I'm Nikki, a creative old soul who loves tea time, tip-toeing through gardens, mounds of books, swaying to records, watercolors, sunset walks with our three yorkies, and star-gazing with Paul. This blog carries snippets of my life with just us two (five with Rusty, Lucy, & Ethel) - I hope it brings you happiness as you snuggle in with something warm and delicious and begin reading. Enjoy, friends!

the blog!

If I had to choose:

Veteran’s Day in San Diego | 2015

Blogging two days in a row?! It’s almost unheard of here. ;)

Continuing with our lovely California trip, let’s take a peek at what Veteran’s Day is like in San Diego, shall we? :) As you already know, the first night we arrived Nana and Gramps took us out to Point Loma to see the monument of Cabrillo which ended with a gorgeous sunset on the ocean. (If you missed that post, feel free to go back to it here and then join me back here afterwards. :)) The next day we all woke up bright and early, ate a delicious breakfast made by Nana (her hashbrowns have been my favorite food for as long as I can remember – they’re a delicacy), and then headed out to the trolley station where we would start our journey to downtown San Diego for the beloved Veteran’s Day parade. My grandpa is a Korean War veteran and it was absolutely wonderful seeing so many people thanking him for his service all day. There were people thanking other veterans, shaking their hands, random people were passing out candy to veterans and their families along the parade, veterans saluted each other and the flag throughout the entire parade, Old Glory was everywhere you looked, the cheers were loud and proud for the WWII veterans and so many others that joined the parade. It was such a treat to see this type of patriotism – for some reason that sort of pride on Veterans Day doesn’t make it over here as much, or maybe I’m just not able to see it. Maybe there should be a huge parade here too. (I just looked up Veteran’s Day events in Minnesota and I didn’t see a parade for the Twin Cities – we should really have one here, don’t you think?)

After the Veteran’s Day parade, we journeyed to Little Italy (whoo hoo!!), had lunch (pizza & wine – how fitting :)), then took the trolley to Seaport Village. I loved Seaport Village when I visited them 10 years ago – it’s so cute, there’s so many shops, and it’s right on the water (watch out for their Ben & Jerry’s – that’ll clean your wallet out in no time! Ha!) We saw the famous V-J Day statue (so romantic :)), the memorial to Bob Hope and his endless support for our troops, and then finally made our way back to Old Town for a little last minute shopping and sight seeing. That night we said good-bye to Nana and Gramps (only temporary – we’d be having breakfast with them before our plane left a few days later) and drove up into Anaheim to be close to DISNEYLAND!!! :) So friends, enjoy our lovely Veteran’s Day in San Diego!! Disney is next!! :) xoxoxo

Outside their cute little home. :) Funny story: while trying to find their trailer in an enormous sea of identical trailers, Gramps told me to just look for the new American flag – unfortunately for us, every single trailer had an American flag either in their yard or hanging off their house. It clearly didn’t help us in finding them and it took us nearly 10 minutes of driving around in circles to finally find little Nana waving her hands in the air in the middle of the road. :) 

This is how they always walk. :)

I still haven’t seen this movie!! Cannot wait!

Those glasses look awfully huge from the other side of the screen…

It gave me goosebumps as we all cheered on the ex-POWS. So thankful.

Love this!

Pretty Rosie!

These uniforms were just wonderful. :)

I took so many photos during the parade – it was hard to narrow them down. This is just a very tiny sliver of the sailors that were there.

:) 

Isn’t it precious?! Blue siding and white windows. Lovely.

So romantic. :)

Memorial to Bob Hope. This was so neat to see. :)

:)

Aren’t the shops pretty?

More shopping. :)

Love this – what a wonderful time we had with these two!! :)

  1. Nana says:

    We love it,reading your blog makes it come alive all over again..We are so happy that you got to see our beautiful parade.By the way watching the news that night we saw gramps on TV :-) Come back soon we have so much more we want to show you guys..Next time we will go to McDonalds for a ice cone and I’ll buy..Love you more

    • Nikki says:

      That’s right! Gramps was on the news!! What a fun day. :) Haha okay – McDonald’s instead of Ben & Jerry’s next time. ;) Love you more.

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