Mexico-Ensenada

After crossing the border, we headed straight to Ensenada.  It was getting late, by the time we crossed the border and there was some crazy fog, so it was getting darker than usual.  We didn't want to be on the road at night.  We're adventurous, but not dumb or reckless.  After we found our favorite hotel, El Rey Sol, we started our walk through the wharf.  Newel was in his happy place, walking through the streets of Mexico, drinking one of his favorite Mexican sodas and heading out to a taco stand for dinner.
We really like walking around.  We checked out our favorite stand for fish tacos by El Mercado Negro, but it was closed.  So we headed out to the other place that was recommended to us last year we were visiting.  The food was great. Next time we go to Ensenada, we'll have to have a comparison of both places and see who has the best fish tacos.

We also made a quick stop at the market and checked out all of the yummy fish. Too bad we can't bring that home with us to the States.

Then, we walked back to the hotel...but first we had to get some of the corn mix of butter, cheese, chili, and other good stuff, followed by some delicious churros.

We had a great night sleep and the following morning we headed to the restaurant that is owned by the hotel.  It was the best Mexican breakfast food I've ever had. It was so good.  After that meal...the other places we ate breakfast at were a complete disappointment. 

Arden at the Hotel

It was a beautiful day when we took off to San Felipe.   We were ready to continue our adventure.

Food Storage Month

So this month, our goal is to eat mainly food storage foods or what we have at home.  At the beginning of the month I didn't really stock up on food.  However, I went to the store and bought vegetable oil, in case we're in the mood for greasy foods this month.  We're only buying milk and eggs, and this past week I did submit a food order from Bountiful Baskets, so I could get our sandwich breads. I can't make good bread if my life depended on it. So far, we've spent $66.00...I forgot I also bought some candy for good behavior rewards and for Valentine's Day.
Here's our dinner menu so far:
Monday: Homemade tamales (had in the freezer) and white beans (From Food Storage)
Tuesday: Chicken curry with vegetables (from food storage) and white rice (needed to use FFS)
Wednesday: Rice and beans (FFS)
Thursday: Corn chowder with homemade cornbread(FFS)
Friday: Homemade whole wheat pepperoni pizza, frozen corn, and endemame (FFS)
Saturday: Spaghetti and pasta (all FFS)
Sunday: Roasted chicken, potatoes, and food storage veggie mix.

This upcoming week:
M: Cobb Salad
T: Chilli with corn bread...still working on finding a good recipe.
 W: loaded baked potatoes with chilli and salad.
R: Split Pea soup, homemade bread of some sort.
F: Mac n' cheese for the kids.  Newel and I have a dinner party to attend.
We're not starving and we're eating pretty balanced meals.  We still get in our veggies and fruits.
Our breakfasts and lunches are also pretty good.

Things I've noticed so far:
Since I'm also not shopping for anything else, clothes, toilet paper, etc.  I have more time to do other things I need to get done, ex: Indexing, blogging, working on Maya's baby book.
I've more conscientious about not wasting food.  I've never been a big waster, but I'm making sure we don't load up on cheese on our meals, since it has to last until the end of the month. I'm also trying to find multiple use for a meat, a veggie, etc.

Balboa Park

Balboa Park is just so awesome.  It makes it even greater when you have fabulous weather like we had. 
This was the Walters' final day in San Diego, but we still made the most of it.  After a hearty continental breakfast at our hotel. Did I mention how good the breakfast was at our hotel?  Well, it was way better than expected. It was yummy.

At the museum

Enjoying the greenery

Once we arrived to the park, it was hard to decide what to do.  So we walked around for a while and enjoyed the greenery.  We checked out some of the buildings, lost my children a couple of times.  Yeah, that was a bit of a scare for a paranoid mom like me.

A place Kristen was really liking was the Artisan's Corner...or something like that.  These are shops/galleries ran by the artists and you can see them working on their creations.  That was neat.  While, we were shopping, Newel took some of the kids to ride the mini train.

