Wow – Mom and Dad came to visit me from St. Louis and we did SO MUCH that I have to break my blogging up into three parts! Plus, I’m staying home sick, so I have plenty of time to do so, but more about that later.

I picked up the folks on Saturday (March 15) and we had lunch at one of the best places to eat in Escondido, the French Bakery, downtown. It was tasty! After that, we went back to my apartment and just chatted for a while, which also included Teddy Bear barking his head off for about a half hour. They stayed at the Best Western, just down the road from where I live, and I was relieved to see that it was relatively nice (not charging by the hour was among my first criteria for selecting a hotel in the area, which ruled out a lot of places). Amazingly, we did not take any pictures this day!

Which brings me to day 2. Let the whirlwind begin…

We had plans to go to my cousin Beth’s (and her husband OB’s) house for lunch in Oceanside, so we decided to first drive out to Encinitas. We walked down to Swami’s beach memorial (just ask me about Finnish sisu), toured the Self Realization Fellowship’s Meditation Garden, and tried to find a flower shop that was open. During our ride over to Oceanside, my odometer passed the 150,000 mile mark! Woo hoo!!! Beth and OB served up some delicious fish tacos (a California favorite), and from there we went to Sea World. Mom and Dad got free tickets from a friend who works at Anheiser Busch, so that saved us a TON of money. We saw the Shamu show, checked out the bat rays, the penguin exhibit, and the Arctic Exploration exhibit, which is my favorite part of the park. Below are a few pictures, but click HERE to go to my picasa web album to see them all.