Parm here to share the most amazing birthday I've had to date. My two best friends surprised me with a fun, creative and wonderful day. Enjoy!
I woke up the day before my birthday in the condo in Coronado to this note taped to the inside of my door:
I walked out to find Katie ready to go (whoa! I don't think she's ever been ready before me in our 4 years of knowing each other) with a huge smile on her face. I must have asked her and Emmie if this was for real about 10 times before they told me I was going to be pirate coded on my own surprise if I didn't get moving.
Clue #1 -
This clue led to the Stardust Donut shop in Imperial Beach just south of Coronado. Rules of the scavenger hunt (as stipulated by Emmie & Katie) stated that I was allowed to ask questions and also use my handy iPhone to decode the clues. I would've been lost on this one if we weren't still at David & Leslie's place and grilled Leslie for the deets. (That's details in our lingo)
It also turns out that Katie's grandma, Mimi, is quite the Stardust celebrity and the finicky owners have been known to work some magic in the name of Mimi.
Stardust Donuts has a slightly temperamental policy about their hours. To quote their sign, "Most days we open at 9, some days at 10, some days earlier. We often close around 3, but some days it's 2 or 12 or whenever. If we're not here, we're not here." Leslie and David refer to them as the "Donut Nazi" in reference to the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld. Katie employed the tactic of namedropping Mimi as she negotiated for him to open earlier and while the owner smiled at hearing this and wished her well, said he wasn't going to be open for another hour. Mimi, I'm taking you with me the next time I'm in Imperial Beach.
No worries though, there's an outstanding Mexican hole-in-the-wall restaurant next door and we got some great breakfast burritos to get moving on the day.
The crew on the rooftop bar of our hotel - from left: Parm, Megan, Liz, Eliza, Katie, Emmie
Birthday surprise from Nobu!
Clue #2
This led to the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, CA. I have a slight obsession with the Olympics (slight being a kind word), so Emmie & Katie knew this would be right up my alley. I may or may not have been jumping up and down like a 6 year old being told they were going to Disneyland as we pulled into the training center. Ok, I should be honest, I would still jump up and down like that today...
We were expecting to go on a self-guided tour per their website but lucked out at getting a guided tour from a volunteer and a golf cart. We shared the tour with three young boys and their dad. Don't you fret - we dominated all questions but still restrained ourselves with letting the munchkins answer a few. Still, gold star for us.
The training center is home to prospective Olympians and the Chula Vista location can hold around 150 at a time. There are two other training facilities across the country, in Lake Placid and Colorado Springs. Once an athlete is invited to train all expenses are covered by the US Olympic committee. Other teams and programs can rent out space if available to train as well. Currently, the New Zealand men's national rugby team and a few junior teams were on campus. Sadly, we didn't get to meet any rugby players. Not for a lack of hoping and squinting at their practice field though.
Clue #3
Being given Clue #3, it came with this sound track
The clue led to the Carousel at Balboa Park (hence the Rocky Balboa theme song). This took me a minute to get as I said we weren't anywhere near Philly and asked if we were going to an art museum ala Rocky's famous run.
The name of Balboa Park is a complete understatement as the park is massive and includes the Zoo, more than 12 museums, a Naval hospital and multiple gardens. The refurbished carousel from 1920 played the Star Wars theme 19 times as we rode around and around... We've decided San Diego has a thing for Star Wars as we heard it at multiple locations around the city including the 4th of July fireworks show. Go figure.
Jumping picture montage in Balboa Park - we really outdid ourselves here:
If you know Emmie, you can imagine that she completely ran into the fountain the minute we spotted it and was promptly soaked. Luckily it was a perfect 85 degree day and we all appreciated cooling down for a bit.
Katie with the San Diego Museum of Art metal doors that her great uncle Mac designed! (incorrectly identified as Marvin before...apparently that's me who has a great uncle Marvin)
Katie took about 1,908,663 pictures of the flowers in the park so Emmie and I sat down to let her do her thing. She then proceeded to take 144 pictures of us sitting on the bench. #newcameraobsession
Going slightly crazy of the flower pictures that Emmie and I decided to dance up on Katie's flower subjects
Clue #4 - bomb lunch at Pizzicata
Clue #5
This clue led to the Giant Dipper at Mission Beach, a historic wooden roller coaster. Emmie has a mad love of amusement parks and entertainment venues (remember the zoo?) so I wasn't too surprised when I figured this one out. What I was surprised about was the ridiculous amount of fun we had on the dipper. I expected it to be fun and awesome, but not THAT awesome - seriously, get yourself to Mission Beach and scream/laugh your way through the ride while praying the 100 year-old structure stands through your ride.
