Fire!

Yesterday there was a fire on the mountain behind our house. The fire burned about 60 acres - no structures were damaged. This is a photo of one of the helicopters dropping water at the top of the hill.

August Theme Day - Breakfast

When you have 5 cats, this is a very common breakfast-time sight!

See what others have for breakfast!


Saint Paul (MN), USA - Bellefonte (PA), USA - Menton, France - Monte Carlo, Monaco - New York City (NY), USA - Tel Aviv, Israel - Hyde, UK - Port Angeles (WA), USA - Mainz, Germany - Stockholm, Sweden - Paderborn, Germany - Singapore, Singapore - Haninge, Sweden - Nottingham, UK - Ampang (Selangor), Malaysia - Manila, Philippines - Boston (MA), USA - Seoul, Korea - Singapore, Singapore - Joplin (MO), USA - Chandler (AZ), USA - Paris, France - Sequim (WA), USA - Greenville (SC), USA - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Boston (MA), USA - Chennai, India - Madison (WI), USA - Baton Rouge (LA), USA - Toulouse, France - Seattle (WA), USA - Mexico (DF), Mexico - La Antigua, Guatemala - Selma (AL), USA - Wassenaar (ZH), Netherlands - Albuquerque (NM), USA - Cleveland (OH), USA - San Diego (CA), USA - Lubbock (TX), USA - Jakarta, Indonesia - Sheki, Azerbaijan - Sydney, Australia - Mumbai, India - Seoul, South Korea - Cottage Grove (MN), USA - Cypress (TX), USA - Saarbrücken, Germany - Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina - New Orleans (LA), USA - Budapest, Hungary - Kyoto, Japan - Tokyo, Japan - Austin (TX), USA - Singapore, Singapore - Villigen, Switzerland - Montréal (QC), Canada - Stayton (OR), USA - Melbourne, Australia - Silver Spring (MD), USA - Moscow, Russia - Springfield (MO), USA - Inverness (IL), usa - Arlington (VA), USA - Cologne (NRW), Germany - Anderson (SC), USA - Oslo, Norway - Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation - Manila, Philippines - Kajang (Selangor), Malaysia - Maple Ridge (BC), Canada - Bandung (West Java), Indonesia - Stavanger, Norway - Bastia, France - Hong Kong, China - Wailea (HI), USA - St. Louis (MO), USA - Chicago (IL), USA - Rabaul, Papua New Guinea - Sydney, Australia - Bucaramanga (Santander), Colombia - Kansas City (MO), USA - Grenoble, France - Paris, France - Evry, France - Saigon, Vietnam - Prague, Czech Republic - Cape Town, South Africa - Brookville (OH), USA - Brussels, Belgium - San Diego (CA), USA - Wellington, New Zealand - Newcastle (NSW), Australia - Saint Louis (MO), USA - Sharon (CT), USA - Shanghai, China - Zurich, Switzerland - North Bay (ON), Canada - Lyon, France - Naples (FL), USA - Olympia (WA), USA

Birch Aquarium - Fish or Rock?

This little guy (about 2 inches long) really blends into his surroundings! He is part of an exhibit called "The Art of Deception" which tells about how different sea creatures hide themselves from predators.

Birch Aquarium - Kelp Beds

This is what one might see if one were to dive in San Diego. We have many kelp beds, popular for fish and for divers, just off the coast.

Birch Aquarium - Crab

The colors of this crab were really lovely.

Birch Aquarium - Sea Monster?

This eel is relaxing in a large kelp plant. He looks like he could be a sea monster, doesn't he?

Birch Aquarium ... or whale watching??

We visited the Birch Aquarium and took some pictures of some really interesting creatures. At the entrance is a fountain with three whales - this shot is the tail of one of them.

Mission San Diego de Alcala - Leaving the Sanctuary

This is my favorite of the Mission photo series. This view is looking in the opposite direction of yesterday's photo. I like the way the light hits the floor.

