Playing Tourist

So, yesterday, I decided that it was time to start enjoying the sites around my new home.  One thing I always wanted to do when we would visit here was take the Old Town Trolley Tour of the city.  So yesterday, Chuck and I headed to Old Town where we picked up our pre-ordered tickets and boarded the Trolley.

Like most if not all of the Trolley Tours across the country, we could get on and off whenever we wanted.  I had bought a 2 day ticket and we can use day 2 any time between now and December. So we only got off a couple of times this trip and I figured we could get off different times next trip. The trolley took us down by the waterfront, Seaport Village (where we got off for a bit), Horton Plaza (which I totally want to do next time), Gas Lamp District, Coronado (where we got off for lunch), Little Italy and Balboa Park.  And of course we got lots of history along the way.  And of course I took lots of pictures.

Maritime Museum. We took this tour a couple of years ago.  Very interesting.

 The ship way out in the harbor is a car transport which is how all the foreign cars get here.

 Seaport Village.  Full of shops and restaurants.

Ad for Comic-con.  We went last year just to walk around outside and had a ball.  We plan to go back this year again.   It is the weekend of July 19th.

Seal Boat.  We took this tour last summer.  Lots of fun and the kids loved it.

Gas Lamp District

Petco Park in the distance where the SD Padres play.

Views of the harbor from the Coronado Bridge

 

 

 The beach at the Ferry Landing on Coronado.

 

 This has got to be the world's longest happy hour!

 View of the city from Coronado.

And of course, I HAD to check this store out. 

And of course they had NOTHING Montgomery. So what else is new?

Hanging out waiting for the Trolley

We drove by but since we've done the Coronado, we opted not to see it again.

 

The Coronado Bridge

Balboa Park

 I found this kind of funny actually.  It was a display in Old Town of the Key West Trolley.

Scenes from Old Town.  I love Old Town and could wander around here everyday.

 

You never know what you will see--for instance a guy pushing a walker with a rooster sitting on the walker and a dog wearing shoes. 

 

 My favorite place in Old Town--Fiesta de Reyes

 

 

 

And my favorite restaurant in Old Town--although yesterday I was a bit disappointed in the service.  But this won't stop me from going back. 

It was a great day.  And it was so nice to get out of the house and away from remodeling etc. There is so much to do around this city and even though we have done a lot of the touristy things before, I think we will be repeating some.

Geocaching

So, Karen and the kids have been geocaching for awhile now.  We went with them one day just after we arrived in California.  The city of La Mesa, where Karen lives, is celebrating their 100th birthday this summer and one of the activities is a geocaching challenge. Check it out here.  La Mesa Geocache Challenge

Anyway, today the grandparents were invited to tag along.  Today's challenge was a little different though.  We had to go to 4 different places and do activities like counting cement picnic tables, barbeque pits etc.  Then if all four were done correctly, that would give us the coordinates to the cache.  Unfortunately we got a somewhat late in the morning start.  By the time we had driven all over town and found the 4 places and got the answers, everyone was too tired and hungry to go find the cache.  I guess that will have to wait for another day.  But of course, I did take some pictures along the way.

First, we had to count cement tables. Only 2 here. Karen and Ethan filling in the answer on their papers.

The Jacaranda trees are in full bloom and beautiful.

So are the Bougainvilla.

Of course where there are parks there are usually playgrounds. And little boys need to play!

Next we had to go to a Trolley Station and find a certain saying on one of the light poles.

Nothing better than when your grandson wants to hold your hand.

 Next we had to count Barbeque Pits and add 2. That made 7.

 
Last stop was counting cement benches around the round cupula and subtract 1.  9 benches so the answer was 8. Can you see them off in the distance??

 Noah ran over and counted them.

Filling out their papers.

We did manage to find some wildlife along the way too. Apparently this is a Fence Lizard.  He was about 6 inches long.  Ethan found one on my steps that was at least a foot long.  Just a tad bigger than Sanibel Anoles.

Ethan apparently is very good at spotting reptiles.  He found this guy by the steps that we had just walked up.  It went into the bushes but soon came back out probably hoping to cross to the other side, however when he saw us, he took off for the bushes again.  He was very LONG!! I guess this is a California Whipsnake aka Striped Racer--non venomous thank goodness. 

All in all, it was a fun morning followed by a late lunch at Wendy's.  The boys have to have their chicken nuggets so they usually go to Micky D's but I introduced them to Wendy's.  They were impressed. :)

Working on My Kitchen

When we bought this trailer, we knew that the kitchen would probably be the biggest job.  It was old. It was worn. It was DIRTY!

Most of the cupboards and drawers were chipped and in horrible need of repair.  So we took all of the drawers and the doors back to Karen's where Michael worked on them for several weeks.  When he returned them, I was totally amazed.  There was one area that was damaged but couldn't be removed to be fixed so we had to paint over it.  This is what everything would have looked like if not for Michael and his skills.

 

This is what the finished products looked like after he puttied, sanded, primed and painted all of the drawers and cupboard doors.

So, began the job here at the house.  We had to prime the whole kitchen then we put the final enamel coat on everthing that hadn't been taken to Karen's. 

Once we had it all painted with the doors and cupboards back on, it actually looked pretty good.

But Karen, my designer still had plans for the kitchen.  Adding an accent color. So, today, I got to work at painted the accent color.  

So, I still need to add a curtain to the window,  some decorations, maybe paint the door or get a new one and yes, get a new floor!!

We have picked out a wood flooring and are now planning on getting it done soon.  This is sure a far cry from the filthy kitchen that I walked into in April. Lots of work, but so worth it.