The week before Christmas break the girls had school spirit week.
They had pajama day.
And holiday fashion day.
And dress to impress, which Averi was all about.
One afternoon we decorated gingerbread men.
We had an early Christmas with the family and then spent an afternoon in Coronado.
We ran off for a few days over Christmas and celebrated with the girls a couple of days later. They were tortured by having to wait.
And wait.
Finally, they were able to open the ridiculous amount of presents that they had.
I need to have a talk with Santa about the Mini Brand Mart he brought all three girls. I think he needs to come back and put these together himself.
Save yourselves. Do not purchase unless you want to spend hours of your life putting together a million little pieces, that are flimsy… AND then watch the kids pull their hair out trying to the items to stay on the shelves.
Anxiety in a box. These should come with wine and a Xanax.
Last year my brother gifted us a night’s stay at Ponte’s Inn and Vineyard in Temecula for our birthday’s.
We finally had a free weekend to enjoy it. Once we checked in and dropped our stuff, we headed out for wine, starting at Altisima. They are a newer winery, making old world and new world wines with Spanish roots. The grounds are beautiful as is the tasting room. Luckily we had a knowledgable pourer who had a fun personality, that can make all the difference (well that can make a difference in the experience, not in the wine). Luckily the wine was superb, everything we tasted we enjoyed, and that rarely happens.
We moved on to a couple more wineries that we haven’t been to, and honestly, didn’t really like. We ended at Bottaia. Bottaia is Ponte’s sister winery, the same winemaker but elevated, I guess. I was eager to try it because I do like Ponte’s wines. When you walk in you are greeted and then asked to pay depending on what type of “experience” you want. Uh, ya, we want the one where we try your wine please. Their description reads “chic”, I say boujie… They say “elegant”, I say expensive. The experiences that they were offering were….we could either sit out on the deck and choose from a flight of wines or we could sit in the cold barrel room, and choose from a flight of more expensive wines. We chose the deck, ordered some hummus and wine.
Nope, not for us. It felt as if the focus of the winery was on the atmosphere, opposed to the wine. We didn’t like any of them and you guys, it’s not cheap. I wouldn’t go back on purpose.
However, the view of the vineyard when the sun started to set, was gorgeous.
We had dinner at Bouquet, the restaurant at Ponte. It was good, very intimate. Mushroom soup and scallops, not bad at all.
The next morning we were looking for egg bennies before we drove home. We stopped at a winery whose website said that they had it on their menu. Lies, all lies. Once we were seated we were handed a menu for lunch, which as you know, isn’t breakfast, it was very sad way to say, the end.
The next day the girls and I went to a Christmas party at the clubhouse.
They ran in and headed straight for the soda and donuts, and then waited for Santa.
Giving Santa the lowdown. Unicorns, horses and toys..oh my!
The girls met up with some friends and ran around outside for a good hour. Finally, when I was so bored I couldn’t take it anymore, we headed home.
The next morning we woke up to Cupcake confused on where he was at.
Thanksgiving is so much more enjoyable when I am not spending the entire day in the kitchen. I always fall into my overambitious entertainer phase that has me chaotic in the kitchen. Multiple foods overlapping with each other, I slowly lose my mind, usually break something and then complain about how much my back hurts as I nurse wine. So this year, we took a different approach, I ordered tamales, way too many tamales, of course, but that sure was the easier route. I did make an hors d’oeuvre, which was divine!
Bacon wrapped dates stuffed with goat cheese and an almond, served with arugula and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. We had this in a restaurant in Santa Monica so I tried to relive that experience, it worked.
SO good, I will post the recipe soon.
Along with those, my mom brought a salad, we had chips and guac, crackers with cream cheese and pineapple habanero jelly, the ham of all hams, tamales AND dessert. Just stupid, but so good.
Once again I failed with the pictures, I need to figure out how to force myself to take more pictures, suggestions welcome.
