San Diego Days 1 & 2

We're alive, just busy!!! ;-) Now that we're in San Fran chillin' at my brother Joey's pad, thought I'd take some time to crank out a few blog entries and get everyone updated! Our flights (there were only 2) from NYC back to Orange County, CA were great...at least by new standards of flying! Flight on time? Comfortable leg space? Luggage arrived intact? Who cares!!! The big question is- was it vomit free? And if not, were there enough vomit bags? But thankfully, all went well! We got up on Sat. around 5am for our 8:30am departure out of LaGuardia, and once we were in Orange County (8 hours later), we picked up our rental car, because our first stop was to see...


Rich's dad, Paul! He LOVED seeing Ryan! He kept wanting hug, kiss and hold him.

This is right outside the home where Paul stays...I love it whenever these flowers bloom. They were my favorite flowers in California while we lived here and I wanted Ryan to enjoy them too! He ended up picking 7 different flowers for Grandpa Paul (in three separate trips back and forth outside the home of course) while we were there.

After we visited Paul we headed down the hill to North San Diego County so we could see our friends Tom, Dawn, Robbie & Finny! They were kind enough to let us bunk with them in their amazing, art-inspired home (it's a funky, eclectic combination you get when an artist/architect and writer fill up a home together!). Both Rich and I thought the same thing when we saw their bathroom wall (above) filled with some of Dawn's paintings- oooooooh. Pretty. Picture! Picture! (Likey what you see? Her blog is at http://www.outoftheboxcalifornia.blogspot.com/, and she also has a webpage at http://www.outoftheboxcalifornia.com/).

Here's Ry and I waking up one morning with Robbie & Finny!

Ryan LOVED staying with Robbie & Finny! They were kind enough to let him play with all their toys and even shared their Thomas the Train engines with him! He carried about 10-15 of them in a brown paper bag with him everywhere we went while we were there.

The next morning we met Rich's brother's family (Dave, Cathy, Zach, JP) and his stepmother Kay and went out for Sunday Brunch together! This is Ry with his cousin JP (Zach is in the background). Ryan only has two cousins on my side of the family (Kenichi & Riki) and two on Rich's side of the family (Zach & JP), so we're super, duper lucky that Zach & JP are WAAAAY into playing with him! He loved his two cousins!

Ain't no party like a West Coast Elmo party!!! Guess who got a surprise birthday from his Uncle Dave & Aunt Cathy?! Ryan is now officially a socialite party boy like Paris Hilton- he celebrates his birthday with multiple parties all over the world! ;-) We were all so surprised!

Ry's birthday is a week apart from JP's, so they shared a party and cake together! Look at the killer cake Grammy Kay brought! Ry loves birthdays and blowing out candles on a cake (it doesn't matter whose birthday is, he'll blow out anyone's candles as long as they don't mind some ah...'spray'!).

Opening his presents from the family...

The California family! We're all at Grandma Judy's house (she hosted the party at her place)!

Ryan with Rich's mom, Grandma Judy!

Ryan's favorite present? It's probably a tie between his Elmo guitar from cousin JP and his Mickey Mouse doll from cousin Zach (who he calls Uncle Zach because Zach is 18 and is more like an Uncle than a peer)! He clutched his Mickey doll (and he rarely gets attached to stuffed animals, much less so quickly!) on the flight up here!