Eath, wind and fire (and water)

Talia arrived into San Diego late on Friday, July 23rd and it was decided that we needed our rest for the long day of shopping and fun ahead of us. We rose early on Saturday and head to the intergalactically central office of Prana(tm) clothing line, located in San Marcos. They specialize in climbing/hiking and yoga clothes and we got some amazing bargains on their twice-a-year 'everything must go' warehouse sale. Most things that retail for $40-60 were had for $6-$15. Later we traveled to the wonderful Carlsbad Company Stores and I got a few more things at (surprise!) GAP :-) Are we done shopping?! Nooooooooooo, not in the least bit.

We had a great lunch of fish and salad at my parents' house and proceeded to the main event - COSTCO! :-) You see, we were getting ready to entertain by the beach and there's no place better to shop than Costco....that is if you're expecting 50+ guests. We weren't. Needless to say I have mountains of leftovers that include beer, soda, hot-dog buns, and chocolate bars. Thankfully Costco doesn't sell marshmallows; otherwise I'd be kneed deep in them in my room.

After we filled the car to the brim full of party goodies we headed out to Mission Bay to look for a fire pit. "Cool, no problem" you say. Beautiful Saturday day in San Diego, 5pm, and we're looking for an empty fire pits. Yes, we are absolutely nuts! After 35 minutes of cruising around in my pimp ride we finally found a great spot on Inghram and Vacation. After lugging all the goodies to the grass we enjoyed reading our books before the guests showed up. Everyone (Anna, Jason, Scott and his Q-crew) arrived fashionably late and we had a great time. We enjoyed our hotdogs (which were good only after 4-5 other ones sacrificed their life as I adjusted the grill) and later smores by the bonfire, as the Sea World fireworks filled the sky and made for a memorable evening.

Tired after a long day, we completely crashed and slept straight through till 10:30am on Sunday - ahhhhh, what bliss. But our Sunday had even grander things for us in store. The day started out with a gorgeous hike at the Torrey Pines state reserve. Although it was cloudy, it was beautiful nonetheless, and I got a chance to give my new Prana shirt a workout. It passed my "sweating like a pig" test. After a quick lunch of hotdogs and sodas (hmmmm, I wonder were we go those?) we headed out for La Jolla cove for some snorkeling. Plunking down $8 for parking seemed to be totally worth it since it was right near the cove and the entire park was completely filled with people for the Concerts in the Park event.

Arriving at the beach, eager and exciting we headed straight for the water. "Ummmmmm, you sure you want to do this?" was the first though in our mind, as the effects of the chilling water reached our brains. But we decided to face the problem head on and dive right in (I've always wanted to use that phrase in context!!) :-) We struggled for a few minutes to get our flippers on as the waves bounced us around.

As soon as you make 3-4 steps into the water, the beach drops off and you're immediately surrounded by 10's, or even 100's of fish. The sea-weed filled garden is filled with beautiful Garibaldi's (California state fish) and some sea bass. It's incredible how used to humans they are and you can get just inches away from them. Since this was our first time with the gear and in the water we decided not to go for a long swim, but next time we plan to swim out to La Jolla caves located just few hundred yards away and try to explore the 7 caves. More about that in August.

Frozen to the bone we left the water 40 minutes later with nothing but smiles on our faces. Jumped up to the park and warmed our bodies in the sun to the sounds of a funk-filled 10-piece band playing in the park.

The rest of the evening was marred by that constantly repeating and sad event - the guest's imminent departure. This time it was Talia headed back home to Vegas, but next weekend it'll me who will be leaving Talia's home all to herself. But let's not leave on a sad note but mention the other fun times we had tonight - cleaning up spilled wine (yey for the person who decided to have white instead of red tonight), packing away all the goodies left-over from the bonfire (mmmm, who doesn't love the smell of spilled beer), and last, but not least, who can forget our heart beat(s) jumping from 60 to 160 at the thought of Talia forgetting her ID, as we were pulling into Lindberg Field. The last incident reaffirmed something that I had long suspected - airport safety and security is just a facade exemplified by the fact a (very forgetful) person can still travel without a single piece of identification.

So there you go. A first of, hopefully, many more tales of our weekend adventures.

Ready...set.....

GO! Well, if you haven't had your fill with the pictures, check back here for more social commentary on our adventures. Yes, pictures are worth a thousand words, but sometimes there just isn't a good chance to take a picture (like under water, or in motion) and we'd like to use this space to keep a little journal of our adventures. So enjoy! We welcome all comments...and if we don't like them they'll be immediately deleted :-D

-Talia and Vadim