My brother brought a delicious dessert and an ugly dog (hopefully the owners don’t read this blog). He was dog sitting, sweet thing, the girls had a blast chasing the poor thing around the house.
She found solace on my dad.
We did manage to take a bad selfie of our chaotic family to send to our newest (cruise) friends. We are currently trying to schedule another one with them, so that’s exciting.
That about wraps up our holiday. We sent everyone home with food, Shawna did all the cleaning (thanks babe) and when the kids went to bed we finished binging season 3 of Hanna, so good.
You guys, we have fifth graders…. 5th graders, that is absolute bullshit. I had lunch today with my uncle and he brought up a memory that I had completely forgotten about. In 2011 San Diego had an unprecedented and unplanned power outage. I vaguely remember trying to put a five month old
baby to bed, in the dark with no power. We live on sound machines, so I am not sure how I survived that, probably with wine.
Anyhow, now she is finishing her last year of elementary school and that makes me feel all sorts of ways.
To raise money for their fifth grade promotion, the girls volunteered at their school craft fair selling food. They loved it, they would have worked until sun down. Even Averi got in on the action, amazing, ask them to help around the house, and I am a mean mom, but at school, it’s a holiday.
They were able to raise over $1,000, so the hard work paid off. They were rewarded with free room and board.
That was the tail end of the busy week I was talking about. It was nice to see other parents that we’ve missed, we talked to the girls old, that doesn’t sound right….the teacher they had for Kindergarten? You know what I mean right? Well we chatted with her for probably an hour, and I was lucky enough to meet Averi’s teacher, in person, and see her classroom. Funny how we aren’t allowed on campus during the week but on Saturday…. Speaking of that, all the girls have gotten their first dose of the vaccine, they should be fully vaccinated by Christmas. Jesus is clapping, be like Jesus.
I celebrated getting through the week with this.
A Thai Tornado with Tiramisu foam from Ding Tea. I can’t begin to try and explain to you how GOOOOOOD this is, it’s just, so good! And rich, I put half of it in the fridge for the next morning and then when I was prepping dinner, it fell to the ground and SPLAT, I cried. So, we now have a date with Ding Tea on Friday.
You guys soccer fans? No? Cool, cool, well anyways, here is a little update anyhow, our U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) beat Mexico, Dos a Cero (that means 2-0) in the World Cup Qualifiers. If you aren’t sure about the history of the U.S. and Mexico rivalry referred to as Dos a Cero, then I won’t bore you with the details.
Anyways, it was fun night, good food, good people, great game.
Then it was straight into a busy week.
I was in the middle of a Peloton ride when the instructor said, “I am going to stop talking so you can be present with yourself.” My brain went straight to how much people-ing I did the past week. I don’t really have too much interaction with actual people (family doesn’t count) since Covid. Most of it is via text or email, but last week it seemed that I had somewhere to go or a meeting with someone each day. It’s quite overwhelming and I understand the anxiety some people are probably experiencing. Anyhow, I just wanted to say that if life is sometimes hard, I get it.
To help ease the busy constant that is keeping children alive, I put the kids to work.
Averi helped me make chicken piccata, which in the end, she wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. Seriously infuriating.
We also made Polvorones aka Mexican wedding cakes. When I was going through my binder of saved recipes to find the enchilada casserole recipe, I found this recipe.
You guys, this recipe is straight out of a college Mexican cooking course.
All of the girls helped. All of the girls tried the batter except….ya Averi. She was eating the pecans out of the bag but refused the batter.
But, they all thought the cookies were delicious, so that’s a win. Although, it shouldn’t be a win because they’re effin cookies, right?
We woke up in Puerto Vallarta, and after some coffee we hit the ground running. Familiar enough with the city, we hopped in a cab and headed to Playa Los Muertos. The plan was to walk along the beach until we found a place to lay out, swim without dying, and have some adult beverages.
We didn’t have a hard time.
It wasn’t the prettiest beach, and to safely swim we had to walk south a bit, otherwise the undertow would’ve taken us to the Bermuda Triangle. Nonetheless, it was exactly what we were looking for.
