A ROOM WITH A VIEW

Mark and I were in San Diego last week and we were right on the harbor. The bridge you see in these photos is the Coronado Bridge which takes you over to the world renowned Hotel Del Coronado. We have been there several times since we moved to Southern California but have never actually stayed there.

You can see the rooftop of the Hotel Del zoomed in.

Our hotel had an awesome pool area.

On Wednesday we stopped in Carlsbad on the ride up to eat at our favorite place called Jay's Gourmet. You will see it in another photo because we also stopped on the way home Friday. After we got settled in at the hotel we went and walked around Seaport Village. I did a little shopping but really didn't buy anything!

We didn't want another meal so we stayed in. Mark is a member of the Marriott Club so their is a special Concierge Lounge in full service Marriott's where you can go to have drinks and they have appetizers for you to eat. They also do desserts later in the evening and breakfast in the morning. It's all free of charge. 

Before this awesome dinner at The Palm Restaurant on Thursday we had spent the afternoon at the San Diego Zoo. I have a post coming on Sunday! This was an excellent meal in the Gaslamp Quarter. We have a had a lot of awesome steaks in our years together but we agreed these were the best ever! 

So Friday on the way home we had a few stops to make. Like I mentioned earlier we stopped at Jay's to have lunch in Carlsbad, one of our most favorite towns. We took the scenic route from the harbor all the way to Carlsbad which took us through many popular beach towns like Del Mar. We stopped in La Jolla so I could go to the Julian Bakery to pick up some low carb bread. (We lived in the La Jolla area for 9 months when we moved to California from Illinois)

Carlsbad is where the Flower Fields are located and this is the time of year they are in bloom. I wanted to pick up a few bouquets for myself. We did not pay the fee to go into the fields because we just did that last Spring and also wanted to be heading home before traffic got ugly. Didn't have time to walk in the sand but I did see the ocean along the way! 

You can see all my pictures from last year HERE 
and you won't be disappointed!

Here are a few shots of the Ranunculus
I brought home last week. 

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND....

LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL

Just to touch base on my last post before I get started on this one: I was telling Mark how I got a lot of comments on my last post. (I enjoyed your comments and understanding on my behavior) He said what did you post about? I said I posted about what a jerk I was about Valentine's Day and how I said to you "I will let them sit and the porch and die" regarding the flowers.

Well what I didn't mention is that the flowers from a very popular place where not in the best shape when they arrived. It surprised me because they always send the best! I didn't want to tell him but I felt that the company needed to be notified about it. So anyway I told him about my post and Mark with his awesome sense of humor said "Well after you told me that you would just leave them on the porch I made sure I called them and told them to just go ahead and send her dead flowers!" Gotta love him!

So we did talk about the flowers when he came home but I just had to ask him a question about something he gave me for Christmas. I told him that his gift of the Pandora bracelet should have made his Valentine's gift an easy choice. I just assumed he would go and get a little heart charm for it. He said he totally forgot about it. I told him that I didn't want the bracelet to fill myself, I wanted charms from him or the children to fill it up with things that they would love to give me for it! You agree with me on this one, right?

So Mark often watches Guy Fieri on the Food Network and he had seen one on a pizza place in San Diego. We go to San Diego several times a year for a day trip. We will either go to La Jolla and eat at The Spot or go to Carlsbad to eat at Jay's which are two favorites of ours. Since he had given last weekend to work he decided not to go into work on Friday. Since we didn't spend Valentine's Day together and he thought about visiting the pizza place he had watched with Guy, we headed to San Diego on Friday.

(You don't have to watch this, I just wanted to show you that is was on Food Network)

So the pizza was just okay but Mark and I had a great drive and a day of some great conversations. Look at the old San Diego electrical poles. I always love the flower shops in San Diego on the corners of several streets. How do you like my shadow shot of the Turf Super Club? So you see the bread on the shelf. Well if your into low carb you may have heard of the Smart Carb #1 bread from Julian Bakery. Well they are in La Jolla and yes we bought several loaves. Sometimes you just want a piece of bread!

So after stopping for bread and eating at Luigi's we headed to Carlsbad to go to the Premium Outlet Mall and walked around. We picked up a few things at Crate & Barrel. I looked at purses but nothing said "Bye me!" We stopped in Carlsbad to get a few pictures of the ocean. After we left Carlsbad we ended up stopping at the mall to go into a Macy's. Mark has been looking for a Winter top coat for his trip to Europe. He will be going to Finland and Switzerland which are both pretty cold this time of year. Well we ended up finding a very nice coat. The sign said 60% off and then you got an additional 10% off. The coat was $350. but it only rang up at 40% off. We told the man that the sign said 60%. So he went over, took the sign off and said this is your lucky day, no one else is going to get this deal. So with tax it came out to be around $137.00! Can't beat that deal. What a fun day we had.

On Sunday we went to Los Angeles to meet up with Adam & Tristen. We went to The Museum of Contemporary Art. I saw my first original Pollock! We had a very nice time looking at the artwork on display. Afterwards we went out to eat at Masa of Echo Park Bakery & Cafe'. It was perfect. Casual, unique and Chicago deep dish pizza! We had a wonderful late lunch with wine, salad, garlic bread and awesome pizza. (of course I stuck to my diet) See the modern building in the picture, that is the Walt Disney Concert Hall which was just down the street from the museum.


So what do you think, pretty busy weekend for me don't you think?

P.S. I know this post looks long but in order to get my header to be centered I had to make my page narrower.

A BLAST FROM THE PAST ....

....the past few weeks that is and technically that is the past.What I have for you are pictures, pictures and more pictures. Enjoy!

Remember to click on them to enlarge.

A few weeks ago Mark was doing some trimming in the front yard so I went out and took a few pictures. Love my ficus in the large crock that we got from Mark's grandmother years ago. Our Norfolk Pine is doing great but at some point it will be too large for where we have it. We do things like that all the time!

Some flowers in the backyard.

On a clear day you can see forever. We do love our view. My new love is Naked Juice. My Eiffel Tower charm from the Art Fair in Mammoth Lakes this summer. Dylan trimming the weeds on the other side of the fence. They bug us! Dylan at his birthday dinner. Some of my favorite berries. My most favorite is blackberries. A fire in the distance that we could see a few weeks ago.

A storm that came up really fast but never amounted to anything at all!

My little tomato plant. I think I got about 8 tomatoes from it. They are a small tomato but about 3 times bigger then a cherry tomato. I don't remember the name of them.

Mark and I went to La Jolla on the 29th of September for the day. The sun never came out but we had a nice time walking around. We use to live near there and wanted to visit one of our favorite restaurant. Of course it's all about the deep dish pizza! I was so excited to eat that I didn't even take a picture :(

We also enjoy walking around the coves and seeing the seals. The three pictures on the right is a seal who was having a lot of fun rolling around on a rock out in the ocean.

Some views of the ocean.

I was trying to get the water as it exploded against the rocks.

This was on Friday September 30th. The skies looked like they were on fire. See the rain over the mountains?

I will be in Las Vegas on Monday and Tuesday so I won't be around to visit with you.

I will see you for Wednesday Hodgepodge.

FYI: Monday night on LIFETIME is a story called FIVE that sounds like it will be very interesting to watch. It is an anthology of five short films exploring the impact of breast cancer on the lives of women diagnosed and their loved ones. Directors include Jennifer Aniston, Demi Moore and Alicia Keys. Set your DVR!