(Kate - I was thinking about you when taking these door pictures!)

Mission San Diego de Alcala - Sanctuary

This photo, looking along a row of pews, was taken in the sanctuary of the Mission.

San Diego de Alcala, the first of the great California Missions, marks the birthplace of Christianity in the far West. It is California's first church. This remarkable and significant historical shrine provides an understanding and appreciation of the beginning of Catholicism in this corner of the world, so remote from the Mother Country of Spain and yet so similar.

Mission San Diego de Alcala - Garden Bouganvilla

This lovely bouganvilla can be found in the meditation garden at the Mission.

Mission San Diego de Alcala - Another Window

I liked the color of this photo. The Mission has been used over the years for many purposes. After the United States acquired this area from Mexico, two companies of the artillery occupied the mission beginning in November, 1853. For the next several years, various companies of artillery and cavalry were at the mission until 1858 or early 1859. They made some repairs and added a second floor to the church. Subsequently, the mission was abandoned for several years.

Mission San Diego de Alcala - Window

One of the many windows at the Mission. When homes were being built in Old Town, it was common practice to take materials from the abandoned mission to be used in constructing the homes. It would be interesting to know if your home had pieces of the Mission in it, wouldn't it?

Mission San Diego de Alcala - View from the Gardens

This door leads out of the meditation garden at the Mission. Today the Mission, which was founded in 1769, serves as an active parish church and cultural center for people of all faiths who are welcome to visit and relive the grandeur and excitement of more than two centuries of California history and tradition.

Mission San Diego de Alcala - Fountain

This fountain is located in the courtyard and is not original to the mission but represents the site where an original cistern was located and possibly where water was directed from the Old Mission Dam.

Mission San Diego de Alcala

This is the entrance to the Mission San Diego de Alcala. This was the first mission of the California missions, and is the site of California's first church.

This photo was taken at the entrance to the mission.

Summertime means... hiking!

This is The Boy at the top of Cowles Mountain, the tallest peak in San Diego at 1591 feet. It is a great hike, with the reward of panoramic views at the top.

Summertime means... a plethora of wildlife!

Summertime means... a plethora of wildlife... although this summer it means to me, just missing the shot of the wildlife. Argh! Goodbye bunny!

Summertime means... gardening!

Lots of folks' favorite thing about summertime is gardening. Here in SoCal, we have the good fortune of year-round gardening for the most part, but I remember growing up in Minnesota where the sight of the seed catalogs in February were signs that summer may actually emerge from the depths of winter snows. And memories of time spent in the garden on warm summer afternoons can help get you through the short dark winter days.

Summertime means... swimming lessons

Our six year old likes swimming lessons best about summer. The guy in this picture, taken at Sea World, looks like he would be a good swim teacher!

Summertime means... Bare feet

When I asked our 9 year old what she liked best about summer she said "bare feet"!

Friday the 13th - Unlucky Sinkhole?!

Today is a break from the visions of summertime for a current event. We had a water main break nearby, causing a sinkhole! Here's a shot of the city beginning to fix it.

Summer Skies

Tonight we sat outside and looked at the stars. The brightest light above is Venus. Our summer nights have been mostly warm and calm - perfect for a little stargazing!

What do you like to do on warm summer nights?

Summertime means... Play!

Summer for my husband means more time for playing! He has a new remote control airplane that has been getting some air time.

What does summer mean to you?

Images of Summertime

I love summertime, and was thinking the other day about what it was about summer that is so nice. I started asking folks what they liked best about summer and am going to try to capture those ideas with my trusty XTi.

I really enjoy the flowers, leaves and green grass of summer. This is mainly a memory of summer for me as San Diego has perpetual greenery, but I do like the lushness that summer brings. What is your favorite thing about summer?

Another View from Point Loma

Another view from Point Loma. This is the air field at North Island Naval Air Station. In the background you can see the distinctive tower of the Hotel Del Coronado... and if it had been a much clearer day, the Coronado Bay Bridge would have been visible. Hopefully we will go back one day!

