Pesta-Palozza!

Wow, I've been so busy with Christmas stockings and packages for the troops with my "Aunt Nancy USA" project, and my SendOutCards home business, that I didn't get around to updating this blog when our tourist season ended!  ;)

Rick Brosch came by for a week --  but, as has happened a lot this year, he didn't get good weather.  :(  Still, we always have fun when he is here!

Over-lapping a bit, the Pestas started arriving:
Melissa and Dutch arrived on Friday (and stayed at Carolyn's)
Leslie flew in from Florida Saturday morning, Rick flew out mid-day, and Penny and Carl flew in Saturday night!  WHEW!

And again, in spite of the crummy, wet, weather, we had fun.  Even spent two days at Legoland and "Brick or Treat" there on Saturday night!

Watching the Michigan v Michigan State football game with Rick(s) in Pacific Beach

_______________________________________________________

More fun with visiting friends!

Ray and Sharon are friends from Michigan (Ford) who have retired in Las Vegas. After a summer of 110 degrees for months, they were looking forward to a few days in San Diego to cool down a bit.  We promised them cool ocean breezes.

Well, after the coolest summer in San Diego since 1933, we are having a heat wave this weekend!  It's in the 90's here in Vista, which is actually still pretty nice.  We hung out by the fire pit last night with glasses of wine and a full moon.  Awesome!

Today we did the Hwy 101 tour: Oceanside Pier (and yes, Ruby's for burgers), then the coast, through Carlsbad, Encinitas, Solana Beach, and down to Torry Pines Golf Course.  

Now for some football, cold beer, and just chillin' out.

_______________________________________________________

Alice in Wonderland!

Alice Simioni is here from Castelfranco Veneto, Italy! 

What a sweetie!  I'm having a blast showing her the best of San Diego, hitting all the parks (Zoo, Wild Animal Park, SeaWorld, and Disneyland!)  We're eating 'amburgers & fries, pancakes and French toast.  Watching "Gone With The Wind" and "Centennial". 
Rick is even allowing the Disney Channel while Alice and I sing songs together.

San Luis Rey Mission

Del Mar

California Simionis BBQ

Corn on the Cob American Style!






Our hot tub and pool






Wild Animal Park

We got together several different times with her Simioni relatives in Laguna Nigel.  It still amazes me that Castelfranco Simionis live that close to us.  I wrote down all the names Olga Simioni remembered, and we'll work on more later. What a fun family!

Alice tried to help Rick with his Italian lesson studies, but I don't think it helped!

And our "Princess" got her crown at Wonderland:

We met crazy Fausto too!  He came for our BBQ and also went with us up to Laguna Nigel for the day we had to return our Princess.

Alice: we are sorry you had to leave and look forward to your return to Wonderland!  <3




_______________________________________________________

Karpo Komes To Kalifornia

Alex Karpowitsch, Julian's long-time neighborhood and school buddy, came to San Diego for a few days this week.   He's on break from University of Michigan and flew into San Francisco to hang out with Julian.  They immediately drove to Lake Tahoe and went skiing.  The next day he flew down here.

I gave him SD101: Introduction to San Diego.  

• Lunch at "The Wave House", "Villa Simioni", Wild Animal Park, ostrich farm (ostrich jerky!), Carlsbad Village. Then,

• a full day tour of the San Diego coast line:  Oceanside Pier & harbor, down through Encinitas, Solana Beach, Del Mar.
• and then La Jolla where we stopped at the Torrey Pines Golf Course, the glide port, The Children's Beach (or Seal Beach), stopped for a quick snack (while an old woman backed into my car trying to get out of the parking lot for 10 minutes). 

• Finally, Ocean Beach & Pacific Beach, found a great sports bar before sending him back up to San Fran!
 

He had fun, and so did I!  I think he'll be back!  Hopefully with Julian, and Chelsea, and.....

He'll be checking out the night life in San Francisco tonight, and flying back to Michigan tomorrow.  whew.  He's young.  I'm old.  I'm tired just thinking about all that!

_________________________________________________

Lloyd & Sue visit "the villa"

....Coronado, Oceanside tour, Petco Park/Padres game, Torrey Pines hiking, lots of heat and pool time, Wild Animal Park, San Luis Rey Mission, ...
_______________________________________________________

Simioni meets Simionis! A Facebook "blind date"!

