Staycation 2012

Todd and I usually take a week of vacation each year, to some place like Hawaii. This year we didn’t schedule a vacation to Hawaii, so we decided to take Thanksgiving week off for a “staycation”. We did go to Phoenix to spend a couple of day s with family, but the rest of the time we did fun stuff in San Diego.

On Saturday night 11/17, we went to the Lyceum Theater downtown to see our friend Jane Lui in “John Doe The Musical”. 


The Lyceum Theater is at the Horton Plaza downtown, so we got to see the mall lit up for the holidays.


After the show, we waited for Jane to come out.


The show was a bit strange, but the performances and singing were good.



On Monday 11/19 we went out to Big Kitchen Cafe for breakfast. We had been there once before, but it was a long time ago. They have a wall full of photos of people and celebs who love the place.




They also have a drawing of celebrities who frequent Big Kitchen. If you could name them all correctly, you get to eat for free.


I had corned beef hash, homefried potatoes, and scrambled eggs. It was delicious.


Todd’s not a breakfast food kind of guy, so he had a sandwich.


After Big Kitchen, we went to the San Diego Zoo nearby. We have annual passes so it’s fun to just stop by the world famous zoo for a few hours. We saw many animals. Like this orangutan.


This gorilla thinks he’s a thinker!


If you ever wondered what gorilla feet look like, this is it.


These two river otters cracked us up.


Somehow the tigers were active during the day too.


We saw this meerkat, but he did not have a manor. Oh, this reminds me, one of the most unique experiences of our lives was getting to visit a meerkat sanctuary. 


After the zoo, it was time for an early dinner nearby. We hadn’t been to Mama’s Bakery in a LONG time, and it’s our favorite Lebanese food in San Diego.  I forgot to mention… the sky was SO blue that day. The weather was amazing. 




We shared a beef and chicken shwarma plate. Yum!


That night, Noodle cuddled up on Todd’s lap for a nap. He thought it was staycation time too!


On Friday night 11/23, Todd decided to make some chocolate candy buckeyes for our annual rivalry game against Michigan on Saturday. This is our biggest game of the year every year, but even more so this year because we can’t go to a bowl game, and we had been undefeated up until now.

Lots of mixing going on.


The candy center is a mix of peanut butter, butter, and powdered sugar.


Then rolled into balls.


Some Ghirardelli semisweet chocolate chips being melted.


The finished Buckeyes after being dipped in chocolate. No, we didn’t eat them all. We brought them to work on Monday morning!


And it was sort of a close game, but Ohio State won and is undefeated for the season!

Too bad they can’t go to the BCS National Championship game due to NCAA sanctions this year. :(

To celebrate the win, Todd and I went to Santouka ramen on Saturday for lunch.


On Sunday Todd set up my old PC upstairs in my craft studio, so I can use it with my Silhouette and cut stuff for crafting in the craft studio, instead of going back and forth downstairs to upstairs. (My main computer is in our office downstairs.) Noodle likes to hang out in the craft room too. He does “Projekt Catlife”. :p


Oh and I sewed up some holiday cards and made progress…


And I made t-shirts for our annual Elf Party.


More details to come on both of those.

So that was our staycation. I wish it lasted longer. I was sad on Sunday night that I had to go back to work on Monday!