Then, we decided to check out a museum...or did we first go to the museum and then the Artist Corner.  I can't remember the order of things.  It's a good thing I'm writing this now, otherwise, I might not remember this at all next week.

I think it was the Natural History.  Anyways, it was pretty cool.  I specially liked the decomposing beetle infested gorilla skull.  No really, I thought it was interesting.

Later, the kids went on the historical Merry-go-round.  One of my most enjoyable moments was watching Arden trying to grab a ring from a stick end.  It's a game they have at the ride. If you grab a brass ring, then you got to ride again for free.  He was not able to grab one.  He missed it several times, by centimeters.  However, I really liked watching his drive. He was so close and he was such a good sport afterward.

Posing for the cameras

It was getting late, so we had to leave the Walters at the parking lot while they took the road back home and we headed into Mexico for the next part of our adventure.

San Diego Zoo

I can't believe we were at the zoo all day long.  The place was so huge.  I had forgotten how big it was.
Our adventure started at the petting zoo...then, we realized we could experience the same thing in Utah.  So we headed to other sections of the zoo.

Tab eaten by the lion

We looked at insects, birds, different types of animals from all parts of the world.

It was almost overwhelming. Where do we go?  Can we see it all?


One of the animals we mostly enjoyed was petting the giant ancient tortoises.  Can you believe one of them was born the year Abraham Lincoln became president?
 They were such nice and peaceful creatures.  Oh, the best part is, if  you have one, you don't have to feed for a year.  Yep, it can go that long without eating.  There was something so neat about these guys.


As the day went by, we started to get a bit tired and there was so much more to see. So we hopped on the guided tour bus and had a chance to see a lot of the other animals we wouldn't have been able to see by walking.  Also, we were able to recharge our batteries with snacks and rest.  With that little break, we were ready for the rest of our adventure.

Smile Polar Bear

I don't know if I've mentioned how Kristen brought a trunk load of snacks and meals.  It saved us a ton of money on overpriced food at the places we visited.  With the exception of one night, we ate snacks and meals she planned.  She did an amazing job. Between the snacks she brought and we brought, we were set...who needs overpriced potato chips?

Another animal that impressed me was the rhinoceros.  It is built to fight.  It's armor body is a definite warning statement: DON'T MESS WITH ME!


We all really liked looking at the pigmy hippopotamus family.  They were so cute, but I didn't include their photo.

Resting on Fake Santa

We also found the primates to be quite amusing.




This was the first time I had a chance to see the panda bears in action.  Last time I visited the park, they were just sleeping...this time, the group was active.

Pandas in action

We had such a fun trip.  At the end of our adventure, Paka got lost in the parking lot and Newel made a rap song on his I-Phone with his T-Pain app.  It was funny.

La Jolla

La Jolla is such a fun place.  Once we finally found a place to park, we got our food and had a picnic.  It was such a nice picnic.  We ate our goodies, while the kids played on the trees.

Maya and Tabitha were the biggest fans of these trees.  We had to convince them there were more things to see.

Peas in a Pod

On our way to see the sea lions or seals, we saw this neat squirrel.  It knew there was no danger so it hung out and posed for us.  It was so interesting to watch. Also, I was a little jealous he gets to live by this beautiful scenery.

So jealous he gets to live here.

I'm not a good photographer, by any means, but I thought his posing made it easy to take good photos of him.  I wonder if this squirrel knows how lucky it really is.





We couldn't get over how nice the day was.  We really enjoyed being outdoors.  Can you see how happy we are?


We finally arrived to see the sea lions or were they seals?  Anyways, La Jolla has them both.


After Arden arrived to the dock blocking thingie and he lost his shoe.  We quickly lowered him nearby the seals/sea lions, but he had to do it in a hurry.  I guess there's a group of seal/sea lions advocates who don't let you get near them and they yell at you.  So we had to hurry.

Arden rescuing his shoe

Then, we headed to play at the beach, while we waited for the tide to go down.

We were all in heaven. 





We played by the water...





We played in sand....




We got more than our toes wet....






Some played with kelp...




