San Diego

This Weather

~ Girlmom ~ 1 Comment

We have had a good run with the weather lately and yes I am bragging. My winter tan is coming along nicely, thanks for asking.

We have been spending time outdoors with friends, playing, eating and just enjoying life.

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A friend and I took our girls to Seaport Village for a Sunday Funday. We ate ice cream, rode the carousel and enjoyed the day.

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Kaili’s class had a field trip ton probably the best day of weather ever. I volunteered to help, my friend and I had a small group of girls to chaperone for a day at the San Diego zoo.

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I think we made a lot of ground, saw a lot of animals in the day. But it was hot and the girls   ended up just wanting to be done walking and to see the petting zoo.

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So we hiked our way through the treetops to get them all safely to the petting zoo, which is really just some goats…..but they were happy.

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We spent the last 30 minutes of the day playing on the playground and eating churros and then the kids were whisked away via bus and us adults went on our way. It was exhausting but so fun!

Averi and I have our new shopping routine. We head to Hillcrest where we can hit Trader Joes and Ralphs in a one-stop shop.

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She loves the ride up!

Then we spent the entire weekend in the sun, in the warmtub and just loving these sunny days.

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Averi wasn’t her normal self Monday and she ended coming down with some stomach bug. But on the tail end of it we landed at the park for a couple of hours,  I almost lost my daughter to the sandman.

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I hear it’s supposed to rain next week. Good thing I have a head start on my sunning!

 

Pan Seared Halibut with a Yogurt, Blood Orange + Saffron Sauce

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This recipe came together over a day.  I ended up having all the ingredients on hand, and it worked out very nicely.

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Ingredients

1/2  cup plain yogurt
Salt and pepper
Hefty pinch of Cayenne pepper
1/2 shallot, peeled and minced
1/2- 1 tsp. saffron threads
Juice of 1/2 blood orange, or to taste

2  halibut fillets
1 Tbs butter + 1 Tbs olive oil

In a small bowl,  with a fork whisk yogurt together with salt, Cayenne and shallot. Rub saffron between your fingers to crush it, then stir it into the yogurt mixture. Let sit for about 20 minutes . Before cooking the fish, add the blood orange juice, taste, and adjust seasoning.

Season halibut with salt and more Cayenne, (if you don’t like spicy, replace with white pepper or cracked ground pepper). Place butter and olive oil in large nonstick skillet and turn heat to medium high. When the butter melts, add fish, sear for about 4 minutes then turn. Continue to cook for another 4-5 minutes until done.

Serve fish warm or room temperature, with the yogurt sauce on top. Add extra Saffron or Cayenne , if you wish.

I served this over wild rice and riced cauliflower along some farm fresh roasted carrots.

Birthday

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How am I 40 years old? Not sure I am okay with it, definitely  don’t want to talk about it.

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We were lucky enough to escape for a full 24 hours! We being me and Shane, no kids allowed. All that was set in stone was dinner and brunch reservations, the rest was…whatever the hell we wanted.  We checked into our hotel room downtown about 4:00 and then to Little Italy where Brian Malarkey’s latest restaurant aka our dinner reservation was. We started at a wine bar that was packed, luckily we got ourselves a table and a nice long chat with the owner.

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The weather was crap, not the day to just stroll from place to place so we needed a game plan. We booked it around the corner to Juniper and Ivy. An amazing restaurant by the brilliant Richard Blais. We cozied up with some wine and just perfect bites of food.

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Pork belly at it’s finest!

The worst part or maybe the best part is that I didn’t take more than two pictures. We just enjoyed the night. Looking back I wish I had, and I knew I should but the moment took over that thought, do you feel me?

After a cracking experience at Juniper we headed around the corner to Herb & Wood. The menu is so great that I struggled to choose. I ended up ordering something I would never order, lamb bolognese with fresh pasta. Not going to dive into food reviews, it was good, not great and having been to all of his restaurants I still, hands down think Herringbone is the front runner.

After dinner we Ubured ( is that even a word? ) to a “supposedly” speak easy wine bar with an Alice in Wonderland theme. The idea was fun,  taking the stairs down to a grass wall that was actually a door. We sat at the bar and quickly realized it wasn’t an actual wine bar, more just a bar that had wine. The best part was the TV above us that was recording everyone coming down the outside stairs to the “hidden” doors. People are hilarious.