An Alternate View of the City

This evening we had the great fortune to have dinner with some folks who have this view out of their windows. They live in Point Loma and overlook the San Diego harbor. How lucky! The building in the center of the photo is the San Diego County Administration Building... and across the street from where I work.

Hyatt at Night

One of the best views of San Diego can be seen from the top of the Hyatt at the harbor. This San Diego landmark is a "must see" for your visit to America's Finest City. Top of the Hyatt sits on the 40th floor, high above San Diego Bay with panoramic views of the city, Coronado Island and beyond. This location offers a spectacular setting from the tallest waterfront hotel on the West Coast and offers a prime location to view our beautiful San Diego Sunsets. At the Top of the Hyatt, Cocktails are an art-form worth viewing.

Patriotic Tree?

This is a view of the "tree" of lights at Sea World, overlooking the San Diego harbor. What a view!

Seaside

We've had a strange stretch of summer weather lately. Though we were expecting record high temperatures, we had a fairly mild beginning of July. And this morning when I got to work, the San Diego harbor was fogged over and eerily quiet. All one could hear were the echoes of the the many seagulls overhead. The one above appears to be eyeing me!

Happy Birthday!

Happy 4th of July! We enjoyed a beautiful fireworks display from the deck of the aircraft carrier Midway. Great place to spend America's birthday!

Star Wars at Legoland

We took The Boy to Legoland this weekend where they were celebrating 30 years of Star Wars. He got to pose with a huge Chewbaca made out of Legos, and with many "live" characters who wandered the park. Below he is posing with Han Solo.

San Diego Summer Rainbow

We don't get much rain in the summer here... in fact, in the last year we have had only 3.85 inches of rain! Doesn't make for many rainbows, so we take what we can get. This little spot color in the sky is our summertime rainbow.

July 1 Theme Day: Red

Today's theme is "red" and this was the first photo I thought to use. In it is pictured a red Jeep on my house! :-) Actually, it is a travel bug for one of my other pastimes, geocaching. Geocaching is

"an entertaining adventure game for gps users. Participating in a cache hunt is
a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps
unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all
over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS
users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a
cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is
asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the
cache. "

It's a fun way to combine hiking and technology, and a great way to see different areas of your city. To learn more about geocaching or travel bugs, go to geocaching.com.





You can see "Red" in all of these other cities today:

Shanghai, China - Mumbai, India - New York City (NY), USA - Manila, Philippines - Albuquerque (NM), USA - Hamburg, Germany - Stayton (OR), USA - Los Angeles (CA), USA - Hyde, UK - Oslo, Norway - Brookville (OH), USA - Melbourne, Australia - Stavanger, Norway - Bellefonte (PA), USA - Bucaramanga (Santander), Colombia - Joplin (MO), USA - Singapore, Singapore - Selma (AL), USA - Cleveland (OH), USA - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Chandler (AZ), USA - Stockholm, Sweden - Seattle (WA), USA - Boston (MA), USA - Arradon, France - Evry, France - Baton Rouge (LA), USA - Maple Ridge (BC), Canada - Boston (MA), USA - Grenoble, France - Cottage Grove (MN), USA - Greenville (SC), USA - Hilo (HI), USA - Nelson, New Zealand - La Antigua, Guatemala - Brisbane (QLD), Australia - Singapore, Singapore - Tel Aviv, Israel - Hong Kong, China - Sequim (WA), USA - Paderborn, Germany - Saarbrücken, Germany - Rotterdam, Netherlands - Tenerife, Spain - Kyoto, Japan - Tokyo, Japan - Sydney, Australia - Naples (FL), USA - Cologne (NRW), Germany - Wassenaar (ZH), Netherlands - Saint Louis (MO), USA - Cypress (TX), USA - Ocean Township (NJ), USA - Mainz, Germany - Toruń, Poland - Menton, France - Monte Carlo, Monaco - Singapore, Singapore - North Bay (ON), Canada - Jakarta, Indonesia - Montréal (QC), Canada - Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina - Minneapolis (MN), USA - Baziège, France - San Diego (CA), USA - Prague, Czech Republic - Ampang (Selangor), Malaysia - New York (NY), USA - Kajang (Selangor), Malaysia - Sharon (CT), USA - Newcastle (NSW), Australia - Port Angeles (WA), USA - Nottingham, UK - Villigen, Switzerland - Chicago (IL), USA - Torquay, UK - Brussels, Belgium - San Diego (CA), USA - Mexico (DF), Mexico - Saint Paul (MN), USA - Cape Town, South Africa - Paris, France - Seoul, Korea - Manila, Philippines - Milano, Italy - Austin (TX), USA - Chennai, India - Madrid, Spain - Seoul, South Korea - Wailea (HI), USA - Toronto (ON), Canada - Ajaccio, France - Buenos Aires, Argentina - Silver Spring (MD), USA - Zurich, Switzerland - Sydney, Australia - Budapest, Hungary - Moscow, Russia - Auckland, New Zealand - Torino, Italy

