Happy Holidays!

For Christmas we headed back to DC to see family and friends for the holiday season.  Riley was awesome on the flight out, although she did not sleep at all.  She just climbed on us, put the window shade up and down, watched sesame street on the ipad and colored in her coloring books.  It was exhausting for us but she was quite content.  Our flight got in to BWI 30 minutes early...kind of unreal so I thought I would mention it.  It only too 4 hours and 15 minutes to fly across the country!  That still is so unreal to me. 

 Before leaving for DC, Riley spoke her first identifiable word! Car!  Check it out.  Now, she has said other words but none on command so I had to post!

Riley loved opening presents.  She had quite a job ahead of her at Grandpa and Grandma Emery's.  We also went to Christmas Eve Mass.  It was super packed and the only seats available were the front row and basically the furthest spot from the cry room so it was going to be a special feat for Riley to make it through an hour of mass without acting up especially since mass was right around her bed time.  Well, she lasted 20 minutes...and then Matt had to take her outside.  We left early too.  But she looked adorable in her Christmas dress.  Such a cutie!

 It was so nice to see Callie back to her old self again!  Callie has been going on hunger strikes since we moved away.  She just stops eating.  Luckily Aunt Cathy is a vet and takes excellent care of her.  There is nothing physically wrong with Callie and so we think its psychological but who knows.  Acupuncture seemed to help but the Pet Psychic seems to think that Callie has been a cat for many lives and just doesn't want to be a cat anymore.  Hmm....so your guess is as good as mine.  But while we were there, she was just the sweetest even sleeping with us again and sitting in our laps.  I miss her!!!

Matt and I got to see so many friends that we miss so much.  Thanks to all for making time for us during the crazy busy holiday season.  It was so fun to have all the babies meet each other over at the Cox's house.  Riley loved on some Baby Stu which was super adorable. 

Baby Bobby!

Baby Stu!

Our trip was pretty quick; only six days and we were back in SD for some relaxation.  Riley did really good on the flight back but of course she doesn't fall asleep until we landed in SD. 

 First stop, Oscars!  We missed fish tacos!!!!  This place is absolutely incredible.  It's definitely the best fish taco place in the entire area.  Check out our fave; surf and turf taco:

So this year, we had a very calm and uneventful New Years Eve.  I have to say that this was the first NYE spent at home without any festivities since probably Middle School, but we did get out to a very nice dinner at one our favorite places in La Jolla; Herringbone.  We went promptly at 5:30pm, and were out of there before 7:00pm.  Riley was incredible.  She was flirting with the server and loved the olive trees in the restaurant.  This was definitely the best she has ever been at a restaurant.  Such a trooper!

For New Years I made delicious Black Eyed Peas (southern tradition) and some cornbread.  Here's to a wonderful 2013!!!

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!