We moved on, now pretty good and buzzed we wandered into a bar with a live band. It was a good time but we both were ready for bed. I think we were in bed by 11:00 pm. Not bad for 40!

Our Brunch reservations were for 10:30…. I think. Wags picked us up at the hotel and we headed to Old Town to a restaurant we have never been to. The Tequila Factory,  a restaurant in a hotel in the heart of Old Town. We parked underground and it really was a mess trying to find the restaurant.  Once we reached the hostess she said we were 30 minutes late so we had to wait… unless we were okay with a few stairs. Shane looked to Wags’ and then back to the hostess, we told her we would be at the bar.

Finally we were seated out on the patio, the sun decided to show up. We had a good time, the food…eh,  everyone else seemed to be really enjoying it.

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A guitarist that has been working there for years  serenaded us for a few songs, one was Stairway to Heaven because Wags.

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Our bellies full we strolled through town wondering what we should do next when Old Town Saloon came into focus. An actual  21+ bar and I had never been there. We put money into the jukebox, quarters into the pool table and had a BLAST.

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I used to be good at pool, really. But now I am not. Shane won every game. Bullshit! 40 is in the bag!

 

Where Do the Days Go?

~ Girlmom ~ 1 Comment

Is it really the middle of February? What the hell? I am turning another year older next week that probably explains why I can’t remember what we have done the past few weeks.

Aside from a couple of kids birthday parties and making hummus, my new weekly hobby, life has been mundane. I did, however make it to a USMNT friendly match. They played lousy but we still had fun time, with great seats on the field.

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I have been trying to take the girls to the park on Wednesdays, we have been exploring outside of our neighborhood park. Finding ourselves mostly at parks near the water when the weather is beautiful.

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Averi really wanted to hand feed the pigeon a chip, I almost thought she would succeed but   the bird chickened out.img_1137-1

The past few recipes I have made have been duds, I need to make something good enough to post. Luckily next Saturday Brian Malarkey will be cooking us dinner as we try out his new restaurant. What else should we do with a free night downtown?

A Little This a Little That

~ Girlmom ~ 1 Comment

It’s been a week and a half since Averi’s transition from the crib and I have to say it’s gone very well. Let me follow that up with why. We made sure to do it when Shane would be home and that played a huge factor. When the girls are upset at night, me entering their room makes it worse, Shane walks in and they shut up. Monday he had to go back up to work. Bedtime wasn’t too bad but Averi did try to pull out all her tricks to avoid sleep and keep me coming in, luckily it was short lived.

She woke up crying at 1:30 in the morning just long enough to wake me. I lied awake and read for about two hours until finally drifting back to sleep only to have her wake up crying again at 4:00. She refused to nap this morning and spent an hour crying in her bedroom. I popped her on our bed with cartoons so I could shower and while I was doing so,  she took a hand full of her poop and painted our bed sheets and comforter with it.  This kid..sigh. I am not holding my breathe for a smooth bedtime tonight, but hopefully she will be too tired to fight me. I can hope.

This past Saturday we took the day to drive up to Julian. A little snow, some wine tasting and lunch. All the while I had Anthony Bourdain’s New Mexican Chili in the slow cooker.

There was snow and rain and ice and it was cold, I was not prepared. Having just been in Washington I thought I would be ok but that was a negative. I didn’t bring gloves or an umbrella and spent most of the time in damp clothes. The little town was busy and the weather was forcing everyone into all the restaurants and cafe’s. We finally found a place without a wait and we tucked into a corner booth for a mediocre lunch, but hey, at least we were dry.

 

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Once we have seen all we wanted we wandered down the way to Wynola and popped into julian Station. It’s a neat building that houses tasting rooms, a taco bar, a few video games, a pool table and entertainment space for live music. Something almost out of the wild West. Definitely worth stopping at if you are in the area. We will be back.

Heading home we drove through Ramona and stopped at one of our favorite wineries, Chuparosa. We caught up with the wine maker who just got back from Walla Walla and then let the kids run free.

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We had just enough time for one last stop. A winery none of us has been terribly fond of but it’s been years since we have tried their wine.  The tasting room was inside  a tin can, okay more like an airport hanger with paintings and statues of naked women dotting the property.

img_1034 The wine wasn’t as bad as we remembered however…we all ordered a wine flight of five wines, all red. They were all the same color, the Pinot was the same deep burgandy as the Zin. None of them had any real personality so we left empty handed. I think we all agreed we don’t need to go back.

