First flight cakes...

A couple of weeks ago Matt had his first San Diego helicopter flight. I have a tradition of "surprising" him with an ice cream cake to celebrate his first up in the air experience. Guess it isn't really a surprise after the third time...

This flight, since I had a little more time on my hands (still job searching...), I decided to make him an ice cream cake. It had all his favorite things - ice cream, marshmallows, and peppermints (oh my). It might not have been the best looking cake, but it sure tasted good!

Here is a look back on all of the first flight cakes that we have eaten in the past two years...

Corpus Christi celebration (Sept '09). This is our Anchorman cake - I love pilot.

Milton, Florida celebration (Sept '10). Really can't go wrong with Baskin-Robbins fudge cake.

San Diego celebration (May '11). Kind of hard to see, but it is supposed to be say "I heart pilot" in marshmallows.

Well done, pilot, well done.

The Best of the Fests

Matt has been busy working and I have been busy looking for work (which is a full-time job in itself), but we have found a little time to enjoy some of the events going on around San Diego.

Two weeks ago there was the Mission Federal ArtWalk San Diego in Little Italy. The street was filled with local and national art galleries, artists, vendors, and music. Matt and I spent two days walking around eating and drinking, because there was little chance of us actually purchasing anything. An added bonus this year was that they had the world's largest red sofa and we got to sit on it - how lucky are we!

Last weekend's festival was even better - San Diego Padre Beerfest 2011. There were over 25 local and national breweries and we only have 2 1/2 hours to enjoy them! Matt and I love sampling different types of beers, something that we can attribute to Leslie. When she started working for Sam Adams, she taught us all about different types of beer and helped us appreciate them. Needless to say, we made the most of our time at the festival. One of the best parts of the Beerfest was that they were featuring the celebrity comedy group "Broken Lizard". For those of you that are unfamiliar, as I was before the festival, this is the group that wrote and starred in Super Troopers, Beerfest, and Club Dredd. This was definitely a major draw for Matt, who is known to often quote these movies (I can't tell you how many times I have heard the name Farva throughout our marriage). All that you needed to get into Beerfest was a ticket to the baseball game. So not only did we get to enjoy the different breweries, but baseball as well. What could be better...

All of the San Diego neighborhoods have signs. Here is ours...

Need I say more.

He had to give it a try

My guilty conscience made us stop here after a lady came up to me and asked me to spread the words to others that the street was extremely hot on dogs' feet. Like that wasn't an obvious hint.

Berry kabobs - the best kind of kabob

Here is a little of everything - some of the artists' tents, palm trees, and water in the distance

Beer is good.

This one is for Les. And, yes, I did try to pull the "I know someone who works for Sam Adams" card, hoping that it would get me some free beer. Negative.

Broken Lizard.

We stopped by our favorite Ballpark bar (Bub's) after the game and look what we found on the menu. The Pacific Beach (PB) Bub's is the local Hokie bar. I can't tell you how happy this made us.

Ireland...the greenest land on earth

Over a month ago Nick and I hopped over the pond to the greenest land on earth...Ireland!  What prompted this trip, you ask?  Well we both love to travel and have no children besides a lab who loves anyone so he's easy to take care of, plus the flight was inexpensive!! By inexpensive, I mean by internationally traveling standards...about $500/ticket is not bad!

We thought well let's go to Ireland and let's do it over St. Patrick's Day...that would be really awesome.  So. We did.  For 5 days and 4 nights.

I love to travel...I love to see the way other people live, love to eat their food learn new traditions and much to my mom's dismay, I'm not a history buff but I love to learn about the story of things.  Ireland has so much culture and history which made it amazing.  It's SO OLD....first christian churches with monks, castles that date back to the 1400s...really old and really cool.

off to Ireland!

Passport stamped in Ireland!

We started off in Dublin...great city.  Since we live in a city sometimes I feel like a city is a city is a city...but I still get a thrill by exploring a new one and trying it's restaurants and nightlife. Dublin is such a clean and beautiful city...with no high rises it actually reminded me of Washington DC.  We visited the famous park, St. Stephen's Green and it was sooo clean and gorgeous!  We then explored, got lunch at a traditional Irish pub, had our first Guinness pints of the trip, saw the famous Grafton St and headed to the Guinness Storehouse (brewery).

St. Stephen's Green

helloooo dublin!

loving the sunny scenery

irish themed flowerbed

Nick's first pint at Bruxelles Pub in Dublin

my first pint!

Grafton St....famous for all it's shopping!

first Irish lunch...Bruxelles Pub

St. Patrick's Cathedral

St. Patrick's Cathedral again...

St. James Gate - the Guinness Storehouse

The Guinness tour was very modern.  More of a museum or shrine to the brand than an actual brewery, in face you never see any brewing. They do explain the ingredients and brewing process, but have more focus on the brand, media and memorabilia.  The building is shaped like a pint glass and as you wind your way up each floor, you get closer and closer to the bar!  (the best part!) We stopped at the 6th floor bar for our first pint and then went up to the 7th and top floor to see the famous Gravity Bar.  It has the best views of Dublin since it's one of the tallest building in the city with floor to ceiling 360 degree windows. pretty sweet!

Free Pints with the brewery in the background

nice shot of the black stuff.

view of Dublin from the Gravity Bar

Gravity Bar

The rest our time in Dublin was spent celebrating St. Patrick's Day in the pubs and at the parade.  The holiday is definitely a big deal over there, but only in the past 10 years. We learned that a lot of Irish come to NYC for St. Pats...so I think the cities with the biggest celebrations are NY, Boston, Dublin, and Savannah.  Nick and I have done 3 out of the 4, we must love St. Patricks Day....makes me wonder if we just love to drink or might a drinking problem...haha. The city has a big parade and everyone has the day off so they are definitely out having some pints!  Couple things I learned about the Irish:  they are incredibly friendly, warm and open.  they have been drinking since childhood and are very good at it.  they spend a lot of time in the pub...seeing their neighbors, watching football or rugby, celebrating a holiday, birthday, or just being done with the work day...pubs are a way of life.  Every town has one...even towns in the countryside that only have houses, a church, and sheep...they will always also have a pub.  Nick and I commented many times on how US irish pubs do a very good job of being authentic.



Gogartys Pub, the most touristy bar in Dublin

the famous Temple Bar...the temple bar area is full of young people and tourists pub hopping

St. Patrick's Day eve.

waiting for the parade!

parade crowd.

one of the many parade floats....the parade had a children's storybook theme which Nick and I did not understand, but appreciated the amazing creativity and costumes.  those are REAL faces in the side of this one.

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my new irish friend!

our irish friends on st. pat's day!

After Dublin we rented a car and headed to the west coastline and the countryside...beautiful!  That will be my next blog, this week, promise!