Fight!

We saw a number of flamingo fights during our visit to Sea World. This is a few shots from one of the fights. I especially find the second picture, where the flamingo's head is upside down, very interesting.

Creature outside the door...

Yesterday morning we took the garbage to the curb, came back up the driveway and saw, where the garbage can had been sitting, a baby rattlesnake! I couldn't get the camera quickly enough (rats!) so I thought I would try to find him again this morning. No luck - all I saw was this little guy. He was enjoying the sun... and probably also the lack of rattlesnakes in the yard!

Mama Bird

The baby bird from yesterday's photo may grow up to look like this. Mama bird eyes us as we take the photo... she has baby's food in her mouth and is very interested in our departure. We stay just long enough to take this shot. Papa bird was behind us and escorted us to the parking lot, rather rudely actually. He dove at my husband and hit him just before we got to our car!

Baby Bird

We were at a restaurant for happy hour this evening. We sat outside and I kept hearing little chirps, and every so often a bird would fly into a nearby tree and the chirping would become frenzied. Finally I spotted a nest! This was the best shot we could get - the nest was a little too high and the mama and papa birds were VERY protective. We were about 5 feet away from the nest and they began to fly at us. You would think that they would be used to folks walking around as they built their nest next to the sidewalk entrance of a fairly busy restaurant....

Petco Park and UFOs??

So unfortunately this is not a vision of UFOs. This is Petco Park, where our Padres baseball team plays, the city of San Diego skyline on the right, and a couple of spotlights illuminating the night sky. You can also see the lights of a plane as it crosses our field of vision.

Balboa Park at Night #3

This view of downtown San Diego was taken from the Cabrillo Bridge, which we've seen in the last two photos. The lights below are cars on Highway 163.

Balboa Park at Night #2

This is the California Tower again, further down the bridge, and a bit later so that the light is changing.

Balboa Park at Night #1

We spent an evening in Balboa Park the other night, and had some fun with long exposures. This is the Cabrillo Bridge, with the California Tower in the background.

Fuzzy Friends at the Bay

This is the California Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus beechyi) found running around San Diego. This particular little guy lives at the shores of Mission Bay, watching the boats sail in and out of their marinas, fighting for dinner with the seagulls and keeping an eye on the stray cats. Busy life!

Yum

One man's pest is a lizard's lunch!

May Theme Day Wannabe

I think this looks like it should be in a different city... which was the theme for May's Theme Day. Actually, this is the location of the famous "Pea Soup Andersen's" well known for their split-pea soup.

I suppose I should say this was the location. Unfortunately, just as I was too late for May's Theme Day, we are all too late to enjoy a delicious bowl of soup here. This restaurant closed some years ago and is now a TGIFridays.

