FLOWERS AND FISH

Yes, these guys are swimming around outside without a layer of ice above them! The fish are huge....keepers in Minnesota fishing terminology.
Is there anything more beautiful in God's creation than a flower?
I love the greens, and the different horizontal and vertical lines of the trees, fence and shadows.

More shadows.
Doesn't the inside of this fern say spring to you?
When I think of living in heaven, I picture fields of flowers blanketing the land as far as I can see.

BALBOA PARK

Well, I suppose you don't want me to post all 125 pictures I took yesterday. It was a beautiful sunny day, perfect for a trip to Balboa Park, and I could have spent the whole day there. I love the buildings and trees and flowers, and we were fortunate that the place wasn't too crowded.
The fountain in the entrance area.
Beautiful sights in all directions; this building framed by the arch of the colonnade on the other side of the street.
The lush green grass had it's thirst quenched by the recent rains.

Pretty flower pots in a courtyard, next to the entrance to a restaurant.
As I said, beauty in all directions.
When we left Balboa Park, we drove across the bridge to Coronado.

FOR THE KID IN ALL OF US

Yesterday we went to Balboa Park. We only visited one of all the available museums and viewed only part of the fabulous buildings, but we enjoyed it very much. We went to the train museum, and while most of the train displays were probably more correct in size and detail, I loved the Lego train display. Kind of dark photos, though. Sorry.

Hagar on a snowboard!
Even found the Starbucks!
I wonder if the guys running all the train setups actually get paid, or if they just come to play!

THE MIDWAY

Yesterday we toured the aircraft carrier, USS Midway. We were aboard the ship for 4 hours, and still didn't see everything. The Midway is a huge ship, with a flight deck about the length of 3 football fields. It was built for $90 million in 1945, and received a $260 million overhaul in 1966-70. The Midway was decommissioned in 1992, and is harbored in San Diego as a Museum.

A few interesting facts about the Midway:
When it was commissioned in 1945, it was, and it remained, the largest ship in the world for a decade.
It was the first ship to be too large for the Panama Canal.
The Midway spanned the years from the end of WWII to the liberation of Kuwait in 1991.
In 1965 the Midway pilots shot down the first MiG of the Vietnam War.
In 1973 the Midway pilots shot down the last MiG of the Vietnam War.
In 1975 it lead the evacuation of Saigon, rescuing 3,073 refugees in two days.
In 1991 it was the flagship of the Persian Gulf air operations in Operation Desert Storm.
It carried a crew of 4,500 men of which 225 were cooks.


And it got one mile per 260 gallons of gas!

From the flight deck of the Midway, you can see, in a small park across the harbor, this statue based on the famous photograph of Alfred Eisenstaedt which captured the famous kiss on V-J Day in 1945 of a sailor and a woman. (This photograph is Time-Life's most requested and reproduced image. Another interesting fact about this photo is that a re-enactment of this kiss takes place annually in Times Square by many couples dressed in replicas of the clothing of the original couple.)

Excuse quality of this photo. The statue was qite a distance from where I was and I had to zoom as far as my camera would zoom.

MY BORROWED GRANDKID!

My niece, Maren, and her husband, Kevin, live in San Diego and have a three year old son named Shane. My sister, the grandmother of Shane, told me I could spoil him while I was here, so that's what today was all about. Maren invited us over for waffles this morning, and we were entertained by Shane while we ate the delicious banana waffles and drank a couple of cups of Maren's excellent coffee. Thanks!
After our breakfast we went to a playground and watched Shane play on the slides and make several new friends with the other kids who were there. The most fun was going down the slide in a train of three kids, then climbing back up on the slide, not the steps.
Shane is a very bright little guy, full of fun, inquisitive and all boy.
Thanks Betsy for letting me borrow him for a day. Hope it's okay if we do it again!

A LITTLE COLOR FOR THOSE OF YOU IN A WHITE WORLD

This colorful display of poinsettias sits close to the entrance to Old Town. They look so Christmasy, and are of course growing outside. The temps are quite a bit higher than the zero to ten above temps that are expected back home this weekend. Don't worry, I'll enjoy these beautiful displays of flowers for you all!

Aren't these beautiful?
And these, too?
How about these?

Gotta love the bird of paradise!
These are so sweet and dainty looking.

And for a little more color, this is the interior of the restaurant where we had lunch today. MMMMM good!

OLD TOWN

This morning we drove to Qualcomm Stadium where the San Diego Chargers play, only a short distance from our campground, and we parked the truck and rode the lite-rail or trolley train to Old Town. We shopped around for awhile, read about and viewed some of the historical exhibits, and ended this visit with a nice lunch.

