Thanksgiving in SD!

We have had such a wonderful end of Fall and beginning of the 'winter' for San Diego.  Matt and I got a day away and went to Las Vegas one night and it was incredible!  We stayed at the Cosmopolitan which is a Marriott hotel so with all of our reward points we got to stay there for free!  The room was amazing.  We even had a terrace which is pretty rare in Vegas.  The hotel gambling scene was amazing and the restaurants are on a whole other level.  The breakfast buffet and the Wicked Spoon was so amazing I could go on and on about it.  Here's one thing this buffet place did right: all items were individually portioned in little bowls, shot glasses, cast iron skillets, etc that it made getting items so easy and since it was already portioned I wouldn't fill up my plate on something that I didn't like.  That is some great thinking!  I HIGHLY recommend going there.  We also had an amazing sushi dinner at Blue Ribbon Sushi.  We stepped out of our comfort zone and had some awesome dishes that we had never had before.  We also saw a great show of the Cirque du Soleil called Zumanity at the New York New York. And for the anti-climatic part of our trip, we took a cab to the Pawn Star's Pawn Shop to sell a pair of binoculars I got at an Estate Sale.  Unfortunately they didn't even want to look at them but it did get us in the store by cutting the line.  The store is pretty small and they have alot of Pawn Stars themed items which was not what I was expecting.  It's in a very rough part of town and wasn't worth the time and cab fare to get there.  Boo. 

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  My parents came out and once again, we fried up some turkey!  This year Riley was able to eat everything we had.  She is a big fan of cranberry sauce.  We took Riley to the Birch Aquarium and got some wonderful pics out there.  She loves this place!  We are so lucky to have so many options to take Riley too.  Hopefully next on the list is Legoland!!

We had a wonderful visit from Jess and Nick Schiavi just for the afternoon over the Thanksgiving holiday.  We love seeing friends out here and showing them what San Diego has to offer.

My bestie came out just last week with her boyfriend Keith.  I showed them Mount Soledad overlook, the Cove, the beach by our place and we went to some of the best places to eat which any foodie would enjoy!  It was wonderful to see Tiff!

This past weekend we took Riley to see Santa.  Last year she was so cute on Santa's lap.....this year...well...she did not enjoy telling Santa what she wants for Christmas.  She was terrified of Santa!  She literally was shaking.  I am hopeful that next year she can redeem herself with Santa.  :(

Next up is our trip back East.  We are very excited about coming back for Christmas! 

Fall in San Diego

Fall is here and the Emery’s are super excited about what that brings!
 Pumpkins!  We love pumpkins…pumpkin patches, decorating pumpkins,
roasted pumpkins seeds, pumpkins lattes!  Yay!  Although San Diego
really doesn’t do seasons too much so Fall here is still somewhat
Summer but, hey, I’m not complaining!  The cool air at night is all we
need.  So earlier this month we ventured to a pumpkin farm in Escondido which
was super fun.  Riley loved trying to pick up all the pumpkins.  She
seems to think she has superhuman strength at times but it always
makes for some cute pics.  We picked out some small pumpkins and
enjoyed some of the other activities the farm had including the
petting zoo (disregard the rather large women that seemed to be in
every shot no matter what angle I was at).

The month of October brings many visitors from way back East and we
are so excited!  Grandpa and Grandma Emery visited and Riley
was in heaven.  We found this great part of the beach by our house where there are
worn rocks by the ocean that Riley just loves.  It’s much more
secluded and the waves are more gentle for lil’ toddlers there.  She
loves to be in the water..any water…it doesn’t matter.  She will take
whatever kind of water she can get…bath time, Jacuzzi time, pool time,
or beach time.  She is indifferent.  Our little water baby.

We also had Donna and Tyler Barfield out for a few days and it was super fun.  We enjoyed showing them around our 'hood.

Next up was Nory Hagerty.  This was her second visit out to see us but we really filled it up with sightseeing.  We did the USS Midway, Balboa Park History Museum, and Old Town.  We actually went to the Whaley House which is allegedly the most haunted house in all of the US.  We didn't have such luck of seeing any ghosts but it was still alot of fun!

We had a WONDERFUL time trick-or-treating here in La Jolla.  We took Riley my all time favorite street ever, Beaumont Ave.  This street is incredible.  They always celebrate the holidays in an extreme fashion.  I bet over 1,000 kids come to this street for halloween.  It was super fun as Riley was the cutest Giraffe ever. 

