This year's President's Council work meetings were held in San Diego. With having the Quinceanera the Sunday night, we held off on flying out to San Diego until Monday, which we normally go out the weekend before but seeing as we had a very large vacation planned for immediately after San Diego, we decided that all worked well - both for the quince and for saving money!
Tuesday was a quiet day after the meetings so we took the opportunity to go to a local dive shop and get each of the Zs some masks/snorkels and travel fins. After that, we headed to the movie theater for a matinee to see Inside Out 2.
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| The adults congregated together - Js came with us, along with Blake |
Wednesday afternoon we headed over to the USS Memorial for a guided tour. It was really interesting to see the ship and hear the actual men who had worked on the ship (or similar ones) talk about taking off and landing. Unfortunately, our particular guide was cranky and crochety, telling everyone that we had to hold our pictures and our questions (even from a sweet little 6-year-old girl!) until the end, after which he did not actually give us any time. It was so bad it was almost funny. But afterwards we had the chance to do the flight simulator (during which Addison kept Amy and herself upside down for half of it -- good thing for strong stomachs! 😰) and then we could wander and talk to the various docents working there, many of which who were former military pilots.
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| Here we go, ready to roll! |
While not a healthy choice, we did take the opportunity to sample various ice cream shops around the local area in the evenings - yummy! Friday after dinner we hit up a gourmet ice cream shop --- very odd flavors honestly, too odd for the most part for the kids to get super excited about but at least it was a unique experience! When in doubt, there is always vanilla as a fall-back!
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| Addison and Erik - Elin stayed in the car so wasn't in this particular picture |
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Who doesn't love honey - had to stop and take a picture of this as we walked back from the ice cream shop
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| this was the ice cream shop with the really weird flavors - too sophisticated for young palates! |
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| A vintage truck with flowers all over it, so cool! |
Thursday morning Karis took the younger kids kayaking in the morning, and then in the afternoon we went for a catamaran boat ride for the four Zs, with Zachary going to the world renowned golf courses each day - so it was just the 4 of us. The weather was beautiful as you'd expect, and we saw lots of wildlife as well as military aircraft flying over us as there was a base there. Addison got to drive the boat for a bit, as well as hoist the mast - love the fact that she jumps at the opportunity to do new things!
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Addison and Karis kayaking near the cliffs
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| San Diego in the background |
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| Kaleb and Becca getting off - they look like Hollywood stars! 😂 |
Friday, we went out for a lazy breakfast with a large group and then headed out to San Diego zoo. We had a bunch-o-kids with us, so that was fun to chase them around the park. Honestly, it has to be kind of slow-going when you are sans children - so we better soak it up before our kids are out of the house at college!
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| The kids at the breakfast table |
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| Love the flowering tree in the background! |
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| Showing off their San Diego zoo loot! Addison's shirt is all white until it goes into the sun and then the lion colors appear, kind of cool! |
We also had a very fun experience with the La Jolla paragliders off of the ocean cliffs! Addison and Karis did it (the others of us watched), and they had a BLAST! Karis' pilot took them out over the water and did a circular motion (like a vortex) - Karis said that all of the force caused his blood to rush to his feet and feel a little woozy but that it was super fun! Addison was delighted as her pilot took them over top of Karis' and they put their feet down on Daddy's parachute (thankfully nothing happened to his parachute, glad Mama did not know that was happening otherwise she would have been freaking out!) All was well, and it was one of the top highlights of the week.
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| Addison was the first to launch |
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| About to go, and very excited! |
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| While the rest of us watched - the boys just didn't have a desire, and Amy wasn't afraid, but was all happy to just watch them do it and take pictures in the essence of time. |
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| Karis flying along |
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| Addison coming in for landing |
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| So neat to see all of the flying along the coastline and landing/taking off |
La Jolla has some very famous golf courses, and Zach really enjoys golfing now, so his happy place was taking advantage of the golf outings each day. While we missed him hanging out with us, we were thrilled that he got a chance to play on the courses, including on in which they had their own caddy! He played Torrey Pines, Del Mar and Grand Del Mar.
The Fairmont had a restaurant named "Addison" - so we had to stop and take a picture of course!
Having a large group of friends from the company all together for a week lends itself to opportunities to hang out and make lots of fun memories. We played games in the lobby several evenings (Cover your Assets was the game of choice) and it was lovely, made lots of fun memories with folks!
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| Kaleb and Ethan C enjoyed hanging out with us old ladies! |
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| And one evening Karis joined us! |
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| And we got Tim C, Ethan and Addison out to join us the last night! |
Amy participates in an online Bible Study with a group of women, several of which are spouses of executives that are scattered around the country so when we are together, we enjoy capturing a picture of the group (at least part of the group)
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| Tasha, Kelli, Gwendy, Amy (it was windy, my sleeve was wildly flapping in the breeze!), Erika, Suzie and Heather |
