and they are blue with flowers and wallpaper and smelled like old people. And this made sense, because all I saw at this place was old people. As you will see below there was a picture of a girl in a blue dress and apparently this picture was in all rooms. It is kinda freaky, looks very real and the eyes follow you. So at 1500 we decide to go down the pub at our "resort" and get some appetizers since Dean and I were starving, and Louie and Tina come with us. During our walk there, Tina was freaked out about the picture, so when we sat down in the pub we asked the waitress about it. The waitress goes on and on about this girl in the blue dress and how customers always write reviews and say to get rid of the freaky pictures. The waitress goes on to say how she has even seen the girl in the blue dress, but she has no idea who it is and any story behind it. Very strange but Tina is even more freaked out now. So I tried to take a picture of the girl and as you will see below it wouldnt come out. I took the picture 5 times, and this one was the best. Then the next picture is of Tinas husband Louie or Jose I call him Rocha because that is his last name. And there you have the white dot! Makes me wonder if the girl in the blue dress was maybe with us? Was the white dot on his jacket really a ghost spirit with us? The picture was taken on the Trolley leaving the hotel heading for Gaslamp for dinner. We made it downtown for dinner, we stopped at Dicks last resort for a drink that place is pretty cool, and then onto Lou and Barneys this is a steak house kinda like Mortons. Dinner was great then we walked around downtown for a bit and headed back to the hotel. The next day, the boys headed out to the game and the girls headed across from our hotel to the Fashion Valley Mall, I have to say this is the best mall I have ever been to. It has everystore you could think of, Gucci, Louis Vuiiton, Coach, Express, Lucky, etc... Kinda like a South Coast Plaza but it was an outside mall so it was casual. Very cool, would love to go back. When the guys were done with the game we walked back and met them at the trolley. The guys were all laughing as we were walking back. I guess they made bets as to who's wife would have bought the most!!! And im sure all my friends would have bet right along with them that it would be me.... But it wasnt... haha.. Dean and Jason both chose me to win, and Jasons wife Maria to come in second. But instead Maria won, and I came in last! Yes, it just wasnt my day.... We all had very different tastes so it was very hard to get my shopping mojo to work. I spent less than $50.00 very sad.. but Dean was very happy... And so this ended my weekend, we walked to our cars and we left. But I left my hubby there. Dean had a class this week in San Diego so he stayed and Jose and Tina brought me home. But we had so much fun, what a great group of friends he has. We laughed all weekend long..

Deans friends from work and the wives.

Doesnt he look "evil" and notice the white spot on his jacket right where his hand is? We once did a ghost tour in San Diego and the tour guide showed us alot of pictures of what he thought were ghosts and all that showed up was white spots just like this. This will make more sense why I am pointing this out when you read the story to go along with this picture. "Louie"

The girl in the blue dress from the hotel

Here is picture of hotel, it looks not as bad in this photo from their website.

Turkey Day

Well, I didnt do so well in the picture category. I had the camara out, but since I had turkey issues I didnt get to take very many photos.

I got up at 930 on Thanksgiving, I had a 26 lb turkey that I needed to get in the oven. I had Dean brine it the night prior, so this was gonna be easy. All I need to do is follow all the easy instructions I got off the internet. Most sites said to cook for 15 min per pound. That seemed like way to much, so I had my mind set on 5 1/2 hours and I bought and used one of the turkey thermometers, the temp should be 170 and it was done so I came down every 30 minutes and basted it just as I was told. At 4 hours into the cooking time, I came down to baste and the needle says "170" ok well this is impossible. It is a 26 lb turkey (huge) how could this be right. So I moved the dumb thing around, and placed it everywhere I could in this turkey to see if maybe it was wrong. Well it wasnt, it read 170... so now what? I called my mother in law, who is a great cook. She also has family who is the busalacci ? think I spelled that wrong but they own 7 restaurants in downtown San Diego ( Gas Lamp and Little Italy) so she checked and called me back and said if it says 170 then done. So I shut the oven off, but left the turkey in the oven ( big mistake) while I was trying to hurry and start making all the sides. This short amount of time it took to make the sides, ruined my turkey. The turkey was soooo dry, this was horrible. My only saving thing was the "peruvian sauce" I made to go with the potatoes (this was deans only request) Well, this sauce is sooo yummy, and yes it hides the fact that the turkey was dry. So it saved the day. And fortunately for me, everyone at the dinner loves that sauce! so yay ... So since this wasnt the best morning, this is what made me not take so many pictures. Nikolas didnt have a nap, so he was in full force craziness, but he and all of us had a great time. Deans brother Erick came down with his girlfriend and they played with Nikolas all day. Nikolas had not seen Erick for a very long time, and he really really liked him alot. Deans Mom and stepdad also joined us, and that was it. So it was very nice and low key.