Qualcomm Stadium decorated for Christmas. The train depot and tracks are right behind where I am standing to take this picture.
The entrance to Old Town San Diego State Historic Park.
This picture should be called "Grumpy Old Men" as Ernie and Dick weren't too happy with Bev and I. We were shopping....well, actually just looking.....but the guys got tired of watching us check out the pottery shop, the candy shop, the coffee shop, and, well you get the picture. We went in each store and looked, but the guys seem to think that there is no need to keep looking if you aren't going to buy. They just don't know how to shop!

This was such a nice, tall, clean looking palm tree. Some are so messy that I don't like them at all, but this one looked good.
Lots of beautiful blooming flowers......another blog.
I thought the poinsettias decorating the simple black iron rail were so pretty. It was kind of a dark corner, so it's not the best picture, but you get the idea.

Ernie doesn't remember what this was called, but it had chicken in it and was kind of a huge taco thing. He ate every single bite.

BIRTHDAY DAY

Today is the big birthday day for our family, as my dad and two of my grandsons were born on this day. My dad, who has been living with Jesus since 1982, would have been 93 today. I can't believe it's been 25 years since we've celebrated together, but I would not have taken these past 25 years of celebrating with Jesus from him. I miss him and envy him.

Today is also Caleb's birthday. His is 15. Caleb is the spunky redhead we took to Alaska with us last (2006) summer. He, and his brother Jacob, are the sons of our daughter that came to us as a 13 year old. I was present in the delivery room when Caleb was born, and held him when he was just minutes old. He possesses great determination, much energy, and is intelligent and hard working, qualities I admire greatly. And I love his red hair! Caleb is so much fun to be around, and he has many friends. Happy birthday to a special kid. I love you dearly, Caleb.

Ben also has a birthday today, his 10th. He is also a very special kid and I cannot imagine life without him. He has a real sense of humor, is intelligent and fun loving. I fell in love with Ben the minute I first saw him and that love has only grown. I wish there was some way I could zap him out here to San Diego and take him down to the ocean to run and play, and to investigate all the neat things we'd find there. Have mom show you the videos I posted yesterday Ben, and just imagine what it would be like playing down by the waters edge. Wouldn't that be fun? I love you so much, Ben. Hope you have a happy day.

FOR THE GRANDKIDS

This guy was sitting on a garbage can, right in front of our truck. I was carefully trying to walk up to him, but those concrete bars were right in front of me, so I had to slowly shuffle my feet along so I wouldn't trip. He finally decided I was too close, and wasn't giving him any food, so he took off.

CAN YOU HANDLE ONE MORE OF THE OCEAN?

This is at the Tidepools out on Point Loma.

I LOVE THE OCEAN!

This was taken from the pier at Ocean Beach. They are experiencing larger than normal wave action because of all the intense storms in the Pacific and on our Northwest shores. During the night they had much larger waves. We are heading out right now to see what action is out there today, as the weather man said today should be the peak waves.

MOVING DAY

Today is moving day again. We are heading West to one of my favorite cities, San Diego. We hope to secure a spot in a military campground there; if we do, we'll stay awhile.

Hubby has never been to San Diego, so he has a treat coming. And, my niece and her husband and three year old son live there, and I have my sister's permission to spoil her grandkid until I can get back to my own! That will be fun.

JACOB'S BIRTHDAY

Yesterday was the birthday of my fourth oldest grandchild. Jacob turned 17. Hope your day was special, Jacob, just as you are. And you know you have been special to me since the second you were born and I first saw you through the tears streaming down my face.

You see, Jacob was the first grandchild given me by one of our adopted kids. Our daughter had asked me if I would accompany her to the delivery room. Her words were, "mom, you weren't in the delivery room when I was born, but would you please be there when my child is born?" Would I? Absolutely!

So Jacob has always had a special place in my heart. No, he is not flesh of my flesh, we share no DNA, but he was born into my heart, and therefore is permanently attached to me.

Jacob, you are loved dearly. You know that. You should have your card and $$ that I sent. Spend wisely. And I promise some alone time at Barnes and Nobel when I'm home for Christmas.

Happy Birthday, grandson!

CAFFEINE DEPRIVED SHOPPING TRIP

I'm sitting here waiting for the coffee to get done. Yesterday we were out of coffee and substituted hot chocolate. Not good. Didn't do it for me at all. I only have a couple of mugs of coffee each day, but it is strong French pressed coffee and contains the needed caffeine to function. And then, on no caffeine, we went to the grocery store.