We had fish taco’s and coconut shrimp, both were delish.
Oh, can we talk about the beach vendors for a second? If you’ve been down to the Mexican Riviera beach towns then you’re familiar that the beaches have vendors that sell everything from sunglasses and jewelry to basically junk. However, this time we were offered cocaine, you guys is this a new thing? It wasn’t just at this beach either, it also happened a couple of times in Cabo. So anyways, if you’re looking, I know a guy.
After a couple of hours of floating in the ocean and soaking up the Mexican sun, we gathered our stuff (no, not cocaine, I bought sunnies) and walked up the beach to the Malecón. I really, really, really wanted to get another passion fruit margarita at the Devil’s Bar. I guess the secret got out because every seat was taken and it was only a Thursday, ugh. Having seen all the shops and bars already, we dragged our feet back to the ship.
Look who greeted us.
For dinner we went to Tamarind, Asian cuisine. The shrimp dumplings were incredible. We also shared a pork belly char siu, along with crispy duck and panang curry. The waitress talked us into a ginger wasabi martini that didn’t taste at all like wasabi but Shawna enjoyed it.
That night we requested a couple of songs from Colin and Clara, the pianists. They were so great, they both sang our requests, songs they have never performed before.
After the piano bar, I’m pretty sure we danced for 2 straight hours. Sweaty and barefoot is how the night ended.
You know it’s a good night when the shoes come off.
Friday and Saturday we were at sea, and it seems like they went by in a flash.
Friday we were still far enough south that the weather was quite warm, meaning a pool day. Hopping from hot tub to pool is how the afternoon went, stopping for pizza and a ping pong break. While sitting in the pool we met this couple from Arizona. Interesting folks, a little TMI but friendly. Sitting on the steps of the pool, we talked to them for a good 45 minutes. As we talked the wife steadily became more and more intoxicated. Gradually getting more inebriated with each minute that passed, but she wasn’t intaking anything. Anyhow, that was a topic of conversation for the rest of the day.
It was our second gala night but before we hit the dining room for dinner, we popped by the pool bar for a martini happy hour.
It wasn’t a ‘choose your own martini’ type of situation, we got a trio of martini’s, that we shared and they tasted like, well, exactly as they look…fruity.
Sure enough, the Arizona couple from the pool was there. He was eager to talk and she was still upright. However, rumor has it, she passed out later at the dinner table.
Our dinner wasn’t terribly exciting, I think this was the one evening that I was actually disappointed in everything that I ordered. Luckily, we had stashed Parisian sandwiches in our fridge for late night dining.
We met two brothers early on the trip who were traveling together, and they were from La Mesa (East San Diego). Turned out that they grew up just a street away from where Shawna did, small world. Nice men, we called them our guard dog pit bulls. However, one of them fell asleep on the job.
This wasn’t like a nod of the head. You guys, he was OUT. Nowhere-ville, it was amazing…and then a little scary, but he was fine, just completely knocked the f*ck out. He slept through the bands set, he slept through cowbell, he slept through more cowbell and he slept through slaps on the cheek.
That’s the doing of tequila shots, or so they said.
SO GOOD!
We dusted off our Macarena dance moves on the dance floor ending another great day.
Is there anything sadder than waking up on the last day of a vacation? No, the answer is no.
We reached Saturday, the last day of our cruise. Somewhere near Baja California, because when we stepped outside, ready to soak up the sun, we were slapped with November San Diego weather. Meaning it was not quite warm enough to get wet.
So we played some ping pong and wandered along the outside of the ship.
I wanted to play the music trivia at the pool later in the afternoon, so we went to the Lido Market for lunch. It was delicious, I piled my plate with poke sushi rolls and crispy pork belly. Oh, so so good. After we ate, we went back to the room to change into warmer clothes and then headed to sit out for a bit at the stern of the ship.
Somehow we ended up scoring poolside lounge chairs right before trivia started. The sun came out, of course, and then it was time for a quick wardrobe change back into swimwear.
