California Girls - The Beach Boys Kind, Not The Katy Perry Kind

Today, as we waited to exit the plane:

"I gotta get outta here, it smells like farts and ketchup." ~Samantha  (I have to say, she sorta nailed it.)

Passing a graffitied building in downtown San Diego:

"Hey, check it out!  It's a monkey with an umbrella and a beard."  ~Samantha

It's Fall Break around these parts, and when I say "these" parts I mean the parts I left behind this morning as we parked our car at the airport and boarded a flight to the place where I once developed a crush on a boy named Jeremy in 2nd grade, used to ride bikes across town with reckless abandon for coconut frozen yogurt, (back when we didn't have cell phones, and we never called when we got there, and never once thought about child molesters!), and where I was the teacher's pet in ceramics class.  I was wild back in those days.  I mean, seriously, I would go toilet papering on WEEKnights.

The point is, we're on vacation in my hometown.  I've been afraid to talk about it for fear I would jinx it, as the last time we attempted a trip to Disneyland I ended up on a gurney two weeks previous and had to send Cory to the happiest place on earth without me.  Not cool, dudes.  NOT COOL.  So I am here to redeem myself, and I'm counting on all the planets to align and support the process.  We start tomorrow, but in the meantime we have settled into the warm pacific air - I have already driven the kids past my elementary school, high school, and showed them where my best friends used to live.  Not to mention we picked pomegranates from my parents' tree which my mother used to whip up a little batch of dark chocolate pomegranate scones.  Pomegranates!  From a TREE!  And then, SCONES!  Too bad my mom isn't your mom too. 

Operation Redemption:  Off to a roaring start.