Malarie and Jacob make the long trek from Baltimore to spend some time with GML (Grandma Lorri) and GPJ (Grandpa Jack) in sunny San Diego!

Their non-stop from BWI arrived Monday evening and after a nice nutritious dinner at the McDonalds in the airport terminal we headed up to Encinitas to get ready for beachin' it on Tuesday.

Which, of course, is what we did a lot of. Here we are at the foot of the steps at "D" Street.

Cousins Ashley and Sara, Lorri's sister Lynn's kids joined us.

Wednesday

In the morning we drove down toward La Jolla Shores to the Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institute where I took these many excellent photos of fishies.

I had to turn off the flash and prop the camera up against the side of the tanks and then get the fish to stand (sit? float?) still so the photos wouldn't be blurry. Most of them were blurry. Those fish wouldn't listen to me.

The kids would so I took some photos of them too.

That peninsula in the background is La Jolla.

We had a whale of a good time at the Aquarium.

Next we went to the Glider port at Torrey Pines where we were lucky enough to see two or three para-gliders (or whatever you call it when a crazy person straps him- or herself to an overgrown Kite and jumps off a cliff)

It was colorful and also sort of exciting until you realized that these people were actually able to fly these things around without plopping directly into the ocean.

Later, back at the ranch, we got into some Wii Sports competitions.

Here is Jake showing his hula hooping technique.

Thursday, August 30, was a beach day. Ashley, Gregg, Sara and a few of their friends came over to "D" Street and staked out some prime territory near the lifeguard stand about a hundred yards away from Lorri & me. We had a bunch of good photos but somehow they disappeared from my camera before I could download them.

Friday we tried a different beach, South Ponto, which is a State Beach at the south end of Carlsbad just north of Leucadia.

Later we went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. They weren't at the beach they were in a movie. We stopped on the way home and picked up some carnitas from El Ranchito Market. Mmm mmm good.