I should have known when we first got in the door that it was going to be bad as I saw a sea of shades of white and grey heads bobbing down the aisle. Then, as we headed down the first aisle which happened to be the donuts and rolls and bread, we found three women perusing the pastries, glued to their parking spots. They weren't buying anything, just standing there looking, and they would not budge. I actually had to climb over one woman's cart to reach the wheat rolls. Same when I got to the tomatoes, only this time there was a man in the mix of permanently parked shoppers. These folks, however, were engaged in an animated conversation about parsnips and the man's hunting prizes of doves, and how parsnips and doves together were so good. I again stuck my arm in and grabbed a few tomatoes. It went this way through the whole store: meat department, cheese and yogurt department, and frozen veggie department. When I reached the front of the store, after going around the perimeter as usual, I was shaking and near tears. I could not handle one more minute of those rude, obnoxious, senior citizens who thought they were the only people in the store. I told Ernie I had to get out of there.

We picked the shortest aisle, the check out yourself aisle, and started scanning our purchases after informing the machine that we spoke English. The first item to scan was a bottle of inexpensive wine. Beep-beep-beep, it went through the scanner just fine, then informed me to put the item in the bag. I obliged, and then, FLASH, bright lights started blinking and the machine demanded my ID card! Get serious folks! I'm 63! The cashier in charge of the four self checking machines noticed the blinking lights and worked her magic and reset the machine to again ask for the next item. All went well until we came to the produce and we were informed by the machine that you must look up the PLU for the tomatoes, romaine, and cucumbers and enter the that number via the number pad. Did as commanded. As we reached the end of the groceries the almost human machine screamed in capitol letters to PUT THE LAST ITEM IN THE BAG BEFORE SCANNING THE NEXT ITEM. We already had done so, but obliged and picked up the romaine and then put it back into the bag. The machine was satisfied and it commanded to SCAN THE NEXT ITEM! Instead I pushed the finish and pay button. This must have confused the check out monster and it again screamed to SCAN THE NEXT ITEM. I punched the finish and pay button about six times which must have jerked the machine back to reality because it now politely asked if I wanted to pay with cash, debit, credit, check, EBT card, coupons, and I think a couple other choices. I punched debit, it okayed me, we hustled out of there, and the monster was ready to do battle with the person behind me. I just hope it's next victim was one of the folks who annoyed me so! Serves them right! And I'll never go shopping again on no caffeine.

(I have nothing against senior citizens, as I am one of them myself. But the combination of no caffeine and a Wednesday Social Security payday in Yuma, Arizona, the home of tens of thousands of snowbirds, was more than I could handle.)

A DATE TO THE DATE FARM

Today we went to the date farm with our friends Dick and Bev. First of all, beautiful trees. Second, awesome date milkshakes! And we did a bit of shopping, picking up some dried papaya, pineapple, and crystallized ginger, and of course we bought dates.
This lush full tree is a type of ficus. Sure looks better than the spindly thing I had in my house.
We were sitting outside visiting with Dick, Bev, Joan and Red when I noticed the sky across the street from where we are parked on Red's lot. Then I turned the other direction and found this
row of palms silhouetted against the orange sky. And then I saw the sky to the west....WOW!
It was fire orange, looking like it was on fire. What a wonderful gift a beautiful sunset is! Thank you, God!

MY PRIZES

These are the prizes I bargained for in Mexico. We did pretty well on all of them. I love the bright colors in this plate. I'm thinking that when I settle down in a house again, I will have to do my kitchen in the Mexican blue, green, red, and yellow. They are such happy colors.
My welcoming sign with the kokopelli playing and dancing for you.
Tin Christmas ornaments for a tiny tree that can travel without breaking fragile balls and bulbs.
A pretty cross.
A cheerful bowl for salsa or peanuts or whatever. I have to stop buying pottery now. We have such limited space and if I don't store it correctly it will break on me. So enough is enough.

COLOR IN A BEIGE WORLD

God gave us a little reprieve from the beige world last evening.

BEIGE WORLD

The sand dunes are beige.

My daughter-in-love mentioned in a comment on my post of last night, that she liked the color in those pictures taken in the open restaurant in Mexico. I think the color is the exact reason that I've been drawn to the pottery and stained glass in Mexico. The desert in this area is practically void of any color. Everything is beige. Beige sand, beige mountains, beige lawns, beige houses, beige shopping centers, beige everything.

The gates and corridors of the Historic Yuma Prison are beige. The lack of color alone would have driven me mad.

The little splashes of color are so welcome. And I must say that the skies are mostly blue, thank goodness.
And I must say that the temperatures are no where near the below zero mark like Minnesota is experiencing this morning!