San Diego

It’s been awhile.  Sorry!  We were far too busy having a blast in San Diego for me to blog!  I have to say – if there were a way to convince our entire family to move to California, we’d be packing today.  A and I loved San Diego.  Of course, it’s hard not to fall in love when every day is gorgeous… 77, dry, sunny – just absolutely perfect.  We went out there for a wedding, and it just so happened we were staying just a few blocks from where BlogHer11 will be happening!!  Those of you that aren’t bloggers are probably totally confused about what I’m talking about… so those of you that KNOW what BlogHer is, just skip this next paragraph

BlogHer is a giant blogging conference held each year.  This year it was in New York, and I can’t even begin to tell you how jealous I am of all my Mommy-blogger friends that went.  There are talks on how to build your blog, photography… basically anything under the sun.  But the real joy is in the networking.  Bloggers from all over go to BlogHer… and so do companies.  They hand out “swag” just in the hopes that you’ll blog about one of their products.  The highlights this year were Vera Bradley bags, a pair of designer jeans, and quite the assortment of other, lower ticket items.  The people that went to BlogHer packed extra (empty) duffel bags to bring their swag home… and still ended up shipping boxes back home because there was JUST SO MUCH STUFF.  And then there’s the parties.  Oh how jealous I was of the tweets and blog posts talking about the parties.  It looked like such a fabulous time.  Next year, the conference is in San Diego… and I have made it my mission to be there.

Being just blocks from the convention center turned out to be an added bonus.  To my BlogHer roomies (you know who you are), we MUST go to this little place for breakfast on Friday (it has to be Friday because it was packed when we went on the weekend), and there’s an adorable… FABULOUS… cupcake store that we will also need to visit.  I may or may not have scarfed down 2.5 of their cupcakes in the 3 days we were there.

Anyway, enough about BlogHer and how much I love San Diego.  Let’s talk about what M thought of San Diego.  First off, our hotel was just a block and a half from Petco Park, the baseball stadium in San Diego.  Petco Park has a nice little “tot lot” that we visited every day.  M loved it.  He also adored the dogs that would walk by.  It’s funny, I know he loves our Liberty dog, but it was almost embarrassing how he’d chase after dog walkers just to give the dog a little pet before throwing a temper tantrum when the dog continued to walk away.  Anyway, I have about 199 pictures of M at the park because we went there every day… but here are a few of my favorites!

Our friends R and C also joined us (did I mention we were actually here for a wedding?) and their daughter K (not actually her first initial, but two M’s will get confusing ) had some fun at the park with us too!!

Kids weren’t invited to the wedding, so C and I took M and K to the zoo!  It was fabulous, although I’m fairly certain we walked about 10 miles.  The highlight of the zoo (in M’s eyes) was the petting zoo.  He absolutely adored the goats.  The temper tantrum that happened when I finally decided it was time to leave the petting zoo was the best I’ve ever seen.  I felt like Britney Spears at her low point when I carried my screaming child out of the zoo under my arm like a sack of potatoes.  Literally – I had to wrap my arm around his chest, tuck him under my arm and just beeline for the exit, with M flying like superman and screeching like a pterodactyl as we went.  It was a tantrum to end all tantrums.  He was limp, there was screaming, there was flailing limbs, there was smacking of the Mommy, and there was more screaming.  All because SOMEONE loved the goats.  Here’s a few pictures of the goats… unfortunately these are the only pictures I have of the zoo – the rest of the time we were too busy looking at the animals to take any pictures

M loved all the goats, but he kept going back to this one.  I think they had a special bond.  Or maybe M just liked that none of the other kids knew he was there.  Anyway, he was hands down M’s favorite of all the goats.

Overall – a great trip.  I came home from the zoo with a pretty nasty sunburn on my back (forgot sunscreen there), and M came home brown as a bear and happy as a clam.  It was tons of fun.  I had my very first “celebrity sighting” while we were at the zoo, and it totally didn’t even occur to me to get a picture.  About 10 minutes after the fact I thought gee, would’ve been really cute to get a picture of M with them.  So who was it??? Ali, the bachelorette… and her fiance?  Boyfriend??  I didn’t watch this season so I have no idea what he is… but I do know he’s a very good looking man.  Anyway, I wish I had a picture of Ali holding M to share with you, but I don’t… because I’m totally sucky at being a paparazzi fan.  In fact – I don’t even have proof that we saw her… but we did.  And I know it was her because the girls in front of us when totally insane and were gushing about how they just watched her on TV and OMG CAN WE GET 19 BILLION PICTURES PLEASE?!?!?!