California: Day 12 (Thurs)...A Quiet New Year's Eve.

Well, our day didn't start terribly well - Matthew ate too much at dinner last night and, on the way home from the restaurant, said "Mom, I ate too much and I might have to vomit tonight - is that ok with you?!"  Sure enough, between 1:15 and about 3:30 this morning, he woke us up seven times with his vomiting.  Of those times, four required some kind of sheet changes; being in someone else's house, we don't have access to endless numbers of bedsheets, so he ended up sleeping (and vomiting) on beach towels, too, once the sheets ran out.  Needless to say, we were tired this morning though, surprisingly, we have fared quite well throughout the day.

After another delightfully slow start to the day, we headed off for Balboa Park in San Diego.  We watched a pathetic and horrible puppet show ("Jack and the Beanstalk") at a little theatre there, and the little kids liked that even though I'd have to say that it was the worst puppet show I've ever seen.  Then, minus my parents, who did their own thing today, my sibs/spouses/kids hung around the park for a couple of hours - eating teriyaki chicken bowls and green tea at a little Japanese tea restaurant, taking pictures, and throwing a baseball (well, my brother and his boys did that!).  I have no idea what temperature it was outside but it felt like about 25-28 degrees C...not a cloud in the sky.

Here are my brother's three boys:

Leaving Balboa Park after a few hours, we drove a short distance to Coronado Island (thought it's really a peninsula), via a 1.7 mile bridge crossing over a chunk of the San Diego harbour.  What a great spot - we ended up on a beach by a large resort hotel on the island, and it was odd seeing many guests and tourists skating (yes, ice skating) in a large rink just behind the beach.  If you look carefully at the photo below, you'll see the skating rink in the foreground (where many people were wearing shorts to accessorize their rented ice skates), and the shadows of the ocean and a mountain ridge in the background:

After sipping on delicious mochas, we eventually made our way back over the bridge to Old Town San Diego - an area of the city cluttered with great little spanish/mexican shops, restaurants and residential areas.  I loved looking at all of the spanish-influenced architecture:  white or cream-coloured stucco-like exteriors (with that distinctive textured look), arched doorways, terra cotta roof tiles.  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at this point in our travels and so I have no pictures to offer you of Old Town San Diego.  After a delicious Mexican dinner at Cafe Coyote, we finally made our way back to the house and, just before packing the three younger kids into bed, took some photos of my parents and all of their grandchildren (at least, all of the grandchildren so far!!), wearing matching shirts brought back from some trip my grandparents were on this year - every shirt was huge and completely dwarfed the kids, but who cares!!??  Here they all are, grandparents with their six grandkids, ranging in age from five to eighteen (Matthew is the one sitting on grandpa's lap):

And on that note, though it is an hour from the countdown to midnight, I am toddling off to bed...between nights of insomnia and Matthew's up-chucking during last night, I am exhausted.  Even so, I am only one of two people still awake in the house!  Thus, I shall bid you all good night, and look forward to posting again next year...ie. tomorrow.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!