LA Galaxy

New Year

~ Girlmom ~ Leave a comment

Dammit you guys, it’s been a hot minute. I have excuses if you want to hear them. But do they really matter?

Since we’ve last chatted almost everyone (in our home) started a new school year.

I took a trip down to Cabo!

We watched the LA Galaxy win it ALL!

Averi had her acting debut in a Finding Nemo musical’

… and last but most important, we celebrated the best man in our lives turn 80. But That will have it’s own post!

So, with that, here is the proof.

Some back to school shopping, first day of school pictures.

I am not ready to talk about how old they are getting.

Oh Cabo, the last time wasn’t fantastic, so why do we repeat history? ( wow there is so much in that question)

As we were booking this trip I whispered to myself, “this time it will be amazing”.

Because this time we were going to do things different. We were going to stay at a smaller hotel. We were going to forgo San Diego International and leave out of Tijuana. That’s what everyone said we should do, it’s cheaper, easier..

Side note: we live 10 miles away from San Diego International Airport. We live 26 miles from the CBX crossing.

So, I book a flight from Tijuana to Cabo. The Uber showed up on time and 25 minutes later we are at the CBX border. We got out of the car with our luggage and all the of the paperwork filled out. (you have to have your shit together otherwise you’ll be filling out papers leaning against vending machines before they let you through, oh and they don’t have pens so bring your own.)

We proudly show our paperwork and make our way across the tunnel (border) and into the TJ airport. The walk took about 10 minutes. And then we hit the line for the custom passport check and guess what, we weren’t alone. We were in line for about 30 minutes. After that, there was another check point and then there was a luggage check. We left a lot of time, I’m talking hours to get through everything. But luckily we reached our gate with minutes to spare. We jumped in line and then realized that we weren’t even boarding our plane, we were just getting on a bus to take us to our plane. WTF?

We eventually made it to our plane.

We landed in Cabo without any problems. Once we collected our luggage and walked outside I realized that we werent at the same terminal we were used to. I don’t actually know how manyYou know, the terminal that has the bars?

Little things like that aren’t a big deal, shouldn’t be a big deal. but at that moment I wanted to be where everyone else was. I wanted to the terminal with the bars, I wanted to be where everyone else was.

Our transfer arrived not long after and we were headed to our hotel.

 

This was a smaller hotel that was a short beach walk to Medano beach.

We sat on the beach all day every day . Had the best churros ever.

We ate fresh fish, molé enchiladas. Fireworks every night and stormy weather.

https://videopress.com/v/Dtd91AOB?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

I need to mention that those fireworks went off every night. It sounded like we were being gunned down (Hi, I am that old. ) Also, the flamingos underneath us sounded like they were screaming for their lives. I’m not a fan of either of those.

With that being said, it was a nice trip. But I think Cabo can be put on the back burner for awhile.

The trip home was SO much easier even with a delayed flight, go figure.

 

LA Galaxy, if you know me then you know that I am a soccer person. We are the OG LA Galaxy fans. When we lived in San Ramon (1990’s) we watched the San Franscisco Bay Blackhawks. This is before there was MLS. Eric Wynalda was on the team and I remember running up to him after a win with my friends. Can’t do that anymore.

Nevertheless we are still a footy family. OG Galaxy fans!

 

LA Galaxy MLS Champions!

Now onto my Averi.

I want to be her when I grow up. She’s just so confident, she has that chutzpah, you know.. so sure of herself.

https://videopress.com/v/nENcljex?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

When I wonder what she got from me, she runs into walls and spills shit.

That concludes that last 8 months…maybe?

Next we talk about my dad!

 

 

 

New Year

~ Girlmom ~ Leave a comment

Dammit you guys, it’s been a hot minute. I have excuses if you want to hear them. But do they really matter?

Since we’ve last chatted almost everyone (in our home) started a new school year.

I took a trip down to Cabo!

We watched the LA Galaxy win it ALL!

Averi had her acting debut in a Finding Nemo musical’

… and last but most important, we celebrated the best man in our lives turn 80. But That will have it’s own post!

So, with that, here is the proof.

Some back to school shopping, first day of school pictures.

I am not ready to talk about how old they are getting.

Oh Cabo, the last time wasn’t fantastic, so why do we repeat history? ( wow there is so much in that question)

As we were booking this trip I whispered to myself, “this time it will be amazing”.

Because this time we were going to do things different. We were going to stay at a smaller hotel. We were going to forgo San Diego International and leave out of Tijuana. That’s what everyone said we should do, it’s cheaper, easier..

Side note: we live 10 miles away from San Diego International Airport. We live 26 miles from the CBX crossing.

So, I book a flight from Tijuana to Cabo. The Uber showed up on time and 25 minutes later we are at the CBX border. We got out of the car with our luggage and all the of the paperwork filled out. (you have to have your shit together otherwise you’ll be filling out papers leaning against vending machines before they let you through, oh and they don’t have pens so bring your own.)

We proudly show our paperwork and make our way across the tunnel (border) and into the TJ airport. The walk took about 10 minutes. And then we hit the line for the custom passport check and guess what, we weren’t alone. We were in line for about 30 minutes. After that, there was another check point and then there was a luggage check. We left a lot of time, I’m talking hours to get through everything. But luckily we reached our gate with minutes to spare. We jumped in line and then realized that we weren’t even boarding our plane, we were just getting on a bus to take us to our plane. WTF?

We eventually made it to our plane.

We landed in Cabo without any problems. Once we collected our luggage and walked outside I realized that we werent at the same terminal we were used to. I don’t actually know how manyYou know, the terminal that has the bars?

