Derek and his family just finished a 2 week visit to Ramona. It was poor timing on my part. The Company I work for (Slacker) was releasing a new product on the day that Derek and his family was leaving, which means that the 2 busiest weeks of the year happened to be the 2 weeks that they were out visiting. Oh well, I was able to take a few hours off here and there and I had a really good time.
While Derek was out here we took our oldest kids to the desert (Me, Sara, Owen, Derek, Ryan, Dylan) Moms and babies stayed home. When we got to the Borrego Desert we stopped by the Visitor Center to use the restroom and look at the displays there. Next we drove out to the palo verde wash and went to the pumpkin patch.
The Kids had a Great Time at the Pumpkin Patch. After Jumping around on the rocks, they all climbed a big sandy hill.
After playing at the pumpkin patch for a while, we took cut-across trail south and stopped at some small caves that we found. We all had a good time exploring the caves. We made a couple of other stops on our way back to the paved road. Then we drove home.
Derek and I also were able to go tour Petco Park. We toured an empty ballpark). The tour included some great info on the history of baseball in SD. We were able to sit in the padres bullpen in the same seats as Trevor Hoffman (and all the other relievers). We were also able to go into the Padres dugout and sit on the bench. Unfortunately we were not able to go into the padres club house. It was normally part of the tour, but it was reserved that day by John Moore. Instead, we were able to go in the visiting teams club house. It was a good tour. Definitely worth the $9 admission.
Derek always likes to eat in the Casa de Reyes in old town. So we ended up going there twice. We also spent an entire afternoon walking around downtown San Diego. We park in old town and take the trolley down town. We got off the trolley by the ballpark and walked all the way down to sea port village, and then down to the Star of India. We then went into downtown and visited the chamber building where my father worked when I was a very little kid. I think it was the 19th floor that he worked on. We also stopped by Horton Plaza before catching the trolley and heading back to old town. We probably walked over 10 miles that day.
Our kids really enjoyed playing with their cousins. They went to the park a few times, they played in our yard a few times, and of course there was the desert trip. We also enjoyed having Derek and Jodi over to play games. We played Apples to Apples and had a really good time (even if I never won).
Its always fun hanging out withe Derek and his family when they come visit. We had a great Time.
