Reception Place Booked!
Mood:  party time!
Topic: San Diego
We booked our wedding reception aboard the California Princess (operated by San Diego Harbor Excursions). I hope our guests do not mind being aboard a ship for a four-hour cruise around San Diego harbor!

Ray Returns Home
Mood:  blue
Topic: San Diego
Sad to say, I'm on my way. Won't be back (in San Diego) for many-a-day...until April 20, that is. I ended up sleeping most of the time...

Visiting old family friends
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: San Diego
Mar 5 Posting - Visiting old family friends Sean and Patty Pybus live on the Naval Air Station in Coronado, CA. Patty's and Ray's parents have known each other for more than 20 years. It was quite an enjoyable Sunday afternoon visit! I knew that Sean was in the Navy, but I did not know he was stationed at Coronado! Patty grew up in Bolivia, and met Sean while attending Oklahoma State. They married in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and have four lovely children.

Business before pleasure
This was going to be a busy weekend. There were several places we wanted to visit to host our wedding reception. We spent a lot of time in Del Mar, downtown San Diego, and Coronado. Tomorrow we have two more stops, and then we will decide. Once we send out our invitations, we will announce the places where we will host our wedding rehearsal dinner and the wedding reception.

Ray comes to Iowa (and a visit to Buca di Beppo)
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: San Diego
Ray's coming! Ray's coming to San Diego! So we celebrated by going to Buca di Beppo, an Italian restaurant right in the heart of the Gaslamp quarter in San Diego. The food was quite good, but we ordered too much pasta and chicken parmagiana! It was definitely a lot of fun to enjoy dining together.

The dreaded COMPs
Mood:  irritated
Poor Mercedes! She decided to go ahead and complete two questions for her comprehensive exams, and the poor woman was so sleep-deprived (a total of 5-6 hours over three days!) I wasn't sure if she had lost her sanity!

Celebrate our engagement
Mood:  celebratory
Ray's office celebrated our engagement at a restaurant called the River House. Wasn't that a nice cake they made for us?

A retreat
Topic: General
I spent this weekend working behind the scenes on a retreat sponsored by my parish. My role included setting up the chapel areas for each of the nine talks presented during the retreat.

Mercedes leaves for San Diego
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: US Midwest
All good things must come to an end, and Mercedes had to return to San Diego and continue her studies. She left just in time - within a couple of hours, a snowstorm came through the area!

Us at my birthday in Iowa
Topic: US Midwest
I hope you like the photo, but I think Merce was a bit mischievious, yes? By the way, she really enjoyed the flowers.