Japanese Friendship Garden

Last week Chelsey and I visited the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park. It seemed appropriate. It was a nice day to walk around a garden. I had been hoping that there would be cherry blossoms in bloom at this time of year. The garden actually only had a few cherry trees, but there were some blooms. The garden itself is a lot smaller than I thought. It looks much bigger from the outside, but it turns out that most of the land is still under development. Still, the part that is finished is quite nice, including a traditional koi pond. The koi did not seem to be quite as fat as some of the ones in the moat of Himeji Castle, though.
-Jason

Phoenix parties

We had a quick trip to Phoenix two weeks ago. It was especially quick for me; we booked my ticket before my work schedule changed, so it turned out that I could have gone earlier. I actually went to the airport early to see if I could get on an earlier flight. Apparently U.S. Air would have let me standby and possibly go early for free IF the earlier flight had been sold out. However, since there were available seats, making it convenient for everyone, they wanted to charge me for changing. I said no thanks.
We had two events while we were in Phoenix. Saturday was our friend Nicole's wedding. She and her husband Brian picked an interesting spot for the ceremony: we stood in a cave on the side of Camelback Mountain. We followed it up with food, games and dancing in her family's backyard. Good times.
The next day was our niece's second birthday party. There were lots more backyard games and a fiesta/southwest theme. Chelsey made the cake in the shape of a saguaro cactus. Lily got her own little smash cake in the shape of a barrel cactus. Chelsey used raw sugar to make it look like sand surrounded the cactus. Lily took to that and mostly ate the frosting and the sugar, ignoring the cake part. The joy of birthdays.
-Jason

Easter

We went up to my sister's house for Easter dinner. It was a really nice day. It was sunny and warm, which was great for hanging out in Kim and Michal's new backyard. We played on the grass with Tessa, who loved it, and Bailey, who did not. Apparently grass is scary for this dog. Tessa especially loved it when Aunt Chelsey taught her the secret of the garden hose (water comes out!)
We had a delicious beef wellington for dinner, then a cake in the shape of an egg that Chelsey made for the occasion.
-Jason

Hope you're hungry

(Blogger has just implemented some update/redesign, and I am not impressed. It won't let me type up at the top and it is being very cranky about dealing with my pictures. I apologize for the strange formatting, and I hope that I can fix/figure out the new system soon.)



I got behind on my cakes, so here's the catch-up. Good thing Jason is back to eating sweets.

San Diego State water polo

I have found myself with some extra free time this month, so Chelsey and I decided to get out for a little outing and take in a San Diego State women's water polo match. I was excited, because I have been riding the trolley back and forth across San Diego, and every time I go through SDSU I think "there must be something interesting going on here that I could see if I got off." So this time we got off and went to see something interesting. We had fun, sitting on the pool deck and watching some good women's water polo. It was SDSU versus Cal Baptist from Riverside. Cal Baptist actually had an international roster, including two or three Canadians and a couple of Hungarians. The home team held on for the win, though, in what was their lowest-scoring game of the season: 4-2.
On our way to the match we saw a banner advertising that the NCAA championships are being held at San Diego State in May. We were excited about this tournament being in our figurative backyard. With no real professional women's water polo, this tournament is probably the third-best tournament in the world this year, after the Olympics and the World League. Our excitement was deflated when we got home and looked up the tickets: $25 a day or $65 for a three-day pass. This was a lot more than we were expecting for a nonrevenue sport, as the match we went to was free. So we'll see if we decide to spend the money to go. Most collegiate water polo is centered around California, so I imagine it will not be our last chance to go.
-Jason

Carlsbad 5000

A couple of weeks ago I ran in the Carlsbad 5000. This us probably the premiere 5km road race in the world; this year's winners will likely be making appearances at the Olympics, possibly on the medal podium. I had been looking forward to running this race since I got back last fall. Unfortunately, the leadup to the race did not go well for me. I got sick and missed some training; I also lost track of the mileage on my shoes. I ended up wearing them too long and my achilles got quite sore, to the point where it was tough to run. I got new shoes and they'll get better, but they weren't quite back to 100% by race time.
Even with those diminished expectations, I was disappointed in how the race turned out. The second mile was inexplicably slow. I did pick it up a little in the last mile, but it was a difficult situation, since my race was essentially over after two miles. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong; hopefully just a blip and the next race will be better. Another unfortunate part was that my race was early in the morning, and I had too much work to do to be able to wait around to watch the elite race.
-Jason

Birthday Fun

I celebrated my birthday with a couple of nice outings. Despite some un-San Diego-like weather, the family came down to meet us for brunch at Studio Diner, one of my favourite local restaurants. I got the crab cakes benedict, which were pretty good.
After that we went to the Air & Space Museum. It was the first time I'd been back there since my internship ended and it was still neat. By the time we finished the weather had cleared a little so we could take a walk down the Prado. It wasn't the warmest day for a stroll, but it's always interesting to walk through that part of the park.
Unfortunately Chelsey's birthday fell on a much busier day for us - we didn't see each other until almost 10 p.m. The next day we did have a little outing in La Jolla after my work. We had a picnic lunch overlooking the ocean. Then we walked down to the Children's Pool, where there were well over 100 seals on the beach because it is pup season. A little further, by the Cove, there were a bunch of sea lions hanging out on the rocks. It was a good outing but it came just as I was starting to get sick so I lacked a bit of energy. I spent most of the next two days on the couch so I could recover in time for my own birthday brunch.
-Jason