Dec 19th –  Dec 27^th,  2017

What a great 9 days! It was so nice to have time with the kids! We stayed in LA at Ben’s place. First family outing was to Genghis Cohen (yep! I got that right) to watch Amanda’s comic friends perform (so funny!) and finished the up the night with a Genghis Cohen Chinese dinner.

We window shopped the Century City Mall, cruised the Santa Monica Pier and the 3^rd St Promenade nearby. All under the sun and still in the Holiday Spirit!

We tried some new restaurants and hit a few we’d liked from our last trip. New to me was POKE, a salad version of sushi that everyone loves. Me not so much – I must be having a hard time with change – what’s wrong with sushi being – well sushi?

 I had a 2 night sleepover at Amanda’s for some girl time. She has a cute new apartment in Pasadena not far from the Shade Store where she works.

Downtown Pasadena was cool and I’ll definitely want to spend more time there next go round.

We did lots of shopping, went to the movies (saw The Worlds Greatest Showman – poor fellas – it was a musical and we were unaware).  JP and Ben did a drive to the Getty, we watched movies at home and had great family time!

Christmas Eve Day we headed South. We stopped on our way to San Diego to meet Amanda’s friends Cristi and Todd and their family from out of town. It was donuts, coffee (+ Baileys) and Holiday Cheer! Cristi was lovely and excited about her upcoming wedding. Amanda is officiating- how cool is that?

After a slight buzz and a bit of a sugar high we were off to San Diego to spend Christmas with JP’s Brother Harry and his wife Suzanne. 

Harry and Suzanne took us out and about around San Diego. We went to the Spanish Village Art Center in Balboa Park. Totally my cup of tea!

We saw the sunset at La Jolla and headed to Mount Soledad which is one of the most unique National Veterans Memorials in America. In the evening  you can see the city lights forever  . . .

We also went to Ocean Beach to see one of the longest piers on the west coast at 1971 feet its pretty amazing!

The downtown near the pier is full of antique stores and little restaurants. We stopped in at Lighthouse Ice Cream for a waffle cone – that was not the usual waffle cone. It was even better! Ice cream sandwiched between actual waffles! New fav!

 

All this and a movie (Downsizing – which we liked) and then of course Christmas Eve and Christmas Day! The San Diego Pomeroy’s made our short visit just full of fun stuff and fed us like mad! 

Christmas was really lovely . We hadn’t been with the kids for a holiday in decades and Harry and Suzanne certainly made it memorable! It couldn’t have been a nicer Christmas!

Side Note!                                                                                                                                Amanda and I were headed home at the end of our day and what to our wondering eyes should appear? Yes! It was the night before Christmas Eve and COULD possibly have been Santa on a test drive  (our first thoughts of course!) We settled into the idea that it was more likely an alien ship but alas . . . . it was just a satellite launch but truly was amazing to see!