July on fly

July

O Canada!
Remember how Erica won the showcase showdown on The Price is Right? Well, how could you forget! One of the prizes was a trip to Ottawa Canada and she took me, how lucky am I !?!

In DC we went to the Eastern Market and ate some awesome Italian food at Acqua Al 2 which we learned is a restaurant in Florence and there is also one in San Diego. It was so hot and muggy that we decided some time indoors would be a nice relief, so we went and saw the movie Brave in 3D. We also wondered around the Mall where there was some kind of sustainable faire/event with colleges demonstrating different tools/techniques/lifestyles for sustainable living.

In Ottawa we had an awesome room overlooking the city. We spent most of our time walking around and touring local historic sites. We had two tours of Parliament, as well as the Peace Tower in the main block. We also went to The Currency Museum Bank of Canada, National Gallery of Canada, The Royal Canadian Mint, walked along the Rideau Canal, watched a few boats travel through the historic locks (portions of it since the whole trip is 2 hours through all 6 locks),  watched the Parliament light show Mosaika, did a double -decker bus tour, toured Rideau Hall where the Governor General resides and works, saw the changing of the guard, walked past the Prime Minister's estate peering in the fence line to catch a glimpse of anything, went to a Latin night club and danced, wandered the Byward Market many times buying fresh fruit and other wares, visited the Ornamental Gardens, got massages, and spent some time by the pool at our hotel. I'm sure we did other stuff that I'm forgetting, but that's a good enough list for now.

I pretty much travel for food. If I can go somewhere and try something totally unique or just an excellent variety or recipe I will. So it's no wonder that I have just as many pictures of food as I do of "sights". For me, food is the one sight I can't get enough of!

ESRI
I have the opportunity to go to a wonderful conference for a whole week in San Diego, not too shabby eh! It's pretty much the only training I get to go to so I take full advantage of the technical workshops and hands-on demos. Here are some pictures of the people I hung with and the random sights and food. My flight was at 6:00am out of Monterey, so I got to see the sun rise over a blanket of fog/clouds which was pretty awesome.

Flock of Seagulls
"And I ran, ran so far away, I just ran, I ran all night and day, I couldn't get away" from the plane fast enough to make the drive up to Santa Cruz for a free concert featuring Animotion and Flock of Seagulls! Animotion was the opening set, which was pretty entertaining. It was a good night!  You can see the horrible ugly gray clouds in the second picture, that's Monterey/Marina...big difference in weather from sunny Santa Cruz...so weird since we share the bay!

Dad's Birthday Weekend
We celebrated my Dad's birthday a few days early. We went to Boomers and mini golfed...at least until we were flooded out. We also rode the Karts around until the park closed. Lots of fun!

Almost all caught up!