I love trivia, and I felt confident with music trivia. But you would think that I have learned my lesson by now. These ships are full of people that have lived decades longer than me. The first five questions were about classical music so there went that win. Then it was songs from the 1950’s, so unfair. I guess I don’t need to tell you that we didn’t win.
Even though it wasn’t hot outside, we knew we had gotten some sun. We took the next hour to pack our luggage, leaving out only what we needed to disembark. Then we made our way to the casino. That was a bust for me, although Shawna won some money on a slot machine. We ran into our besties, Cliff and Gail and we sat at the casino bar for a drink. Why does time fly when you’re having fun? Before we knew it, it was time to get ready for dinner. That was the one thing that I got tired of doing, getting ready. Having to do it every night is just so much to ask of me.
After a dinner of braised lamb, pasta and pavlova, we went straight to the rock room, no time to spare.
Clara was performing in the theater, before she hit the ivory keys.
Once the music was over, we all stayed in the Billboard Onboard lounge and hung out with the crew. Talking and laughing.
Laughing and talking, we stayed up past last call, which means quite late, or quite early.
Since we had packed earlier in the day, once we got to back our room, all we needed to do was set the alarm and hit the sack. Welp, the alarm didn’t go off, so we woke to the sound of the hall intercom calling disembarkation numbers. That put a pep in our step, and in minutes we were dressed and heading down to the gangway. The only good thing about running behind was that our car was already at the port waiting for us, so we were home in no time.
That’s it, that is the end of our fantastic trip. It reminded me of why I have always loved cruising and we are looking forward to another one soon, someplace new and warm.
We anchored in Cabo San Lucas just before 11:00am on Tuesday.
Desperate for lunch on the beach, we made our way downstairs to get the tender tickets. I’m not going to sugar coat it, this cruise ship had a lot of older folks, so getting into that Tender from the Ship, was bit of a slow process. Luckily, we sat next to the best group of Texans (you won’t hear me say that very often). They told us that a friend of their’s, who is a singer, was singing at Karlito’s Cantina on the marina, and we had to stop by to see her.
We told them that we had a date with Playa El Médano for lunch, but we would absolutely stop by later.
We strolled through the marina, stopping to browse and for photo ops along the way.
Once we hit the beach, we walked in the water until we spotted a spot that we could sit, eat, drink and swim. The weather was perfect and the water was pretty warm, warm enough to swim in.
We stopped at Omega’s where we soaked it all in for a couple of hours. This is also where I had the most delicious shrimp tacos with a fresh habanero salsa. I’ve thought about those tacos every day since.
Fully satisfied, we made our way back to the marina to see what was happening at Karlito’s. Our tender Texan friends, Pattie and her husband John, were already there, “but the fun don’t start til I walk in“. Kesha, get it?
Everybody there was so nice, the lady singing (I am horrible at names, luckily Shawna has an elephant’s memory, is that even a real fact, like how do we know that?)
Anyhow, Leslie Blasing used to be a back up singer for Reba, she lives in South Padre Island but just happened to be in Cabo visiting friends. She was singing on this sunny Tuesday at Karlito’s as a favor, ya, she is that nice of a person.
We decided to eat dinner in the dining room on the ship, so we said our goodbyes, and tootled back to the tender.
I’m guessing you know what we did after dinner, but you are going to have to hear it again.
As our group of friends grew larger with each trip to the bar, we all took turns saving seats in our favorite corner booth. That way we were always together listening to the music.
I can’t forget to mention that the Holland America bartenders make a first-class espresso martini! Pretty sure that’s one of our martini’s being shaken in the background of the video, ha.
When the clock strikes (who knows, I never knew what time it was) I should say, when the pianos stopped, the dancing began.
And when the lights went out, it was time for bed.
Just to wake up and do it all over again.
But this time, we woke up in Mazatlán.
Once we stepped off the ship we hopped in a cab with another couple and headed, well we didn’t know where we were headed. We asked to be taken to where the action was at.