Little things like that aren’t a big deal, shouldn’t be a big deal. but at that moment I wanted to be where everyone else was. I wanted to the terminal with the bars, I wanted to be where everyone else was.

Our transfer arrived not long after and we were headed to our hotel.

This was a smaller hotel that was a short beach walk to Medano beach.

We sat on the beach all day every day . Had the best churros ever.

We ate fresh fish, molé enchiladas. Fireworks every night and stormy weather.

I need to mention that those fireworks went off every night. It sounded like we were being gunned down (Hi, I am that old. ) Also, the flamingos underneath us sounded like they were screaming for their lives. I’m not a fan of either of those.

With that being said, it was a nice trip. But I think Cabo can be put on the back burner for awhile.

The trip home was SO much easier even with a delayed flight, go figure.

LA Galaxy, if you know me then you know that I am a soccer person. We are the OG LA Galaxy fans. When we lived in San Ramon (1990’s) we watched the San Franscisco Bay Blackhawks. This is before there was MLS. Eric Wynalda was on the team and I remember running up to him after a win with my friends. Can’t do that anymore.

Nevertheless we are still a footy family. OG Galaxy fans!

LA Galaxy MLS Champions!

Now onto my Averi.

I want to be her when I grow up. She’s just so confident, she has that chutzpah, you know.. so sure of herself.

When I wonder what she got from me, she runs into walls and spills shit.

That concludes that last 8 months…maybe?

Next we talk about my dad!

Months of Photos.

~ Girlmom ~ Leave a comment

Photos have been piling up and I always have the best intentions of posting them, I don’t know where the time goes.

Heading back to the summer…

Belmont Park and SD Fair fun.

Summer night meals.

Roasted snapper.

And…

Esquites, which was so good I made it multiple times in a week.

I used a couple of recipes but mainly this one. I made it with fresh corn and the frozen roasted corn from Trader Joes and they both worked, but….the fresh corn was obviously superior.

Caramelized onion and blue cheese tart.

Fun day on the Island with Uncle C and Aunt A Frankie and Tony.

Galaxy matches.

A super fun Huntington beach day!

The two youngest girls.

Food

~ Girlmom ~ Leave a comment

We have a trip coming up and we are counting down the days. We spent a morning running errands and then had a really good lunch at Puesto, although their prices have skyrocketed and I am not really eager to go back.

However, their mango, passionfruit and shrimp ceviche was phenom. It also had avocado, tamarind and chili crunch. So good.

We picked up some reading material for our travel time, I am so eager to start Book Lovers, so I hid the books in my suitcase. Maybe I will forget about it until I board the plane.

We didn’t even know that FoodieLand was a thing until it came across our Instagram feed. Obviously we had to check it out. It was held at the Del Mar fairgrounds on a beautiful weekend. We got there when it opened, thankfully, because people poured in and in and in. There were over 150 vendors of food and drink, there were sporadicly placed underwhelming bars and two live stages. The entrance dropped us off in the paddock where benches were set up on the grass facing a stage. However, since it was quite warm, everyone had already grabbed the very few surrounding tables in the shade, smart.

We stopped and ordered a beverage and took a lap around scouring our options. I am going to come right out and say it, totally underwhelming. I mean, they had everything you could think of, well except a lobster roll. Wings, noodles, musubi, grilled lobster, dim sum, Ube desserts, oysters, cotton candy, grilled cheese, Indonesian satay, which I really wanted, but not bad enough to wait in a 30 minute line. Anyhow, you catch my drift. Even with all of these options, nothing really jumped out at us. We ended up getting the fried potato twister and some dumplings. They were both good but the potatoes were heavily salted.

Between the terrible band on stage and the beating down sun, we decided to walk back to the paddock. We sat in the 17 hands bar for another drink, and listened to a less awful, Michael Bublé.

Then we headed back out for another lap around the place.

And we landed here.

We chose the Chocolate Chip Martini, the Lemon Drop Martini and the Southern Gentlemen, which was my favorite. But they were all good. Smart little business idea.

As time went on, the crowd grew excessively so we swung by the churro stand and also stopped for some pollo chicharrones, then we headed home.

We had just enough time to recover from our food coma before we headed back out to watch the Galaxy match.

We met my brother and a few of his friends at a brewery to watch the game. The beer was good, the game, not so much.

Twisty Pig

~ Girlmom ~ Leave a comment

I don’t know why twisting bacon before cooking it changes the flavor and the texture, but it does and it’s delicious.

If you sprinkle some brown sugar on the bacon before cooking, you’ll never want bacon any other way again.

I actually made a little mixture of brown sugar, nutmeg, garlic powder and cayenne pepper then slightly dredged each piece of bacon in that seasoning before twisting. We may or may not have had this two nights in a row, paired with burrata and arugula.

We had a family day at the Galaxy game. We’ve been spoiled with amazing seats the last few times we’ve gone. I don’t know how we are going to adjust to going back to regular old seating.

Are anyone else’s children hooked on Turning Red? Ours are obsessed with one of the songs, they get home from school and go up to their rooms and belt it out. It’s also shower material. One minute it was all about Bruno and now it’s 4 town and birthday party decor.

I can appreciate a movie about PMS and a girls first period. Especially with a house full of females. Sigh, good times ahead.

The older two girls had a school field trip to the Opera. The school busses took them downtown to the Civic Center to see Romeo and Juliet in Italian. There were english subtitles so the kids could follow along. They were dropped off at school around 4:30 and didn’t get home until 10:00. It was a new experience for them and they had a great time. I can’t believe how old they are getting.

We wrapped up the week with an amazing USMNT game, a 5-1 win! The girls broke in the S’mores maker a couple of times, and we watched parts of the Academy Awards.

Did it win? We didn’t get that far.