I'm too tired right now to put in all the details 'cause Cris made me go to FOUR bars in Carlsbad last night... but soon I'll post about Cris Simioni, who is from Brasil but living in New York City for a little bit, and how she flew here for the weekend to meet us after we became "Friends" on FACEBOOK in the group "Simionis of the World".

Today (Sunday) she flew to San Francisco and now she is with Julian for 24 hours to see THAT city before returning to New York City Monday afternoon!

I had so much fun hanging out with her........

It's true: I met Cris online through Facebook's "Simionis of the World" group! There are about 20 of us now in that group, and it's growing every day! Rick didn't think there were other Simionis! There's even another RICK SIMIONI in the group! He's from Canada as are many of the Simionis. Cris is from Brasil, another is from France, and now we are getting quite a few of the Simionis from Italy joining in. We all seem to originate from the same area near Venice!

We really enjoyed Cris flying in from New York City where she has been living for 6 months. I'm hoping to host some more of the Simionis from Italy this summer and then go visit them. (Next summer?)

Cris and I crammed in a lot of San Diego, Vista, Carlsbad, Escondido, and Oceanside in our day and a half...
Starting with lunch at the Hotel del Coronado, coffee in Little Italy, a bike taxi along the Embarcadero, a walk around Old Town, sunset on Solana Beach, and pizza in Vista on the first half day. Saturday we hit Wild Animal Park, then spent the evening eating and drinking around the Oceanside Harbor & Pier, followed by a bar tour of The Village of Carlsbad!

Sunday I drove her down the coast to the airport. Then she and Julian did the San Francisco mini-tour, including riding a bicycle-built-for-two across the Golden Gate Bridge. Monday she flew back to New York City!!! whew!

update February 14, 2009: there are 80 people on the Simioni Facebook group!
_______________________________________________________

Happy New Year 2009! Hello Chelsea!

Julian ended his cool 6-day cycling trip New Year's Eve, and his friend Chelsea flew in from Detroit. They spent the fun evening celebrating down in San Diego's "Gaslamp Quarter" -- an awesome "over 21" New Year's bar night for both of them!
Now they are both hanging out with us at our "Hotel California" (a/k/a "Villa di Siminoi"). We hosted a New Year's Day fest at our house and 4 of us went to the San Diego Auto Show today. It's no "Detroit International Auto Show" but it was nice enough as Julian is looking for his first new car. I wished I could have had a stun gun to poke him every time he looked at a foreign car! haha (The Pontiac Vibe came out #1 for the day.)

_______________________________________________________

Julian and Lyle Arrive!

After dodging snow and storms all week, Julian and Lyle arrived here safely!
They didn't get to do any site-seeing as the weather chased them every day -- including SNOW in Las Vegas!

Meanwhile, it's been cold (50 degrees) and very rainy here! We need that but, poor Lyle.....

Thursday -- The rain is gone, it's still a bit cool, but the sun is back. I took Lyle on a beach tour of Carlsbad and Oceanside! Here he is on the Pier before lunch at Ruby's:

Friday: The San Diego Zoo, Coronado (and the Hotel Del Coronado) a quick tour of downtown San Diego - Embarcadaro, Gaslamp Quarters, Little Italy, and then dinner in Old Town (Mexican food!)

San Diego Zoo:
We saw snakes being fed rats! ugh! (but cool!)
Zoo Giraffes

Hotel Del Coronado: Julian & NancyA lazy December Saturday in California -- 64 degrees and sunny:

Wild Animal Park:

Wild Animal Park Giraffes roaming around:

_______________________________________________________

Lime, or No Lime?

This morning the Evolas flew back to Michigan.
Rick and I are draggin' butt. Too many calories and not enough sleep!

We are tired and sore from laughing so much too! We all figured out that except for where to eat dinner each night (no bad choices were made all week!) our biggest decision each day was "lime, or no lime" in our Coronas out by the pool!