We landed at Joe’s Oyster Bar.
Not bad, not bad at all. After wetting our palate, we strolled along some shops and…shit, I just remembered that I bought vanilla there, I wonder where that is, hm.
It was time for lunch and as we do, we asked a local where we should go. The next thing we knew we were dropped off between two beach restaurants. We rock paper scissored to see which one we would eat at, and it was a good choice.
I mean come on, grilled pulpo on the beach…. with a margarita, can it get any better? (insert Chandler Bings voice)
After lunch we wandered along the streets but nothing was really calling out to us. Mazatlán is pretty in some sorts and not so pretty in others, just like anywhere, but there wasn’t anything that we really had to do there. So we made our way back to the ship and hit the pool, well I’m pretty sure that’s what we did, I mean it’s been a week you guys.
Fun fact, Mazatlán’s malecón is the largest in the world. I don’t remember how long it is, but I am sure Google does, or Alexa, I’ll ask…Nope, she doesn’t know either. Oh well, here is a glimpse of the longest malecón in the world.
Once we were sun soaked, it was that time again.
That’s Johnny Tocco on the guitar, isn’t he good?
You know how the first part of a vacay moves at a perfect pace, and then all of the sudden BAAAAM, it’s over? Ya, well that started in Puerto Vallarta….stay tuned.
Annnnnnd coming in a few weeks late……..the first day of school pictures.
Ah, the first day of school, actual real, inside a classroom with a teacher, school. No more yelling at Averi to stop drawing on her legs, no more repeating “pay attention to your Zoom” every 10 minutes. No more dueling, screeching recorders on Thursday mornings and no more having to hear about how everyone is starving every.second.of.the.day!
Finally, F*CK! They are back in school for the entire day….now please knock on wood for me and get vaccinated.
They were just as excited as we were. And apparently Averi was all about the pictures that morning.
I hope everyone has a happy and healthy start to the new school year.
Way back when I when I was in high school, my brother was in elementary and we lived in Nor Cal, my family spent a week at a beach house in south OC. We loved it. Then we moved there and we still loved it, but nothing is the same as living on the actual beach. The waves crash and you can feel the spray on your legs while you’re sitting on the porch.
My brother decided to recreate that beach house moment from our childhood and rented a house on the same beach, but this house was much fancier.
We couldn’t stay too long because the kids where in camp and school was starting, but it was a great way to end the summer. We played, bathed, swam, sunned, met a curious sea lion and in the end, no one wanted to leave.
The morning that we left the girls went down to the COLD water in their pjs, same thing I would do if I lived on the beach.
I have been a terrible blogger and I can’t even blame it on the kids. I rarely take my phone out to snap pictures of much anymore, not for amazing food (which I have had and will try to recreate) or even, gasp, winery dogs. I do take a lot of pictures of the girls because they are so very photogenic and pretty darn cute.
I picked the girls up early from camp one day and took them to my brothers on Coronado. They have a food truck “experience” I guess we can call it, every month or so. We went swimming for a bit and then we walked a dreadfully long ways, according to the girls, next door past the Marriott, sigh.
We ate delicious pizza, a crazy good poké, enjoyed music and wine then finished it with ice cream.
I made a really good recipe from once again, drumroll please, Bon Appetít. I didn’t follow this recipe exactly but it sure was good.
We have also become quite fond of a little Taiwanese tea spot down the road. They have everything from fruit slushies, to smoothies to different milk teas and on and on. They also have waffles that you can top with all things sugar and we knew the girls would dig it. We made it an after camp stop one day and those waffles were delicious, however my Thai iced tea, is by far the best…according to me.
The highlight of the past few weeks was a belated father’s day gift from my brother. He got a box suite at the LA Galaxy stadium for my dad and we all reaped the benefits, it was so great. Great food, great company and we even brushed by Colby Jones, it was like 1996 all over again.
The Galaxy lost, but that’s besides the point right?
The Art of Thyming 