San Diego 4th of July!

What a great holiday weekend we had! We live in one of the most beautiful cities in the United States, and decided to stay at home and enjoy what San Diego had to offer. Friday we tried to sleep in...however now that Ellie is in her big girl bed and can get out on her own, she had other plans for us. So...I got out of bed with her at 6am (ugh...) and drank coffee while she watched cartoons. We hung out around the house in the morning, took an early nap, and then headed to the beach on Friday afternoon. It worked out well for everyone that we went later in the day since we have the palest baby on earth. The poor thing has to be slathered with SPF 70 whenever she's out in the sun for more than 5 minutes. Ellie had such a great time playing with her sand toys, hauling water back and forth from the ocean with Daddy, and destroying Daddy's sand castles. Poor Brant, he kept trying to explain to her that he was building a fort, but she thought it was hilarious to destroy his efforts. Here's a video of Ellie playing in the sand...no matter what she's doing she is so darn determined!

Saturday morning I got up and headed over to run in the Coronado 4th of July 15K. What a great run - fast and flat. It's always amazing to me that I run 5 or 6 times a week, train for half marathons, and consider myself in pretty good shape, but after a race I am always exhausted! I guess the difference between a training run and a race is that I don't sprint the last half of a mile in a training run. After the race Brant and Ellie met me and we headed over to watch the 4th of July parade on Coronado. It was pretty neat - very military oriented and had lots of hideously dressed up people for Ellie to watch. Ellie liked it, but her attention span is typical of a 3 year old and she has a hard time sitting still. Thankfully Ellie has a tall Daddy with strong shoulders, so she had a birds' eye view of the parade! After the parade and a long nap, Ellie got to play out front with all the neighborhood kids. That is going to be one of the hardest things for us to say goodbye to when we finally buy a home and leave Bancroft Street. There are so many little kiddo's on this street - it's like a block party every afternoon! We tried so hard to get pizza for dinner - I called and called our favorite pizza place but they weren't answering. So...I got the bright idea to drive over there. Hello - if they're not answering their phone, they're not open! But, we had talked about pizza all day and desperately wanted it! There are about 4 mom and pop pizza places within a couple of miles of home, so we drove by all of them and they were all closed... That gave us a chance to try a new mexican restaurant that opened in the neighborhood - one that always has a 45+minute wait on the weekends. The food was good, but the atmosphere isn't really kid friendly, so I don't know that we'll be going back there again soon. Conveniently it is right across the street from the best ice cream store in town, so Ellie got a 4th of July "pink" ice cream treat. She was in heaven. Back home to go potty, change into jeans, then on over to the golf course parking lot to watch 3 fireworks displays! Super close to home and convenient, AND a great view of the fireworks. What more can you ask for? Once again, we tried hard to sleep in this morning. Once again, at 6:10am, Ellie's sweet little face was about 2cm from my face saying "mommy - get up. it's time for you to get up!" Thank goodness she's cute and sweet, because I sure didn't want to get up. Mimi and Papa went to the Padres game yesterday and stayed the night in downtown, so they came over to visit us this morning. We all walked to Grant's for an early lunch, back for naps (Ellie refused, but Brant and I enjoyed), then grilled burgers and hit the sack. All in all, I'd say a pretty darn good holiday weekend! Here are more pictures of our beach fun! Hope everyone else had a safe and Happy 4th of July!