Dawn did have just a "few" urgent phone calls to deal with due the the nation's financial crisis this week, but at least some of the calls could be handled this way:

Rick really enjoyed having Julian around eat, drink, and smoke cigars with! Even Goldie got into it:

Here's a slideshow of all of our photos from their visit. Remember, just like individual photos posted on my Blog, you may "click" on the slideshow to see larger copies of the pictures.

UPDATE Saturday October 11, 2008: Dawn seems to have "survived Temecula"! As of this writing, no signs of Temeculitias have shown up!

_______________________________________________________

Dawn & Julian stay at Villa di Simioni and Dawn hits the Big 5-Oh!

I think our week looked something like this:

Carolyn took them to Old Towne for Mexican food, then Chin's Chinese the next night.

We went to Curbside Cafe for lunch, Chicken Picatta dinner here.

Bacon & Eggs cooked outside on the grill; Paninni's in LaJolla for lunch;

Picked up the Black Forest cake at the European Bakery in Point Loma and got a carry-out of

Volare's speghetti & meatballs. We followed that with Gelato in Little Italy.

We had Cessy's famous tacos Wednesday for Carolyn's birthday, then a great steak & shrimp dinner at Ronee's.

Thursday we barely came out of the pool, enjoying Coronas & lime, and cigars all day, after Evolas stuffed us with potato & egg pie (15 eggs!!!) for breakfast.
We also enjoyed fresh-squeezed OJ, from oranges we picked ourselves at a neighbors!
Later Carolyn joined us and we all continued our "Poor Man's Trip To Italy" and had pizza at Ciao's just down the street in Vista. We split a cannoli 5 ways!

Friday all 5 of us spent the day touring wineries in Temecula!
We visited five but only drank at 2. The boys spent a couple of hours at a fancy cigar bar in Old Temecula while Dawn, Carolyn, and I ate sushi the walked the little town for about a half hour. But oh that half hour! This is how we greeted the guys when we went back to pick them up:










They almost wouldn't come out! (Can you blame them?)

Still exhausted, Saturday was Fillaberto's tacos for lunch, then one more Italian feast: this time at Marco's around the corner. Friends of the Evolas, Dave and Nancy, came down from Torrance, California (LA) and we stuffed ourselves again! Even though we got free spumoni for Dawn's birthday, we went back and had ANOTHER chocolate cake!

HAPPY 50th BIRTHDAY DAWN!
It may take until you are 100 to burn off all the calories!

_______________________________________________________

Carolyn Turns 60?!?!?!

HAPPY 60th BIRTHDAY CAROLYN!!!

It was SO VERY HOT! 101 degrees in our backyard when we left to go to Carolyn's! After lunch at Cessy's Taco Shop, we took a drive over to the Oceanside Harbor and strolled awhile. It was in the high 80's even there! We were hot and sticky and in "dressy" clothes (meaning nice shorts and tops that were not t-shirts!)



We headed back Carlsbad where Ronee threw a great dinner party for 8. Carolyn's work friend Merceda came too, and we all enjoyed the Margaritas, Coors, steak and shrimp... Followed by the tasty Black Forest Cake and lots of presents!

Dawn turns 50 in a few days......

_______________________________________________________
1/8/09 I just took a MAC class and am learning to make little movies. Here's my 2nd attempt.

Enjoy this video!

Note:  I had to remove the video as it is too large and slowed down the blog.  If you would like to see it, just ask me.

-------------------------------

Evolas, Torrey Pines, Point Loma, Little Italy & TARANTULAS!!!

Oh My! What a day we had!!!

It was so much fun......... One and a half hours of hiking at Torrey Pines State Reserve:
the adventure to Point Loma for a chocolate cake to die for; a carry-out of spaghetti and meatballs from a hole-in-the wall joint, oh and one cannoli; gelato* and biscotti in Little Italy:
Coors at Ronee's; only to come home and find a giant tarantula on our driveway!!!

then drinking and hot-tubbing into the wee hours! (Ok, so it was only 9:30pm, but it FELT like 2am!)

And that is just the first day of our "poor man's trip to Italy" spent at the Villa di Simioni with the Evolas!!!