So it's been officially one year since we moved here and we couldn't be happier. We LOVE San Diego and although we had to leave our friends and family back East, this was the perfect move for us.  We welcome more visitors who wish to leave the East Coast and all that crazy weather there for a bit of sunshine so come on over!

5 Wonderful Years!

Five Years have gone by so fast!  This seems like just yesterday!

Matt and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary last week in beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii.  The trip was incredible.  It was my first time to the Aloha State and it will definitely not be the last.  We stayed at the Kahala Resort on the other side of Diamond Head away from Waikiki.  We were fortunate enough to be bumped up to First Class on Alaskan Airlines for both of our flights and let me just say...wow!  First class is UH-MAZING!  We got signature drinks when we took our seat and had a three course meal on both flights.  Matt just said, "Don't get used to this." and I just nodded knowing full well how right he was so I took full advantage of the endless free drinks and warm towels provided! 

We rented a car once we landed and wouldn't ya know we got a Jeep Wrangler!  What a perfect car for Hawaii and it brought back some great memories of my old Wrangler! 
 
So we arrived at the secluded and oh so wonderful Kahala Resort and checked in with no issue.  But when getting to our room we found other keys and luggage receipts for someone plus a hat that definitely didn’t belong.  So we called down to the front desk to have them remove it.  We left the resort and wanted to check out Waikiki for dinner and wow, what a cluster!  It was SOOOO touristy.  I am super glad we didn’t stay down there.  I would have gone mad.  So once we arrived back at our resort there was a message on our phone and it turns out that because of the ‘inconvenience’ we experienced with our room (I guess referring to the other person’s stuff in our room) we have been upgraded to an Ocean Front room!  Say what?!  So we immediately started packing and headed to our new room which was so unbelievable that the view literally took my breath away!  So below are the two views; one from our first room and then other from our new room.  Just a slight difference, right? 

Our Original View at Kahala

Our Upgraded View!!!

Did I mention our hotel had a dolphin lagoon?  I LOVED watching the dolphins from our hotel room lanai and walking by them playing on the way to the beach. :)

Another view from our Lanai!

I forgot to mention that before heading out to Waikiki we had a drink at the veranda at our resort to start.  When we were sitting there a women with two kids came up to the table next to us and were all chummy.  I was listening to the women and I definitely recognized her.  I couldn’t place her but I knew she was famous.  Then…it hit me.  Mariska Hargitay from Law and Order: SVU!  I immediately looked her up on IMDB and I was right.  I snapped a quick pic of her while we were heading out for Waikiki but it wasn’t the best with the iphone. 
 
For our first whole day in Hawaii we relaxed beach side and it was amazing. 

View to the Left of where we sat

View to the Right of where we sat

For our second day we went for some adventures.  We first went to Hanauma Bay to do some snorkeling.  What a wonderful place! I have never been snorkeling before but what a great place to experience it for the first time!

Then headed to get lunch at a place we heard about on Guy Fieri’s show Diner’s, Drive-ins, and Dives just a few days before leaving for Hawaii.  The place is called Fresh Catch and it was so good!  The freshest poke you could ask for!!!
 
From there we headed to the North Shore to check out Waimea Valley Audubon Center and the Waimea Falls which was seen in the show Lost.  

 After that, we stopped by a portion of the North Shore known for their sea turtles and actually got to see quite a few of them trying to come ashore.  

These turtles were literally 2 feet from me!

 
For our actual anniversary on September 1^st we had dinner at the Resorts premier restaurant, Hoku.  We got the whole fish entrée to share and it was awesome.  After dinner we strolled down the beach where there was an event taking place at our hotel.  Turns out Mariska Hargitay was throwing a charity event for her foundation called Joyful Heart.  When we got back to our room we could hear the event going on and actually Third Eye Blind was playing so from our lanai we got to hear them play their known hits.  What a great way to celebrate 5 years!

We had a wonderful time and it was definitely one of the best vacations I have ever had.  We missed our Riley Bear though but she was in great hands with my mom and Aunt Karen.  They had so much fun.  

Happy Labor Day!

Hershey LOVES Kate Sessions Park

I'm so thrilled to be married to such a wonderful man and I am so happy to spend the rest of my life with him!