And of course the weather continued to be great!



Once the tide was low enough we headed to the tide pools and the 'cave.'  I will say though, these tide pools are not as good as the ones we used to go in Half Moon Bay. However, we still got a chance to experience looking at sea creatures and touching them.



Once the sun was about to set, we headed to an island and I can't remember the name.  We wanted to see the sunset, so we headed off to the beach at this island.   We had to limit the playing water time for the kids at this place since they were barely getting dry and we had not brought change of clothing.  They weren't too happy about this, but they lived.  They still got to make circles in the sand. 

Then, we walked to the Coronado Hotel and checked it out.  It was pretty fancy on the outside and on the inside. 

I thought it was kind of funny how they had an ice skating rink.  Of course we wanted nothing to do with ice and cold.

After the sunset, we headed back to downtown San Diego, by the docks and enjoyed some dinner at a restaurant.  After dinner, we headed back to our hotel for some more swimming time.

San Diego Aquarium

The following morning we headed to the aquarium.  We showed up bright and early in order to avoid the long lines and the large crowds.


One of the funny things we tried out was  doing a newscast.  Everyone had so much fun being part of the newscast and watching themselves afterward.  It was pretty funny.  We had to pull the kids away from that section in order to see the rest of the aquarium.

Another place we really enjoyed was being outdoors trying out all kind of hands-on activities.  One fun activity was exercising in order to make the water fountain work.  I need one of those for my kids at our house.

The fake shark was also a big hit.  At one point, Tabitha, was trying to rescue Newel from the shark by giving him the floating device.

Of course, another very popular item was the river thingie.  These kids loved creating routes and different currents for the water. I'd also like one of those in the kids bathtub.

A really big hit was watching the Kelp Tank. 

Everyone enjoyed this huge tank. 

I thought it was so neat.  It felt like being underwater, but without all of the scuba gear and the expenses. 

We could have stayed there the entire day, but we were getting hungry and there was the rest of the aquarium to see.

Tide pool sea life

We also enjoyed the tide pools they had at there.  It was just like the real ones at the beach.  This aquarium was pretty cool.

By the time we finished touring the aquarium, it was time for lunch.  So we got into our vehicles and drove to La Jolla for a picnic.

What I've been up to

This is an excerpt from an email I sent to my Tia Idalia: 
I've been working on a few small projects at home and time seems to fly by.  I'm the secretary for the Relief Society of our ward and that seems to keep me busy at times, with typing newsletters, sending weekly emails, among other responsibilities. 
I just recently started Indexing for the church online.  I'm working on the Masaya and Jinotepe, Nicaragua projects. I read through original documents that have been scanned from Nicaragua and I determine if it's a birth, death or marriage certificate and then I type in the information so people can find the information easier and they don't have to go all the way to Nicaragua and look through piles of documents.  The only problem is that most of the information I've been working on is handwritten and at times smudged so I have a really hard time deciphering the information. 
Another project we're taking on as a family this month is living off of our food storage and what we have at home.  I've only bought milk eggs, a large load of bread (since I have a hard time making good sandwich bread), 1 order of veggies and fruits from the Co-op (I had to make the veggie/fruit order to get the organic sliced breads), and a gallon of oil. I also bought some candy for Arden's classes. So far, we've only spent 65.00 this month.  Grant it, it's only February 2nd. But I think we have everything else we might need.  Last fall I made homemade peach jam and a lot of applesauce with no sugar added to any of these things. We also have a small freezer almost full of all kinds of foods.  I think we'll be alright. I'm excited about this experiment.  We're also not eating out, and only buying gas.  I think it'll be a good learning experience for us.
I'm also helping in Arden's Spanish class once a week.  I help the teacher with improving the students reading skills and comprehension in Spanish.  I really like doing that. 
I'm also taking piano lessons.
It's funny how life gets busy. I'm busy most of the day, yet at the end of the day, I feel like I haven't accomplished much when it's night time and children haven't bathe and the house is a bit messy.  Oh well.  It's life =)