* Pappalecco - A Gelato Lounge report with pictures We'll be back here again! The gelato was good, but the owner: beautiful! Julian E. and Rick both fell in love! Pappalecco's website

- - - - - - - - - -

Wednesday morning: 82 degrees at 8:30 am on the way to the gym!
95 coming back at 10 am
101 at 11 am!!! YIKES!

_______________________________________________________

Annette and John are here!

Above: Surfing by the Oceanside Pier
Below: Dinner in Cardiff By The Sea at The Beach House Restaurant

Here's a run-down of our visit with Rick's sister Annette and her husband John!
Mostly they have been enjoying just hanging out by the pool in the sunshine! We had great weather and it was fun to relax and enjoy our own backyard! We went in the pool every day!

We did take a drive today to the Wine Country in Temecula. Annette, we went to Mount Palomar Winery where we had our yummy deli lunch, a stop to view the tasting room and gift shop at South Coast Winery Resort & Spa, then to the Wilson Creek Winery & Vineyards where we are members. Lastly we went around to Leonesse Cellars where the views are so awesome.

Their son Jeff drove here for the weekend. He insisted we head over to Cessey's for those tacos! No argument from Rick!

Saturday: We spent Saturday morning at the WaveCrest Woodie Fest in Encinitas at Moonlight Beach (see Jeff in picture). weblink: Woodies It was a beautiful blue-sky, California day! Surf guitar music (think "Wipeout") blasted near the souvenir booth selling t-shirts, posters, and even vintage surfboards. The Fest claims to be the world's largest gathering of wood bodied automobiles. They sure are beautiful!










On the way back we stopped a little while at Tamarack Surfing Beach, followed by a great burger, fries, and Coors, dinner at Mr. Peabody's in Carlsbad. (Jeff's other favorite place, although the service is getting worse all the time)





Sunday: Jeff had to leave after breakfast at Curbside Cafe. Kinda' sad. They didn't get much time together. Seems to be what us parents have to live with.

Later Sunday afternoon we enjoyed a BBQ here with Rick and Annette's cousin John and his wife Marie. John's Dad worked with Annette and Rick's in the tile business in Detroit for many years.

Monday: Torrey Pines State Reserve hike:
The jagged cliffs edging right up the othe ocean offers spectacular scenery. From there we then drove to the other end of the park and the famous Torrey Pines Golf Course (awesome). The US OPEN was here in June (Tiger and Rocco had that 19 hole play-off). Just a bit further south is the cliff where they parasail from. Rick and I had never been there so it was pretty cool for all of us to see!

We continued driving down the beautiful coastline into "downtown" La Jolla. We shared a viewing of the seals in La Jolla Cove. The best part of the day may have been our fantastic surfside dinner at "The Beach House" right on the water's edge! The food and the view was awesome!

Tuesday: Wild Animal Park! We drove out to Escondido and toured the park. Followed by just another boring afternoon by the pool here!

Wednesday: A little drive to the beach, and drive around Oceanside. We passed the "Top Gun" house (about to be torn down, partially incorporated into a new hotel somehow), the took a stroll down the Oceanside Pier. It's the longest wooden pier on the West Coast: 1,942 feet. We stuffed ourselves (again!) at Ruby's Diner on the end of the pier. Rick, John, and I, feasted on the Ruby burger, but Annette chose the special Kobe (massaged beef) sliders with carmelized onions and hasn't stopped talking or thinking about them! They DID look great, and I'll have to try them next time we go. Hey, I joined some Ruby's club, Jitterbug Club, or something like that for 55+ and now I'll get 20% off there! Too bad that doesn't apply to the calories too! see link Ruby's Diner

Thursday: We took a free Boat tour of San Diego Bay, which was pretty cool (especially the "free" part!) Before hand we took a brief look around Balboa Park and a couple of gardens. Above: Balboa Park

Then we went to the Gaslamp District and ate at Dick's Last Resort. While down the City of San Diego we had to go to dinner in Little Italy! (at Buon Appetite) (The Little Italy Festa is Oct 12th. I wish we had guests to go with!)

Dick's Last Resort

Friday: We just hung around "Villa di Simioni"

Saturday: Gilbergs flew home; Evolas arrived!

Twelve days went fast! There is so much more to show you! Come back soon!!!!

Here's a slideshow of all our photos:



_______________________________________________________