Watching the Sunset

One day this week Eric and I both came home from work after a very long, mundane day feeling very under-stimulated. Usually we have a little more variety to our work days, but on this particular day we had both been staring at a computer screen working on the same thing all day long.

So we grabbed some snacks, a blanket, and went to go watch the sunset at Sunset Cliffs.





In the picture below you may be able to see a couple surfers. It was so cold! But I bet they were loving it.

We're so thankful to have such beautiful sunrises and sunsets around us. Actually the very next morning, I opened the curtains to see the most gorgeous sunrise over the golf course.


It was just what we needed to turn around a very drab day.

St. Patrick's Day

It was nice that St. Patrick's Day fell on a weekend this year. We don't usually do anything to celebrate, but it was fun to have an excuse to make green meals. On Saturday morning I wanted to make green pancakes for Eric. But we didn't have any food coloring, so I made him go out and get some. I guess maybe that was more for me than him...

I also made some Irish white bean and cabbage stew.


Eric is in the home-stretch of studying for his big test this weekend.

We also found Scrabble in one of the little community center buildings in our complex so we had fun borrowing it. These were my letters.

Nothing else too crazy going on around here - just pushing through this final week of studying. Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Exploring San Diego - Fleet Science Center

Last week Eric's parents came to visit to celebrate his mom's 60th birthday! They spent a couple days in Las Vegas first, and then spent the rest of the week in San Diego.


It was so nice to have them here. Unfortunately we didn't get a ton of time with them since we were working all week, but we did have the full day Saturday together.

Saturday happened to be the one day it was raining all day long, so we did a lot of hanging around the house that afternoon.

That morning we decided to go to Fleet Science Center for some indoor fun. They had so much to do for people of all ages.


This girl was also celebrating a birthday - she turned 2 on Monday!

We got to see a short movie about dolphins in their IMAX theater. I had never been to a theater like this before, it was a totally new experience. Truthfully, I probably wouldn't be able to sit through a whole IMAX movie. I didn't know where to look and too much movement started making me dizzy. But it was still very cool to see.

They had a huge play area for some of the smaller children. Sydney spent the entire time in here.


There were endless other areas and rooms with various hands-on learning activities. We learned about electricity, sound travel, weather patterns, earthquakes, laws of physics, engineering, and much more.



They had an entire web of passage ways created entirely out of packing tape!

There was so much to do we didn't even get to everything before we were in need of naps and food. I would love to go back at some point. Although it is one of the few things that isn't free around here, I would definitely recommend for a great rainy day activity!

Thank you so much for visiting and happy birthday to Betty and Sydney!

Exploring San Diego - Birch Aquarium

Eric and I were trying to think of something fun for our first anniversary - maybe a trip to Mexico, camping, a weekend trip to Palm Springs, a weekend trip to anywhere around us (Santa Monica, Joshua Tree, Julian)?? Well, it crept up on us quickly and with all the busyness of life, we found ourselves scrambling the night before just to try and make a reservation to eat somewhere.

Thankfully, there is so much to do and so many places to explore locally that we didn't need to get away to find a beautiful place to celebrate.

We went to George's in La Jolla for lunch, with gorgeous ocean views.


The food was great, and the company was even better.


After lunch we took a little walk around La Jolla, before heading to Birch Aquarium!





They had a kelp show where they talked all about the importance of kelp, which was actually pretty interesting. Did you know kelp is in most toothpastes?

It also featured two scuba divers washing windows and feeding the fish.

Birch Aquarium Kelp Show from Lauren Adolph on Vimeo.



The view from the Aquarium was also beautiful.





We had such a fun day and are so thankful we live in a place that is pretty easy to come up with awesome things to do on such short notice! However I do still want to plan that Mexico trip :)