San Diego, the first half...

So Cal!!!!!

Our original plan of spending more time camping along the coast was rained out so we spent a few extra days with our parents in San Diego. Warmth, long walks on the beach, relaxing dinners with our family and some exciting adventures just begin to describe the 10 amazing days we spent in San Diego.  I was always a firm believe that family and community, not place, creates the feeling of coming home.  We brought a crazy rain storm in with us when we arrived in San Diego, much to our parent’s dismay; they tried to shake the Washington weather off us.  Kurt and Susan have been living in San Diego for the past four months and loving their new home.  They have quite the set up; I really enjoyed their patio, pool and hot tub.  I’m working on getting some color but the tan is very patchy as Nate has us on all kinds of adventures everyday and I’ve only laid out in the sun twice in the five weeks of our trip. 

Arriving on a Saturday night we had the opportunity to go to a San Diego Vineyard church on Sunday morning with a beach walk immediately following.  

We also arrive just in time for Andrew and Emily’s combined Star Wars themed gymnastics birthday party.  I wish I had a picture of Kim and Andrew but I was really distracted with getting to meet some of Kim’s lovely east coast family and all the kid activities.

Susan took us to some of her favorite beaches during the earlier part of the week.  

Nate took us up to see a Greene and Greene house.  For you that are unfamiliar, these Architects were brothers who were some of the last designers of the Arts and Crafts movement  formed as a critic of the industrial revolution when building materials became standardized with manufacturing factories. Architecture students spend tons of time studying these Architects and Nate and I appreciate their work.

Notice the address of the home is four and when you pass the home at night you would know what address is the building.

The year of construction is the entrance tile.

Greene brothers were influenced by Japanese art and many of the architectural elements reveal this influence; for example cloud lift patterns, a symmetric style and stain glass themes.

Here stands Nate, tired an depressed after several attempts on my part to get a picture of him in mid air.  I have so much more respect for all you out there that take those kinds of pictures.

We also had the opportunity to visit another amazing design of concrete at the Salk Institute in San Diego by Architect Louis Kahn.

Nate's Winter Quarter project really came together for me when I went to see the concrete work at this site.

Nate has always told me that I haven’t really experienced a good entertainment park so he wanted to take me to Great America, Six flags or Disney land.  It turned out that Susan had a coupon for Knott’s Berry Farm and so we went and we had a blast.  No lines, not too hot and an amazing chicken dinner to top off my best day in a theme park to date.  I worked really hard to ignore the rides and the meaning of the names of the rides so I could be even more shocked and thrilled by them.  

An Oldie but the Goody... we loved the wooden roller coaster for it's overall thrill.

Snoopy is the coolest.

We rode all of them at least twice but we wonder if our exploration into a little shack in the middle of the park was even more thrilling than the rides. Sue hosted a petting zoo of sorts in the middle of Knott’s Berry farm.  First she wanted us to hold the hissing cockroaches.  I am deathly afraid of them and refused.  Nate was a good sport. Then Sue wanted to put a scorpion on our clothes for a picture and at this point Nate had reached his bravery limit.  She was very persistent, Nate backed up, she followed, Nate moved to the other end of the small room, Sue literally chased Nate around the small shake.  I felt so sorry for him that I sacrificed myself, knowing that surely my love for him would get me through this terrifying experience. 

Walking Sticks

Sue was a riot, here she is kissing the frog.

On another night we got to visit with a co-worker from BC&J Architects, Csilla Elliott.  It was a great evening getting caught up with her about life in San Diego.  She swears she will never move again.