Sunday, June 3, 2012

Sunny Dayz

When you live in San Diego, you pay a premium for living here.  Your mortgage is huge.  Gas is $4.59 per gallon.  But you deal with it, because on most days of the year, there’s blue skies, sunshine, temps in the 70’s, and the ocean is just a short drive away.

Sunday (5/27) was one of those days.  We made reservations for dinner at Pacifica Del Mar to celebrate Todd becoming Advanced Communicator Gold at Toastmaster International.  Oh, I didn’t talk about that yet?  Todd has been a part of Toastmasters since 2006.  He’s given over 50 speeches and he has many titles.  His last project that would earn him the coveted Advanced Communicator Gold title was that he needed to lead a seminar about mental flexibility (critical thinking).  So on Tuesday (5/22) after work, I drove over to Todd’s work and participated in his one-hour seminar, along with various coworkers and fellow Toastmasters. 

Todd was awesome.  We all learned a lot about mental flexibility and not jumping to conclusions, and thinking in different ways.
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So to celebrate Todd becoming Advanced Communicator Gold, we went to dinner at Pacifica Del Mar on Sunday 5/27. 
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The view from our table.
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We had to wear sunglasses during dinner because we were sitting on a patio and the sun was super-bright!
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Todd got a house salad but of course he forgot to tell them no cheese (he hates cheese) and had to pick them off.
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I had a beet salad.
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Todd had steak and garlic mash potatoes.
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I had Szechuan Fiery Shrimp with Pasta.
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It was delicious but I had to leave some pasta behind.  Sniff.

Pacifica Del Mar is located in a plaza with ocean view.  So pretty!
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After, we walked over to the beach.  It was nearing sunset and the lighting was glorious.  We brought our tripod for some photos with our big Canon, but also took photos with the little Canon and our phones. 
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Many selfies with the phone.  Loved the golden light on these and I can’t wait to scrap them! (Or, I did use a couple on my Sunny San Diego layout already, LOL.)
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This one was cool.  I set up the tripod with Todd on the rock, then we used the self-timer on the Canon T2i and got a few silhouette shots.
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Another tripod shot.
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The cutest thing about these photos?  That Todd set up the tripod shots and said, “we can get some good new photos for you to scrap”.  Yes, he did!

Couple more sunset photos.
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And a couple using Hipstamatic on my iPod.
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Glorious sunset at the beach.  Check.

4 comments:

  1. Congrats, Todd, on your Advanced Communicator Gold title.

    Your photos are gorgeous. You both are so lucky to live in San Diego. We have visited several times and just love being down there (live in Sacramento). Wish we lived close to the ocean and beach.

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  2. I've never had a desire to live in a warm climate, but I gotta say these pictures make it look pretty good!

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  3. Congratulations Todd on two fronts:
    1) gaining your Toastmaster Advanced Communicator Gold title
    2) taking some fabulous shots on the beach
    Christine, I love the "at arms length" shots of you two as well. I take these kind of photos with DH all the time. Some work, some don't but it's fun to try!

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  4. Congrats to todd!! Love all the pix from Pacifica :) I've had drinks there once but not food. Maybe when David gets here we'll go.

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