Is red a color???

     Is red a color?  That would seem to be a silly question.....unless the Princess in involved!  but we'll get to that later on.  The Princess arrived safe and sound in San Diego after a grueling flight across the U.S.  Debbie was exhausted by the time she got here.  She'd been helping fly the plane all the way across.  She was pretty excited seeing MAE coming down the stairs toward baggage claim to say the least.  Ben and MAE greeted each other as normal siblings would who haven't seen each other in quite a while.

 "Hi dummy" "Hi Re Re".  You could just feel the love between them.  Actually I guess with today's multiple levels of communication, they really do stay in pretty close contact with each other.  Not like the old days where there was the Sunday afternoon phone call home because that's when the cheapest rates were.  And I think that was about a $/minute! Remember those days?   Probably not...but it seemed so.
     Joanne and Ben put together a wonderful dinner welcoming MAE to San Diego, and even Jamo seemed excited to have everyone together again.  He had a whole house full of people to pet him now!  As far as Debbie and Jamo were concerned, life couldn't get any better.  Princess spent the night at B&J's and they visited late into the night.  I think MAE said she was sound asleep at 9 PM.  I guess we can't blame her since it was 12 M her time.  We gave MAE 1 day to get acclimated to the time change, and then it was time to start the birthday celebration.  Papa was turning 60!
     But first, MAE needed to get started on her tanning.  Being a father with "Irish skin", I have come to know that tanning is not good for you.  Which is why I frequently use sunscreen with factor 55.  If I can go higher, I do, but 55 seems to work very good.  I can be out in the sun, and not burn up.  But MAE wouldn't listen and insisted on sitting in the sun without protection.  So we discussed how "tan" she wanted to get.  She decided she was looking for the "color" bronze.  Not white...but not real dark.  As Debbie and I sat underneath the awning of the camper enjoying the beautiful day, MAE sat out in the blazing sun, soaking up the rays.  Not very long mind you.  Maybe an hour or so.  Then we decided to shift over to the pool.  I applied my "factor 55" and headed over with them, again  finding shelter in the shade.  Pretty soon we started noticing a "glow" to MAE's arms and legs.  "Better get some sunscreen on" I said.  You can guess the answer I received.  Another hour passed and we headed back to the camper.  Soon MAE realized just how "tanned" she was.  Of course to me it looked a little more "red" than tan.  As the evening progressed, we were soon looking for some aloe vera juice to help with the "tan".  Being the strong supporter that I am, I couldn't resist the opportunity when it presented itself, to remind MAE that "red is a color too".  Now, 3 days later, she's starting to see the humor in that.  Must be, cause she's back over at the pool, working on that "tan".
      We spent my birthday doing the tourist thing in SD.

 We purchased our daily pass for the trolley and headed north to Old Town.  After wandering through some shops, we headed over for lunch at a great little Mexican restaurant, and enjoyed some cool margaritas with lunch.    We were soon serenaded with a Mariachi Band's version of Happy Birthday"!

It was really a great afternoon.  We moved over to Seaport Village, another tourist haunt, and worked our way through numerous shops.  Then we headed over to Shelter Island for dinner at the Bali Hai Restaurant.  What a spectacular view of San Diego harbor and downtown.  The Bali Hai is famous for it's Mai Tai's, so MAE and I ordered a round.  The restaurant keeps a running tab of the # of Mai Tai's served, and I think they are up over 2 million now.  You have to remember they've been serving them for about 50 years. We didn't realize at the time that it contained 3 different rums, and was quite a powerful drink.   It was a great evening, and we topped it off with a visit up toward Pt. Loma to show MAE the views of the Pacific ocean.

     On Saturday Ben and Joanne are taking us to a Padre baseball game at the new Petco Park.  We used to attend the games over a Jack Murphy Stadium near Mission Valley.  The new stadium is in downtown San Diego and looks like a very nice park.  Should be a great evening.

     I wonder what color MAE is over at the pool?