GlossyVeneer

Our last day was pretty exciting as we had a morning breakfast date at the home of Bethany Actually!

FINALLY we got to meet in person. She cooked her infamous aebleskivers for us while Annalie gave me a tour of the house. Kevin received the tour from Mr. Actually, Troy.

Breakfast was great, but the company was even better. I had so much fun with them and it was one of those great internet/blogger meetings where there isn’t any awkwardness at all. In fact, I had such a nice time I think I invited myself back to play again in the future. Probably a little bit of a social faux pas… but I think they’ll forgive me!

I plucked a couple lemons from their tree too. Now I need to make a lemon cake, because both Bethany and I love lemon cake. It only seems fitting to make that treat from those lemons.

Annalie was playing in the tub when it came time for us to leave, but she did manage to pull herself away to pose for pictures.

My pictures of Kevin and Troy didn’t turn out that well… I’ve really gotta LEARN the functions of my camera better so I’m guaranteed to get good shots that aren’t too dark or funny colors!

After meeting Family Actually, we had to start making our way home. But not before driving to Carlsbad for the farmers market. I wanted to get some fresh produce, specifically avocados. We grabbed a slice of pizza at a place called Pizza Port, a funky joint with good lunch deals. We each got a big slice of pizza, a huge salad and a drink for $10 TOTAL.

We also stopped for some sweets, but I feel the need to do a full review on the place we went… so stay tuned!

On our drive home we stopped for gas in Victorville, CA. The gas pump ate our credit card. ATE IT! So when my husband went to complain, the attendant said that he couldn’t open the pump but if we left him our name, phone, address and any other bit of information we could, he’d get it out of the pump in a few days for us.

Yeah, right… we’re going to just leave our card behind with all of our information to let you steal from us!

So we canceled the card. My husband had read a tip in a magazine recently about programming the customer service line for your credit cards into your phone. That way if you do have a problem, you have ready access to get help.

Then we drove to a different gas station in town, where some weird gas station attendant came out and told me that I could use his “special employee” bathroom that he’d “just cleaned,” which is uber-creepy… makes you wonder if he’s got some kind of creepy camera set-up in there. Or maybe I’m just over-thinking that!

The drive home seemed to take about 4 times as long as it took to get to San Diego. I guess that’s because I was dreading coming back to my “regular” life. But it’s a necessary evil. I had a nice time while it lasted!

Our 3rd day in San Diego started really early… for me. I got up at 5:00 AM so I could go for a run with one of my running blog friends. It was awesome to get the chance to run along Mission Bay & Mission Beach.

After I got cleaned up and we headed to The Eggery for breakfast, a recommendation from Kristin from Meringue Bake Shop. I got a yummy scramble, but I hate that the item that sounded the most appetizing to me was called “Doctor’s Choice.” Why couldn’t it have just been “Veggie Scramble with Whole Wheat English Muffin?” I would feel less dorky ordering that than I did saying the name “Doctor’s Choice.”

The next stop was the USS Midway tour. I had no idea what we were getting in to on this one, but when we walked up I was a little surprised that tickets were $17 a person.

We started the tour and I learned that everyone gets their own headset/audio box. Basically it’s a self-guided tour, there are signs with numbers printed on them at periodic stops around the ship. You enter that number into your audio box and a narrator tells you what you are seeing. There are small, tight spaces and it’s pretty amazing how much they cram into that ship. Yes, the ship is MASSIVE, but it’s still got a ton of little rooms packed in there. The tour took us nearly 4 hours. FOUR HOURS! I truly had no idea that we’d end up spending that much time there and I was starving. We didn’t even listen to the descriptions of all the planes on top of the ship because I was getting to the point where I was done with that tour.

Throughout the ship there are mannequins in place to mimic some of the actions that might take place in that spot. In the Post Office on the ship there was a man who’s job was to stand at the counter looking down at a letter in his hand. As we were walking by he looked up at me and said, “How are you today?” I just replied, “I’m fine,” then walked on. But then I paused and realized that he was supposed to be surprising unsuspecting people and my reaction (or non-reaction) was rather amusing to him. As we were looking at some of the other displays in that same area, we saw him do the same greeting to a boy who was about 13 and that kid SCREAMED like a little girl. Hilarious. The tour also had some hidden mannequins that were rather humorous.

When the tour was over we headed over to Ocean Beach to grab some burgers from Hodad’s. We went there nearly 2 years ago when we were in San Diego before. Yummy fries.

Then we decided to go to a movie theatre we saw and catch the first movie that was showing. We ended up seeing The Proposal. Post movie I needed a little “real food” before we got some frozen yogurt for dessert. So we stopped a Corner Bakery Cafe and grabbed a salad before heading to Yogurtland.

It felt like a pretty full day.