The Fourth in San Diego

We began our coast-to-coast trip to visit the family last Thursday. It all began with 18 phone calls to US Airways to determine if we could even get here. (standby flights - AGAIN!) If you know me, you know we frequently fly standby...Neama's aunt works for the airline and gets discounted tickets. And it seems like every time we want to fly, tickets are ridonculously expensive - so we get another standby ticket. I say every time I won't do it again and every year, I somehow get roped into it again. This time, however, went relatively smoothly. We took a chance and went to the airport Thursday night (for a 9:30pm flight)...we figured we'd be coming back home in a couple of hours, so we drove ourselves. Turns out we made it on, so Kevin and Nicole had to make a trip to the airport to pick up our car (Thanks again, Nicole - I owe you!) We made it to San Diego at around midnight and we were exhausted (think about it...that was 2:00 am Texas Time!)

Neama's dad has a small - make that tiny - condo in downtown San Diego. It's VERY cool (THE perfect location for having fun in San Diego), but not a lot of space. Cameron and I share the queen-sized bed and Neama is on the couch, his dad's on the floor. We're right around the corner from all the cool restaurants and bars...and a short walk from the bay! The weather has been gorgeous (in the 60's) and we've done lots of walking. Pa-pa (as Cameron calls him) took us out to dinner for Neama's birthday. We had "su-chi" and Cameron LOVED it! That night, he also had fried calamari! This kid is adventurous...

I think Neama's favorite part of the trip this time has been driving his dad's car...he has an M5. It's NICE! Neama has always been in love with the BMW M-series...and getting to drive this car all over San Diego for a few days has been highly enjoyable for Mr. Leadfoot. I think he'll be bugging his dad for a while to give him this car! ;) Good luck...

We spent a lot of time at Neama's dad's restaurant...they were short-handed and he needed to help out. So, we always had good food! And it was so funny...you can tell Fred (Neama's dad) hasn't been around small kids in a while. Every time we ordered food for Cameron, Fred would bring out the biggest portion I've ever seen...

he loved seeing his grandson. They had a lot of fun together!

We watched the fireworks on the bay and had the best view...which had its downsides...too loud for the little man. He cried through the whole show...and then he was great when we were leaving and even pointed out the show from SeaWorld (which was a safe distance away). It was really great to see Neama's family in Cali, but when it was time to go, we had an entire day of traveling in front of us to make our cross-country journey.

To do our best to ensure making it to Pittsburgh and not getting trapped in Phoenix or some other connecting city, we left at the buttcrack of dawn - the flight took off at 6:15...ugh. It was a five hour flight from San Diego to Philly, and then another hour to Pittsburgh, but we made it no problem - there was even extra space so Cameron got his own seat on both legs...

The Pittsburgh portion of this trip will be in the next post (otherwise I'll never get this up!)