The Bourdain chili recipe from his latest cookbook was really good, depths of flavors from roasted chili’s and beef. We enjoyed it with some red wine and a game with friends. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.

Home is Where the Kids Are

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Kaili was very excited to have mommy and daddy back home. She wouldn’t leave my side for a good two days. We were a bit jet lagged, the time change was only four hours but our  red eye flight, not getting a full nights sleep and bloody Mary’s first thing in the morning didn’t really help our cause.

Back to school sickness hit Kaili right before we got home and then it was passed to Averi who has an ugly cough. It took a few days for all of us to get back into the routine but I think we are all settled in pretty well.

Shane picked up Wags at the airport a few days after we got home. Kaili was eager to see his medals.

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I think they suit her.

We spent the weekend being homebodies, enjoying the weather and each other.

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Dinner and music outside, Kaili loves to dance to her favorite songs.

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She also loves this dress, today is the third straight day she has worn it. I may have let her wear it to school to avoid a fight. I need to wash it and tuck it away somewhere for a week or two.

 

 

 

 

The Best of What’s Around

~ Girlmom ~ 1 Comment

It’s been years since I have seen Dave Matthews in concert, the young kids really throw a damper on late night concerts. He (Dave) didn’t even come to SD last year, side eye to you DM. So when I heard they were coming back I wanted, no, needed to go. I mentioned it to Shane, and then a few weeks later I  told Shane about it…and then I reminded Shane and so on and so forth. He, of course got us tickets…not without telling me how I ruined his “surprise”  and then I was beside myself with excitement for this day to come. It’s been about 6 or 7 years since we have seen them live and 21 years since I first heard them…woah, that ages me.

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I had more fun than Shane did. He hasn’t loved them like I have but we had a good time. We enjoyed  VIP access and box seats. In reality the VIP area isn’t really necessary for the price. It gives you a place to drink and free food to eat while a DJ plays top 40 music. But the seats, those are great. Nothing better than having waited service so you don’t have miss any songs.

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When I  was 18 years old  I went to Vegas to see the Grateful Dead. I was roaming through a hotel, not yet old enough to gamble or drink  but I tossed some quarters into a pull machine and I won, of course…and then I got the hell out of there. Funny the way it is.

When we arrived at the concert venue I was worried about getting sprayed with LSD water. I know, it sounds crazy but it was hot and I had heard that some concert “goers” would dose spray bottles and squirt random people. I was SO paranoid about that, I couldn’t enjoy myself. In reality nothing happened and I don’t know if that ever happened but I must have heard it somewhere. Then the opening band started, some new band called The Dave Matthews Band. They were so good and I instantly fell in love, bought their music and haven’t stopped to this day.

 

 

 

A Day by the Sea

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We have been keeping busy the past few weekends. The Chula Vista Harbor fest is the one thing we do each year. It’s the perfect mix for kids and adults. Most of the time you find these festivals have it all, food, booze and a kids zone. But in the city of San Diego, the booze has to be kept in a 21 and over “beer garden.” In Chula Vista, they don’t give a shit and we like that kind of thinking. We can grab a drink and walk around with our kids or sip our wine while our kids bounce in the jumpers. I mean it really is common sense, happy parents + happy life?

The girls had so much fun. From the bouncers to the ice cream…they were kept busy.

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Kaili did a little bungee jumping.

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Ave’s had fun on the playground.

 

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There was hula hooping. I just realized I don’t know how to spell that…is it hula or hoola? Oh, man.

It’s all fun and games outside of SD limits.

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After the festival we headed to Coronado for a late lunch. A day out in San Diego really does feel like a mini stay cation.. What’s not to love?

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A Reason to Cook

~ Girlmom ~ 3 Comments

I gazpacho you a recipe. I’ve been holding out of you. I found the best recipe for gazpacho, seriously. It’s from Food and Wine and it’s called Gazpacho on Fire. Basically you throw all the veg on a roasting pan and once it’s nice and charred you peel, seed and throw it in a food processor with a few other goodies.

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It really is one of the best I have had and perfect for these hot days.

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We’ve been beating the heat by heading to the bay early in the morning. The playground has sand and the sprinklers are on providing perfect sand castle material.

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We had a low key weekend which was really nice but Kaili is getting stir crazy. I thought that since her first day of school was before Labor day that she was starting early, but  compared to other kids in CA she is one of the last…and I’m jealous. I’m ready, she’s ready and I think even Averi’s ready.

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