Omni La Costa Resort

One of the things I love about Lily the best is her ability to meet friends in the craziest of places.  Our visit to the La Costa resort in Carlsbad proved pretty easy and effective for friend making with the eight pools and two water slides.  Her new friend is Isabella who is from Oregon and whom she enjoyed playing with on three different occasions during our visit.  Unfortunately I didn't want to get pictures of Isabella because I didn't have her parents approval, but I got some great pictures of Lily enjoying her pool time.  I can't complain about sitting in the sun myself.  What a treat.  And Chris was able to bring us snacks back from his conference here and there.  What a gig!

GIA (Gemological Institute of America)

I bet you are wandering what the heck the GIA (Gemological Institute of America) is?  Well I did as well, but since I have a budding gemologist on my hands (yes, Lily claims she wants to be a chef and a gemologist at the same time), I decided to figure out whether we could get a tour.  Well they have a small museum, but come to find out you have to have a reserved spot for a tour.  Full on call, get a background check, etc.  But heck, it was easy enough and Lily and I had a great tour.  This place has some serious security though.  I guess it is not only a formal institution/college, but is also where they do a significant amount of gem grading.  Yep, think loads and loads of diamonds.  Lily learned all about the certification and degrees she could get in the future. 

Southern California beaches

The shelling wasn't quite the same in S. CA as in Bonita, but we gave it a good try and even found a couple pieces of sea glass. 

Southern California here we come...

To start our time in S. California, we headed up to Hollywood for an adventure that Lily requested.  Our hotel in Hollywood was SOOOOO cool.  It was a new Kimpton with an awesome infinity pool overlooking the city.  It was also conveniently located to some great restaurants.  We were able to take the Hollywood tour while we were there, complete with a visit to Justin Bieber's house.  Hee.hee. 

We also went to the Griffin Observatory for the best views of the Hollywood sign and went to the Getty Villa in Santa Monica on the way out of town.  Unfortunately my pictures from this time period got erased.  Not sure how.  Technically challenge I suppose.  Even though there weren't pictures, please be assured we had a fantastic time. 

On Monday we headed to Carlsbad to check into our hotel, the Omni, which was a full on resort with 8 pools, 2 water slides, about 5 restaurants and a bunch of shopping options.  Not a bad way to spend another week.  Unfortunately the weather was out of the norm and we got some cold rain, but it did clear up later in the week to allow us to get a little pool time in. 

Lily and I made the best of our less than stellar weather days with a visit to La Jolla Kids Beach (sea lions come to have their little pups here).

Snow Days....

We came back from Florida for what was supposed to be 4 days of school before taking Lily out of school again for another week to go to California.  But we got snow that Thursday so school was cancelled for the next 4 days, meaning Lily only had to take 2 vacation days.  While the snow was fun, it made us a little nervous about whether we were going to make it to the airport to get to California, but luckily at the last minute the driving restrictions were eliminated and we headed out.

I must say, Lily really loves snow.  In fact, she is the biggest snow lover in the entire family.  Here she is enjoying one big snow drift in front of our house.

The Rest of Christmas Break

The day after Christmas we were joined in Bonita by our friends from Delaware who drove down for a getaway.  We had a great time with Andrea, Matt and Alex.  The kids got to go on the Everglades Airport tour again, we hit Lovers Key State Park for some kayaking and beach time, the Childrens Museum in Naples was a first time hit and we did a lot of walking to the beach and on the beach searching for shells.  Of course the pool time was fun too.

Lily dressed up in her day after Christmas purchases

Snow(sand)man at Lover's Key State Park

Alex and Lily for one of the few pictures I could get of them

Alex and Lily at the Childrens Museum

And of course shells, shells and lots of shells.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day we got up, unwrapped our presents and headed out to Marco Island for what turned out to be another amazing shelling day.  On Marco Island there is this fabulous beach called Tigertail where you have to wade out across a lagoon, or kayak across to get to the beautiful beach that has an amazing sand bar.  We got so many shells (including sand dollars) that we had to stop looking for shells because they were too heavy for us to carry.  We are starting to think that maybe Lily should start her own conch selling business.  She could make hundreds of dollars selling them for a buck a piece.  But the little rule follower informed us that she needs a license in order to sell anything.  Hilarious.  So I suppose we will have to save the sea shelling business for another time.

The weather on Christmas Day was hot.  Yes, HOT.  So hot that Lily started sitting under a towel so we knew it was time to call it a day.  And what a day it turned out to be.