Clue #6
I did so well on the previous clues that I qualified for the Special Bonus Challenge (slash we had time)
This clue led to the Children's Pool in La Jolla (rough translation for 'the jewel'), a famous spot where seals gather to have their pups as it's a protected stretch of beach. This area is quite a controversial beach with animal activists desperately trying to remove people from the beach to protect the seals and beach activists stating that people aren't hurting the seals by being there. A great seawall surrounds the area and provides for some smashing waves.
In front of the seals and pups. Soundtrack to this photo was a woman with her bullhorn, "STEP AWAY FROM THE SEALS! You, in the black swim trunks (guy over Emmie's shoulder), you are really pathetic - get away from the seals!" Needless to say we have reenacted this statement at least 1,000 times since leaving the beach.
One of the hundreds of photos we took of the crashing waves. We may or may not have squealed with delight as we were soaked on the seawall.
Clue #7
La Jolla is known for their margaritas and tequila bars so I thought I'd walk to the nearest hotel and ask for a recommendation as most of the folks around the Children's Pool area seemed to be tourists. Well...I walked into a retirement home by mistake. Needless to say, the activities director had a seemingly ok recommendation and we continued onward.
Whoo hoo for tequila! Sorry it was crappy tequila by your standards, Dan and Lisa. Tequila snobs.
Clue #8 (bomb day so far, right?!!?)
Any clues what this led to? Being an Oklahoma girl familiar with Oil & Gas companies and a lover of Aladdin, the second part of "Gaslamp" came easy to me. However, I was stuck with the "home away from home" part. Somehow Subaru and Snoopy didn't fit together with Gaslamp, a hip area in San Diego, too well. After some help I realized we were going to the Marriott in Gaslamp for the night! I had been under the impression that we were heading up north to stay with Katie's aunt and uncle for the weekend so this was a total surprise to me.
View from our hotel room into the San Diego Padres stadium in downtown San Diego
As we got ready for a fun dinner and night out, we learned that our friend from Madison, the one and only Liz O'Donnell, was visiting San Diego that weekend. Liz is one of our most avid blog readers, a fellow Chi Omega and pretty legit. She may or may not have traveled to San Diego that weekend for the sole intention of making the blog, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and say it was a "coincidence". Hmm :)
Liz was vacationing with two fellow former Epic folks, Megan and Eliza. These three upped the ante of the night - more about that later...oh man.
The crew on the rooftop bar of our hotel - from left: Parm, Megan, Liz, Eliza, Katie, Emmie
Clue #7 (I got out of order somehow here, just roll with me)
I felt like I was back in fourth grade with a Goosebumps novel and chose the hip Japanese restaurant Nobu for dinner.
Dinner at Nobu
Birthday surprise from Nobu!
After our fabulous dinner, we took the town by storm. Seriously, we rocked it out. Highlights of the night with Katie, Emmie, Liz, Megan and Eliza included:
- Seeing old friends who've moved to San Diego and me continuing to be totally surprised when they walked in
- A few (cough) too many celebratory shots
- Russian dancing - Eliza, this was all you
- Swimming mermaids - the club had a large tank of water for two young women in mermaid costumes to swim around in...Emmie learned the one in purple was Arianna...
- Katie relaying that she met a "cute engineer and he was wearing a tie" - potential suitors take note, engineer + tie = way to Katie's heart. At Flux club in San Diego at least.
- Dancing our faces off with SNL style dance moves, breaking it down to "Busta what it is right now" (see San Diego I post) and getting picked up (literally) by strangers. Thankfully it wasn't Danimal so I was set gently back down on my feet.
- Navy Seals - Emmie and I were chatting with two large guys when the standard question of "so, what do you do?" came up. They looked shiftily at each other and said they were Navy Seals. We caught this sketch glance and said suuurrrree, prove it. One then whipped out his phone with what we decided were legit photos. The tables were then turned on us when asked to prove that we were former software project managers.
- Getting kicked out of the club - no comment.
Former colleague from Madison, Kris, with Katie and me
The lovely Liz O'Donnell and me - whoo for blogs, owls, witty facebook posts and prodding to get on with our posts
Emmie getting "night at the roxybury'd" by two randos. Seriously, what is it about guys and this move???
That's where the pictures ended - props to Emmie for knowing when to put the camera away. :)
A nice way to end the most outstanding and memorable birthday to date - I cannot describe how truly blessed I am to have these two in my life, thank you both!
And one last parting shot of Katie and me the morning after..."sorry team"
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