In case your appetite has been piqued, here's the recipe:

Andersen's Split Pea Soup

8 cups water
2 cups green split peas
1 Rib celery, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1/4 tsp thyme
Dash red pepper sauce
1 bay leaf
Salt
Pepper
Combine water, peas, celery, carrot, onion, thyme, red pepper, and bay leaf in large kettle. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Boil vigorously 20 minutes, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer until split peas are tender. Press soup through fine sieve and reheat just to boiling point.

Sea World Sight

We spent Sunday afternoon at Sea World. Every time I am there, I can't resist taking some pictures of the flamingos. They are so bright and colorful and so alien. This one seemed to be admiring his reflection as he groomed himself.

Handbells

My husband and I play in a handbell choir. Our annual concert is fast approaching and we had a four hour (ugh!) rehearsal this weekend and I brought my trusty camera. Here's a shot of one of the larger bells. If you look closely, you can see my reflection in it!

Christmas in June?

Actually it is just a poinsettia. We always deck the halls with lots of poinsettias (boughs of holly being hard to come by in these parts...). This one is left over from Christmas two years ago! Surprisingly we still have 5 plants left from that season. Must have been a hearty year!

June Theme Day: Out of My Bedroom Window

Outside my window I have a really lovely hummingbird feeder. I wanted to get a shot of the hummingbirds feeding for today's theme day picture; however, my hummingbirds seemed to be camera shy this evening. And lacking Abe Lincoln's patience, I started looking around. On the ground just outside I saw this eggshell piece resting on top of a leaf. Cool. I went outside to see if I could see a nest, but no luck.



You can see what is outside of 87 other Daily Photo Bloggers Bedrooms ...
Seattle (WA), USA - Manila, Philippines - Albuquerque (NM), USA - Singapore, Singapore - Toruń, Poland - Baton Rouge (LA), USA - Seoul, Korea - Saint Paul (MN), USA - Vantaa, Finland - Madison (WI), USA - Saarbrücken, Germany - Cleveland (OH), USA - Chicago (IL), USA - Cottage Grove (MN), USA - Omaha (NE), USA - Bellefonte (PA), USA - Melbourne, Australia - Stockholm, Sweden - Grenoble, France - Lubbock (TX), USA - Boston (MA), USA - Arradon, France - Hyde, UK - Joplin (MO), USA - Kyoto, Japan - Tokyo, Japan - Kansas City (MO), USA - Naples (FL), USA - Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina - Manila, Philippines - Sydney, Australia - Stavanger, Norway - Bucaramanga (Santander), Colombia - London, UK - Chandler (AZ), USA - Nelson, New Zealand - Singapore, Singapore - Hamburg, Germany - Sydney, Australia - Tenerife, Spain - Moscow, Russia - Lyon, France - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Villigen, Switzerland - Anderson (SC), USA - Oslo, Norway - Evry, France - Hayle, UK - Mumbai, India - Kitakami, Japan - Wassenaar (ZH), Netherlands - Menton, France - Monte Carlo, Monaco - Los Angeles (CA), USA - Cypress (TX), USA - La Antigua, Guatemala - Paderborn, Germany - San Diego (CA), USA - Ampang (Selangor), Malaysia - Madrid, Spain - Lyon, France - Selma (AL), USA - Shanghai, China - Baziège, France - Cologne (NRW), Germany - North Bay (ON), Canada - Rotterdam, Netherlands - Stayton (OR), USA - Sharon (CT), USA - Austin (TX), USA - Hong Kong, China - Trier, Germany - Joensuu, Finland - Paris, France - Greenville (SC), USA - Wailea (HI), USA - Budapest, Hungary - Cork, Ireland - Bastia, France - Vancouver, Canada - Brookville (OH), USA - Jakarta, Indonesia - Mainz, Germany - Minneapolis (MN), USA - Zurich, Switzerland - Torino, Italy - Montréal (QC), Canada