San Diego

The wedding down in San Diego was supposed to be with ten people coming from our family. Mom was going to rent a fifteen-passenger van to haul everyone down. After everything was said and done only Ethan and I went with Mom and Dad. We listened to the book “Hunt for Red October” on the way down and back.

Mom and I went to the San Diego Temple early Saturday morning after I nursed Ethan. It was incredible!!! I mean, I thought it was beautiful on the outside…but the inside is overwhelmingly gorgeous! The two spires on the Temple are filled with panes of lightly colored glass that fills the Temple with natural light.

Leading up to the endowment rooms is a soft white winding staircase with large solid wood banisters that hangs suspended between floors. From the staircase you can look right up into the first spire. The endowment rooms are relatively small compared to Oakland. It felt kind of like a large living room.

The Celestial room is under the second spire, which fills the room with light from all sides. What was unique about the San Diego Celestial room is that is has two stories. There is a staircase there that leads up to the fourth floor where there is a balcony that looks down into the main portion of the Celestial room. There are crystal chandlers that look like a great bouquet of a thousand tiny ice cycles. There is a door from the second story of the Celestial room that leads to the main part of the fourth floor where all the sealing rooms are.

Each sealing room has one wall made entirely of the Temple windows which fills each room with light. In the antechamber of the sealing rooms there is a garden. No kidding! A honest-to-goodness garden that sits in encased in glass that serves as a sort of skylight. Looking into the garden and up toward the Celestial room you can see the angel Moroni up close. It was absolutely amazing!

After the Temple all four of us went to the world famous San Diego Zoo. It is world famous because you can’t tell that you’re in a zoo. If you look out over the whole place, you’d think you were in the middle of the jungle. You don’t have to wear a hat or sunglasses because you’re in the shade from all the trees most of the time. We saw a momma hippo nursing her baby and a family of Gorillas. We saw young giraffes grooming one another. After a while Ethan screamed about being in the stroller because he couldn’t see everything. That and I think he was exhausted.

THEN we went to the wedding. It was in a huge Protestant church with stained glass windows and large window that revealed a grassy hill and an olive tree at the front of the church. I think that it was ironic that the church should have windows similar to those of the Temple. The Temple, however, was immensely more beautiful, full of light and especially full of love and peace.

The wedding was short and sweet. It was beautiful, for a civil marriage. The bride and groom were living together from what I gathered, but… whatever. My policy is, “Why have a big expensive wedding if you’ve already had the honeymoon?” Ethan screamed before it got started, so I went to the back of the church and stifled his screams so that the bride wouldn’t have a baby crying on her wedding video. He hadn’t had a nap all day and was just exhausted.

The reception was on the naval base, which had the most incredible view of the ocean. Daddy even pointed out that we could see Mexico. WOW! They had great food and fun music. I even danced with Ethan for a few songs. He was SO tired by the end of the night he fell asleep in a sitting position while mom was holding him and eating dinner. Ya, lets drag the baby around till he collapses from exhaustion.

Highlights from the reception? Well, the bride shoved cake in the groom’s face, the groom took the garter off with his teeth and the teenie-boppers that were the bride’s girl scout troop drilled me on why I was there when I went out to the lobby to nurse Ethan. I hated that age!

Overall San Diego was a BLAST! I'd love to live there on a permanent basis.

Tofu Lasanga

I went to the store a while back and stocked up on stuff for the next few dinners. I was looking to make more vegetable oriented dinners because Ethan had been constipated for the previous few days as a result of the more recent Weight Watchers version of meat loaf. Anyway, I brought home from the store broccoli, zucchini, eggplant and tofu (for the meatless option). Michael helped me unpack the groceries and his comment to all these foods was, “Are you mad at me?” “Yes, Michael. I am going to make the most disgusting thing you have ever tasted in your entire life. That’s always been my goal: gross, gross, gross!”

Protest as he may, I made eggplant parmesan for dinner. It was a baked version that turned out to be pretty low fat and VERY tasty. You wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference if I had made it with chicken. Michael even went back for seconds, despite all his grumbling.

The next night I made vegetable alfreido lasagna with tofu. It turned out fabulous! The only problem? I made enough to feed about fifteen extra people. Michael took it for lunch and we had it again for dinner and again for lunch. The third day Michael told me he opened his lunch and about threw up.

With the prospect of tofu lasagna AGAIN looming overhead, Michael stopped by KFC on the way home from work. I noticed the car in the driveway, but Michael wasn’t coming in. I went out to see what was going on and he was quickly disposing of the evidence. Ironically enough, I had made steak and potatoes, one of his favorites.

We had about two servings of the lasagna left that nobody could bring themselves to eat and so I put it down the garbage disposal which promptly backed up for the next two days and scoffed at the entire bottle of liquid draino we poured down it. Michael got so mad! He tore the sink apart piece by piece all the while muttering something about not even the sink wanting that awful stuff. We finally got it clear by turning on the water and garbage disposal and simultaneously plunging the other sink. All the pressure forced what I STILL maintain to be an orange peel free and the sink was clear.

I don’t know if you remember the dish we had at that Indian place, Bombay House. It was Lamb Marsala in coconut milk. I searched the internet looking for a recipe and I finally found one that isn’t as good, but it’s dang close. The recipe I found also gives the side dish called, Jeweled rice. Super Yummy! I started dinner at about two in the afternoon. Michael walked in the door at the usual time and said, “What stinks?”
My mom was right there when he said it. She had come down to borrow my glue gun when Michael walked in. I should have said, “Oh, that is a very tasty dish for my parents. So, mom, what time will you be bringing down our pizza?” She would have gone for it. She was just saying how good it smelled. I would have, too, except that I wanted to eat it.