My Town Monday: La Jolla, CA (3 days late)

Oh my, my. What has happened to me? I've been sucked into the vortex of end-of-the-school-year activities and beginning-of-the-summer activities.

Ambitious Child #3 (15 year-old son) decided he'd like to get a Spanish high-school class under his belt this summer, no mean feat in the impoverished California public school system. After weeks of internet searches and phone calls, we finally found a course--at a posh private school! So, for 4 weeks, 6 hours a day, he's getting a little glimpse into another world.

Likewise, Child #4 (11 year-old daughter) and I have migrated along with him to swanky La Jolla. She's enrolled in various morning camps to allow her mother some writing time. So, I'll be posting to you from a variety of locations in La Jolla over the next while.

Check us out:

After dropping off Child #3, we head over to La Jolla Shores for breakfast on the beach. This is Child #3 and a good friend, munching it up before heading to a shark camp.


The surf is up! All those black dots are surfers. Very fun to watch. But not great for shark spotting as the great surfing waves means churned-up water with less-than-stellar visibility for enthusiastic snorkellers.

After dropping off the girls, I wander the streets of La Jolla, my laptop in tow, looking for an open library (once again, not easy in these times of budget cuts) or an interesting coffee shop.

And we'd like to recommend Pizza on Pearl for lunch where they serve all sorts of thin-crust-New-York pizza, by the slice or the pie.

It's never to late to check out My-Town-Monday posts! Please click here for links to what's going on in other corners of the world.

Hope you're enjoying your summer!

My Town Monday: Children's Pool/Seals' Beach, La Jolla, CA

We had a GORGEOUS weekend in San Diego. It was in the 70s at the beach, and there was a high surf advisory. This meant warm weather and spectactular waves. We headed to La Jolla.

This is a view from street level of the Children's Pool AKA Seals' Beach.


The walkway was closed due to high waves, some as high as nine feet.

Those lumps lying on the beach? Seals!

I did a post in 2008 about the seals on this beach and how the City of San Diego was planning to dredge the beach to get rid of the seals. Obviously this didn't happen. Today, there were a couple of groups with tables at the top of the stairs. One group wants the City to continue to allow humans and seals to co-exist on this beach. The other group wants the area to be seal only. I pretty much ignored them all. I was just out for the sun and a stroll, not to get embroiled in the ongoing brouhaha.


Here's a close-up of a harbor seal.


A seal frolics in the waves.


No trip to the beach is complete without some impromtu building. This is the work of Child #4. She also buried my feet.


And, of course, a stop at the ice cream truck was in order.

All these photos were taken with the brand new camera I got for Christmas, a Casio EX-FH20. It's quite complicated (for me) and has an amazing 20x optical zoom. Hence the close-up above of the seal. I wasn't actually within touching distance of him. :)

Happy Birthday to my little sister!

For links to more My Town Monday posts, please pop over to to the official My Town Monday blog.

My Town Monday: La Jolla, CA

It's been a long, long hot summer. By last Friday, my kids had been off for ONE HUNDRED NINE DAYS. That's A LOT of togetherness! And, while my children are decidedly adorable, a mother needs to know when to stamp her little flip-flopped foot and say, "Enough is enough."

So...I called four very good friends and arranged for an Evening of Escape to La Jolla, a super affluent, San Diego community. An Evening of Escape involves adult conversation, fancy food, umbrella drinks, a sea breeze, beautiful views and a stroll along boutique-lined streets. I wish you all could've joined us.










La Jolla is so affluent even the trash cans are pretty.



Here we are, posed in front of our new friend, the Half-Naked Mermaid Statue.


We chose a restaurant with an ocean view. To the right, we could see La Jolla Shores.


To the left, we could see La Jolla Cove.


At this particular restaurant, half-priced appetizers and happy-hour drinks were available on the patio, but were full price in the main restaurant. We, uh, chose a table on the patio.

BTW, this is not an unusual arrangement in La Jolla restaurants. So, if it's Happy Hour when you're picking a watering hole, keep in mind that prices can vary depending on where you sit.

Anyway, we ordered 9 of the 19 appetizers (that's 47.4% for you detail-oriented readers) on the Patio Menu, which turned out to be more than enough dinner for the six of us. My favorite was the Ahi Tuna Poke. I do have a love affair going with raw tuna. Second was the Slow Braised Short Ribs. Third was the Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail. Fourth was the Mongolian Beef Flat Bread.

Anyway, everyone had the opportunity to taste everything. A few prejudiced, I-like-my-food-cooked people skipped the Ahi Tuna Poke. All in all, we had a delish dinner and drinks for under $20 a person. In La Jolla.




Here's the shrimp cocktail. You can't tell from the picture, but the bowl of sauce is sitting on a lemon slice. Very cute presentation.

That, my dear bloggy friends, concludes this week's My Town Monday post. And now I am hungry.

For links to the other MTM participants, please head over to our My Town Monday blog which was set up by the lovely and talented Clair Dickson.

My Town Monday: Surf Diva Surf School

Surf Diva Surf School has been running surfing camps for women (12 years and older) out of La Jolla beach for over 10 years now.

It looks so fun!

There are all sorts of delightful options: 2-day weekend clinic (about $165/person), 5-day class surf clinic (about $391/person), week-long boarding school (about $1490/person). There are classes for every level of surfer. And, if San Diego isn't exotic enough for you, Surf Diva offers clinics in Costa Rica. There was so much clamouring that Surf Diva now offers clincs for boys and co-ed.

You may be wondering why I haven't done Surf Diva.

Can I swim? Yes.

Am I worried about wearing a swimsuit in public? No more than your average female. :)

Do I live too far from La Jolla? No. I'm about 18 miles from that particular beach.

Here's the deal, folks...My eyesight is SO bad that I can't even see my FEET clearly. Which means I can barely find the shore, never mind a surfboard that ditched me in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Although I just read on the Surf Diva website that you can wear swim goggles when surfing.

Hmmm.....I do have prescription swim goggles. I gather they're not overly fashionable; my children tell me I look like a human fly with them on. The upside, though, is that I can see my feet. And find my towel on the beach.

An aside: did you know that prescription swim goggles are relatively inexpensive? Mine were about $20. The trick is to buy goggles slightly weaker (like a 1/2 diopter weaker) than your glasses because of the magnifying property of water. If your right and left eyes have really different prescriptions, buy two pair of goggles and have the swim shop switch the lenses around (or you might even be able to do the switcheroo yourself).

Here's the link for the end of the Surf Diva Surf School.

Ack. I just noticed the time. It's late. And I have to get up very early to take my kids to swim practice.

Thanks Travis Erwin for organizing My Town Monday. He has a very fun post up on Travis ErwinCyd Charisse who comes from the same town as Travis. Also, Linda McLaughlin wrote an interesting post last week on the history of surfing.