Anna, uncle Ericks girlfriend and of course Nikolas

Nikolas with uncle Erick

Deans 20 Year Reunion

Ok, well tickets in hand and wow... 20 years, can you believe it. We were so excited, I went and bought a new dress and we were going to the Hilton in Whittier so Dean could see and catch up with his old school buddies..... Then........ The fires began, Dean was at SWAT training for only a half day since he had to be home in time to get ready.

Well today since the fire was so bad, and Brea was hurting for help since both cities that they patrol are being hit. Brea and Yorba Linda. North County SWAT was deployed! Dean was off to catch some bad guys that were there looting the homes.... Sick people how could they go steal from people that were in risk of losing homes....

So needless to say, no party! Bummer I guess I will save the dress for Christmas...

So the pictures below are just some of what Dean saw between those 2 days.

Video game zombies

Ok, Derek can play games, but really Nikolas too! He is only 2, this is crazy. He absolutely loves to go play Monster Trucks on the WII with Derek. Look at this picture they were both clueless that I was in there taking pictures of them! But it is kinda cute with the matching bean bags, but arghh... no more vicdeo games.... Looks at Dereks room he could be cleaning that instead, what a mess! Oh and most important, notice the matching outfits? Derek did this... hehe how cute!

Fires

Wow, I have to say how scary! I saw some smoke and thought wow how cool, I had not watched the news yet at that point. People are lining the streets at all peaks to get the best views. So I went home and got the camara, and added to the kaos. I took some of the Brea fire which is very close to me. And then I moved down Bastanchury to the Yorba Linda fire as this one was close too since I live off that street.

Dean and I are suppossed to go to his 20 year high school reunion, but he just got a full team call out. Which for North County Swat is all of Fullerton, Brea, La Palma and Placentia and of course La Habra.

The one picture I didnt get it, was on my way home down Imperial, a trail of 10 patrol cars rolling Code 3. It was a very cool site to see, but wow how this has made some damage! Very sad.

Nikolas thought the fires were so cool, he didnt really understand he was sure the fires were from a "airplane" Not sure why, and hopefully he doesnt get afraid to fly now.

This is the entrance to my track, and straight ahead is the 57 Fwy, and to the right goes to Imperial and that is the direction of the Brea Fire. Behind me, apporx 2 miles away is the Yorba Linda fire.

#1 picture, this was the sun. The kids thought it was a moon.

Poop at Target

Ok, let me start this story off by saying. Nikolas since he was a baby has always pooped little small balls. I have asked the doctor on many occasions, he has said you can give him water this may help but nothing to worry about. So he just has non messy poops. So today we are at Target doing some food shopping, I buy my cereals and oatmeal and condiments from Target they have such great prices on those items. So Nikolas had this horrible look on his face, and said as he was pointing "Mommy poo poo"? wish you could have seen his face. And so I looked and said what is poo poo? Then I saw what he was pointing at. There was a box of Entenman's donut holes. Could you imagine what Nikolas was thinking, this is where we get our food, and they have a box of "poop". I went to the website so I could add the picture of them. Except what he was pointing at was a box of them, the box was way better this is one lone "poo poo". There was another lady next to us shopping and she overheard this whole ordeal and her and I were laughing so hard we were crying. She said maybe those are constipated poop, but she didnt know the whole story of what Nikolas poop looks like. This was so hilarious.. I cried laughing everytime I though of this story.

This is one single donut hole, and the box below is similar to the box that Nikolas saw except the ones we saw were glazed chocolate donut holes... :)

Love my new wagon

Nikolas and I decided to go for a walk, hmmm where to go? Well we decided to walk to Albertsons. It was a nice walk, we went to get Nikolas some "Dibs" he loves those. It was so hot outside on the way to Albertsons, that when we were there I decided to get him a hat. So the hat he has "yes" it is from Albertsons, but it looked so so cute. The hat worked so well, it covers his face so good, and he actually likes it. I thought he looked so cute....