The Perfect "Gita"

With the school year now complete for all of us, summer has officially begun. An annual rite of summer for us is the short trip (the Italian gita might be the best word) down to northern San Diego County. It's a short drive away--only 90 minutes to Carlsbad without traffic--yet very much feels like an escape to a distinctive and appealing section of the California coast. Most importantly, Carlsbad is home to two of our family's favorite attractions: Legoland and Pizza Port. We never have a bad time at either place, but everything just seemed to click. The weather was spectacular, the mid-week traffic was amazingly non-existent, the day at Legoland was perhaps the best one we've had there yet, the pizza and beer at Pizza Port was likewise as good as they've ever been, and the Comfort Inn even worked out perfectly, as we all got the surprisingly warm pool to ourselves. It was a pretty simple itinerary: drive down Tuesday morning, Legoland until closing, Pizza Port afterwards, morning swim on Wednesday, search for some letterboxes at local lagoons, and then drive home in time for the boys' afternoon Tae Kwon Do. Even the letterboxing worked out great, as the boys and I recorded our first three finds, ever, after going 0 for 2 last weekend in El Segundo. If only every family trip and activity could go so smoothly. (As always, the photos below are just a sample of many more that have been posted to my Flickr site.)

The Year in Pictures: October 2007

October is the beginning of birthday season for us. Well, September is actually, if you include Audrey's, but somehow the boys' birthdays somehow warrant more attention than our own. Tony opted out of a conventional party this year in exchange for a family day trip to North County San Diego and Legoland. This proved to be a refreshing change of pace for all of us, and the fact that we could conclude the day with a dinner at Pizza Port Carlsbad certainly gets me on board with the idea. We did manage to also hold a small cupcake celebration at home on Tony's big day itself. Despite a momentary flare-up, he was able to extinguish all eight of his candles just fine.



October also brings what is fast becoming one our favorite weekend events of the year: a block party of sort at Burton Chace Park in Marina del Rey. Tony's cub scout pack passes out free hot dogs, which are always welcome, and there are fire trucks and other cool equipment on display, but the real highlight is the extensive collection of blow-up "bouncers". For the second year in a row, the boys' favorite was the giant red slide, and it proved to be a great spot for action shots.



The cub scouts also organized a return trip to Tanaka Farms in Irvine, this time for pumpkin picking (what else?). While most agreed that May's strawberry trip was better, the pumpkin patch did at least help get us in the Halloween spirit. And we managed to get in and out of Irvine just ahead of the horrific wildfires that engulfed much of interior highlands of Orange County and the rest of Southern California for the following weeks.