Hello friends and family! Time for my next post. This time I'm going to share about Joey's surf trip, my bff Neiner's visit, some random mundane things, and Joey's birthday. Here we go!
JOEY'S SURF TRIP
While I was living it up with friends and family in Atlanta in early June (see last post), Joey was keeping himself entertained on the west coast. The first weekend I was gone he went on a surf trip with the guys. They loaded up Jordan's car on Friday afternoon and headed about an hour north up the coast to go beach camping.
Here is a picture of their campsite. Apparently the sites were super small and close together (and not very far from the SoCal power plant - eek!) but they said it was still cool to camp on the beach
They spent the days surfing until their arms gave out and laying out in the sun (but not taking very many pictures! this is the best one I found!)
Then they spent the evenings drinking beer by the campfire and enjoying the views.
Here's Jordan in front of a particularly purple sunset.
At some point, it appears they also practiced their golf swing. I hope that's not bad for the environment...
Sounds like they had a great time!
NEINER'S BEER JOURNEY COMES TO SD
The week I returned from Tampa, my good friend Neiner came to visit. He has been driving the country "researching" beer gardens and had driven all the way from Atlanta. He plans to open his own beer garden one day and has decided to take the summer to interview owners and determine what makes an awesome beer garden. You can read about his adventures here.
I didn't capture all of his visit since I pretty much do the same things with all my out of towner friends but here are a few of our activities for the weekend.
Lunch on Friday - Burger Lounge in Little Italy. If you love gourmet turkey burgers and yummy salads (or towers of fries and onion rings) then this place is the best! It was so great to catch up face to face!
After lunch I had to go to work for a bit (yay for having work!) and I pointed Neiner to Balboa park to explore. That evening we went out for a little happy hour at a fish place on the bay. The happy hour menu was a STEAL so we ended up ordering almost everything on it. Notice that there are two tables full of food. Yikes!
Saturday morning we took Neiner to Stone Brewery, the closest thing we have to a beer garden in San Diego so Neiner could "work." Here they are doing his traditional toast pose.
That afternoon we tried to have a bonfire at Mission Bay but it was too crowded to find a fire pit. We did find an open grill though, so we improvised.
A visit to San Diego is hardly complete without a hike so we took Neiner to Torrey Pines state park - but first a stop at Mona Lisa - the best Italian deli ever.
It was a beautiful day - warm but breezy - gotta love San Diego!
Along the way we met a particularly bold squirrel. It seems like they are used to people. He stood in this pose for like 5 minutes and let us get so close that Joey almost poked him.
The Torrey Pines trail goes down to the beach and makes for a great place to have lunch.
After the hike, we explored La Jolla a bit and stopped in for froyo. This is not really very exciting but I thought it was interesting to look at our make-your-own ice cream combinations. Can you guess who's is who's?
Later that night, we went to a local dive bar for a little more research. Here we are doing Neiner's signature toast again.
It was a quick weekend visit but we had a great time! Now I just need to convince him to open his beer garden in San Diego!
I'M ADDICTED...
Ok, so I mentioned that I was going to talk about some random things. Random thing number 1 - I'm totally addicted to words with friends. I never thought I really liked Scrabble but it is so much fun to play with your friends and family and try to get high scoring words. I think I'm pretty good too because I was undefeated my first month of playing! This is a screen shot of the game where I played my highest scoring word (although not the turn I did it.) My friend Jamie played ORGANIZE on the vertical there and I played GOAD for a total score of 107 points! Woo! He's really good though and still ended up beating me...
BEACH VOLLEYBALL IS AWESOME, BUT DANGEROUS
Next random thing - Joey and I signed up for a social beach volleyball league on Thursday nights. It has been so much fun! I played volleyball for one year in high school but apparently forgot everything - including the rules - but it is slowly coming back. It took three games before I could serve over the net again, but it's just a social league so it's ok.
I'm getting better every week but I'm still not great because last week I hit myself in the face and ended up taking off half my eyelashes. Yep, that's right. I pretty much don't have any eyelashes on my right eye right now. It's not a good look for me.
GOODBYE LITTLE ITALY, HELLO UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS!
On another semi-random note, we are moving! I've really loved living in Little Italy but we need more space and I'm sick of the train! We looked all around San Diego the last couple weekends and we finally found a place! We will be moving into a 2 bed, 2 bath, 2 story townhouse in a cute residential walkable neighborhood called University Heights, just 10 min north of where we are now. We wanted to move by the beach but we just couldn't find a good place and we really love this one.
I will post more pics after we move in and decorate but this is the place with the current owner living in it. This is the front of the town house - and that's OUR garage!!
Walking down the side gated entry...
Looking down after walking up the stairs...
The main living area...
And the kitchen...
In addition to finding a new place, we are also buying a new table and couch (time to throw out the college furniture!) So we have been spending a lot of time furniture shopping and since I use my phone to remember what we like, I have a few pictures of the experience.
How's that one feel Joey?
I "liked" this one.
I can't wait to move in and decorate the new place! Look for more pictures in August!
SURPRISE PARTIES ARE HARD!
As many of you know, July is Joey's birthday month. He isn't birthday-crazed like I am so we only celebrated for a week. This year I wanted to throw him a surprise party but because of the timing of the July 4th weekend, I couldn't have his party the Saturday before his birthday and had to do it after instead. I have to say that it kind of sucks to have a surprise party after someone's real birthday because you end up hurting their feelings and looking like a jerk when you don't do something to celebrate. Joey doesn't really care but he was a little let down that he thought I didn't even get him a cake or anything. Anyways, this is how his birthday week went down.
I planned a surprise pool party at our apartment complex - complete with beer, steak, and cookie cake. I got the cookie cake recipe from our friend Nicole's blog who made it for her husband just last month. (See her post here.) Joey loves cookie cakes so I knew he would love it! I was so excited to surprise him with it but he saw her post too and actually mentioned it to me after I had already bought the ingredients! I couldn't believe it! I played dumb though and was secretly sad that he would think it was his idea! Oh well..
The recipe calls for 8 dozen cookies (which is insane!) that you stack in 9 layers with mascarpone cheese and whipped cream. My friend Sarah came over to help me make it - and thank goodness because hand whipping cream is exhausting! I hid it in the community game room fridge for two days so Joey wouldn't know.
On Wednesday, Joey's actual birthday, he was in class until 10pm (boo). Then on Friday night we had to have a little fake celebration for him so he didn't feel like no one loved him. We went out with a couple friends for sushi and then downtown to people watch for Comi-Con weekend.
On Saturday morning all our friends gathered at our pool secretly and I brought Joey down (unwillingly) at 2:30 sharp. He was so surprised! I didn't get a picture of his surprise because I was so nervous I was literally shaking. I'm SO not good at secrets - especially from Joey!
We grilled steaks and veggies - yum.
And Johnny grilled bacon for some reason. This guy loves his bacon.
Then I went up to the community room to get the surprise cake. I was SO excited to give it to him!
Walking up...he looks happy already!
The cake was delicious! Everyone loved it! It was amazing how the cookies really did just melt together and it cut like a real cake. Crazy! Thanks SO much Nicole!!
We just spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out and soaking in the hot tub.
It even turned into an all day event! At around 10pm we were all starving again and went out for pizza in Little Italy.
I'd say all in all, it was a success! Now I'm all birthday-ed out, I'm glad these things only come once a year!
So that's it! Next Wednesday is our 3 year wedding anniversary and in two weeks we are going to Myrtle beach to see the Heithaus family. I probably won't post for a while unless something interesting happens in the next week or so but look for some fun pictures in August!
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