O.B. DAY

Today, I woke up and had nothing on the calendar. On a Saturday. That's a first in forever. I think we've been in little league baseball since the dawn of time. I wish I could say that I had no work to do, but this week was 2 papers for school, a bible study writing project, a science project with TJ, and youth group: so I pretty much was slammed all week with lots of late nights. When I got up today, I decided it was a good morning to do something with my family and remind them who I am, since I was a lousy dad and husband last week with all the other stuff I had to be. I decided we should go to OB.

(QUICK SUMMER BEACH FRONT LINGO CRASH COURSE FOR THE THOSE OF YOU OUTSIDE OF THE BIG SD. San Diego is SD. OB is short for Ocean Beach. Mission Beach is called Mission Beach and it is not MB. La Jolla Shores in La Jolla is also called La Jolla. Pacific Beach is PB. Go figure. Oh.... and for what it's worth, if you're headed to Northern California (were I spent the first 30+ years of life)... very few who live there call in Nor Cal and no one except tourists call San Francisco - "frisco"- it's either SF or The City.)

But anyway- we went to OB- which a lot like Santa Cruz or Berkeley. It has high hippy factor. Lots of little random shops with some great food. People sleeping on the streets. Even though it is right by the shore, some of it is closest waterfront properties are pretty run down. Nothing like the La Jolla or even the PB area. But I enjoy it a lot. It really feels different than anywhere else in SD. It's super laid back and has a small community feel. For the last 2 years I've been there for 4th of july to watch the fireworks. Tons of fun.

We went there for 2 reasons.

1. SHADES.
   Shannon and I went here for our anniversary dinner last year. But, while in Palm Springs recently I had a lovely pile of bread pudding. Linda said it was amazing at Shades. Way better than the pile I had on my plate and there it came with yogurt and fruit and granola. So I went to go check out breakfast. It was great. Linda was right. Except it should be called a "bread brick" cuz it sat like one in my gut all day. I didn't eat til dinner. The pictures look like we're not happy. But I think we're just focused on eating. Yum.. however the one draw back was the 4- twenty somethings who sat next to us having a conversation about their drunken sexual escapades and us trying to talk louder and often enough so that our kids would miss it. Welcome to OB.


2. DOG BEACH:
   The only beach you can take your dog to is here in OB. I've wanted to go for quite some time. I was glad I went. The kids had fun. There were tons of dogs there. So many that we decided that next time we need to put a flag on ours so we can sort him out. After a while, every black dog looks the same. I was a little leery, but it was surprising clean. It didn't smell weird. Not one dog fight. My kids played in the water and so did Zeus, our dog. Everyone had a great time. We said we'd do it again. Only one warning. Don't touch the sea weed piles. The dogs pee all over them.

here's the pics.