Carey Family

Sue

San Diego Temple

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After a fun day at Sea World, we had a quiet, relaxing morning at the beautiful San Diego Temple.

It is peaceful and quiet-looking, but just behind the building here is the freeway.  As you come around a curve, the temple is RIGHT there on the freeway and it’s quite impressive.

The grounds were landscaped with tons of blooming geraniums and other tropical plants and it was quite lovely.

The two central towers are quite impressive, inside and out, and here’s a view up at Angel Moroni.

And the other spire, showing off the stained glass.

Mystery & Suspense Reading Challenge

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Read TWELVE (12) mystery & suspense novels in 2012

I had fun with this one because I had some mysteries on my shelves that I wanted to read this year.  Even though I’m done with the challenge, I want to keep reading the Navajo Mysteries and Charlotte & Thomas Pitt novels because they’re just so fun.  And I’m a series reader.  Can you tell?  So without further ado, here’s what I read for this challenge and links to my reviews can be found at Book Chick City’s challenge page.

A Red Herring Without Mustard (Flavia de Luce #3), by Alan Bradley
I Am Half Sick Of Shadows (Flavia de Luce #4), by Alan Bradley
The Fallen Man (Navajo Mysteries, #12), by Tony Hillerman
Listening Woman (Navajo Mysteries, #3), by Tony Hillerman
The Cater Street Hangman (Charlotte & Thomas Pitt, #1), by Anne Perry
Callander Square (Charlotte & Thomas Pitt, #2), by Anne Perry
People of Darkness (Navajo Mysteries, #4), by Tony Hillerman
The Dark Wind (Navajo Mysteries, #5), by Tony Hillerman
The Ghostway (Navajo Mysteries, #6), by Tony Hillerman
Paragon Walk (Charlotte & Thomas Pitt, #3), by Anne Perry
Skinwalkers (Navajo Mysteries, #7), by Tony Hillerman
A Thief of Time (Navajo Mysteries, #8), by Tony Hillerman

I am doing awesome with reading challenges this year.  I have completely finished three, done the first two levels of the Mount TBR challenge and am just planning to keep going until the end of year and see how high I climb, and I’m about halfway through the 50 States Challenge.  So far with that I’ve just been marking the states I’ve happened to read, but to finish it this year I’m going to have to do some more targeted reading.

San Diego Mormon Battalion Historic Site

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After getting completely soaked at the closing of Sea World, we headed over to the San Diego Mormon Battalion Historic Site.  We looked a little worse for the wear, but the sister missionary from Idaho Falls who gave us the tour was very understanding.  Scott and I had never been there and a couple of years ago when I was attending National PTA Convention in San Diego, a group of us went to Old Town San Diego for dinner and a tour.  To our disappointment, it was closed for remodeling and we could only see the outside.  Brian got to visit on the last day in his mission because the Carlsbad Mission has a tradition of taking missionaries there just before they go home.  He told us it was all high-tech and cool, so we were interested to see it.  It is very well-done and interesting and we even saw our neighbor, Marvin Payne, portraying one of the characters in a moving photo, Harry Potter-style.  During the presentation, one of the tour members is called up to get dressed in typical Mormon Battalion gear, so Brian volunteered.  Or maybe we volunteered him.  Anyway, here he is as a Mexican War-era soldier.

The story of the Mormon Battalion is quite interesting, and if you’d like to read more about one of the longest infantry marches in US military history, click here.

Sea World Adventure Park

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I grew up going to Sea World in San Diego and have always loved it.  When Scott and I moved to Florida in 1992, one of the first things we did was take a trip to Orlando to introduce the boys to Sea World.  We had annual passes several years that we lived there, we went there often, and Brian even got to be in the dolphin show one time.  The trainer was very impressed with how well he did all the things he was asked, not realizing that Brian had the show memorized and knew exactly what the audience kid was supposed to do.  So I requested a day at Sea World on this trip and we had a great time.  It was a nice day, not too cold and not too warm, not crowded and we got to do everything in the park.  We got there before the park opened and were able to go into the front section.  We went to the underwater viewing of Shamu and one of the orcas was feeling frisky so we got some awesome shots of him mugging for the camera.  Brian and I rode Journey to Atlantis twice and we all went on the Shipwreck River Rapids at the end of the day so that we got soaked at the end instead of the beginning of the day.  Unfortunately, it had turned cool by then and when we got off the ride, we were freezing.  We paid the $5 to cram into dryers they have beside the ride.  It got a little start on drying our clothes, but mostly it just warmed us up.  We saw the dolphin show, the sea lion and otter show, Shark Encounter, penguins, and lots of other fun stuff.  So many memories and so much fun!

(click on a photo to see them all in a gallery)

Oceanside Pier

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We arrived in Southern California after a long day’s drive from Utah and went to Oceanside for dinner and a walk along the pier.  It was so good to see the ocean again and smell the breezes!

Scott & Sue at the pier

Sue & Brian on the pier

 Sue at the end of the pier with Oceanside behind her