Rohan First Ocean & Good Deeds

Our weekend started early this week.  Since Mara finished up her Peds rotation and SHELF exam and I had a floating holiday to use before we took advantage and headed out of town on Friday.  We first had to say goodbye to most of our friends, who were going other places to spend their break and holiday with family.  We meet up with 15 of our friends at a great restaurant called Oregano's in Tempe.  We all had some good laughs and good drinks.  Our friend Jake even tried to put away a 4# calzone.  This thing was huge, and he only made it through 40% of it.  Rohan, as usual, made his rounds to everyone and cheesed & charmed until he finally crashed in Sasha's arms (she has that effect on people).
We headed home pretty early because we got up at 4:30am Friday and headed to San Diego.  We've been wanting to see the Pacific coast since we've been here, but just haven't found the time for a 6 hour road trip.  Mara found a super cheap hotel that accepts dogs.  It was pretty much on the off ramp for Interstate 8, and a little seedy, but we didn't hear much noise and in the end we were only there 8 hours total.  The trip to CA was much more moutainous than we thought.  There was very little flat desert, so we had plenty to look at.  We stopped in Yuma, AZ to get out and stretch.  Unfortunately Yuma sucks. The only parks we could find were an historic prison park, and what appeared to be a former landfill park.  Rohan had fun on the "rides" as you can see in the pics & video.
We ended up getting lunch to go from an AMAZING Italian Deli called Poma's Italian Deli.  If you are EVER in Ocean Beach, you need to go to this place.  It is the $h!t!  We headed to Mission Beach to enjoy the beautiful sunshine and Pacific Ocean.  We walked around and hit some shops and the boardwalk to step off some of the HUGE sub & salad we shared.  Mara took Rohan down to the water, and found out an interesting tid-bit about Rohan.  Turns out the kid had a ferocious appetite for sand.  She set him down to get a few pictures, and he just shoveled it in.  What a weirdo!
Since it was still before checkin, we decided to head to Mission Trails Regional Park (since Torrey Pines doesn't allow dogs).  We only went on a short hike since we didn't have any water along (although we had a stream if we were desperate).  We found a really nice place to relax, and did just that for about an hour.  Rohan explored and practiced walking, while Linus & Schroeder explored the new smells & sights.
We checking into our hotel and soon after headed back downtown to explore Little Italy.  We walked up and down India St. and finally found a nice place called the Spaghetteria.  The cool part is they had a live accordion player who was pretty good, even though he looked like a 70's porno extra.  Rohan got a kick out of him and we got video of him dancing and pointing at him, it was pretty funny.  We ended up searching for some good desserts and came across a place that had crème brûlée, fruit tart, and coffee gelato.  We walked for a while the rest of the night just to work off those desserts!  The dogs waited patiently in the car and enjoyed walking around the very dog friendly San Diego.
Rohan woke us up nice and early (around 5am).  We headed back downtown to grab some coffee (Starbucks of course) and wandered around San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter.  We also hit up Little Italy's Mercato.  The food was outstanding, but one Indian booth gave us an idea for lunch and we headed out to Miramar, CA to a restaurant called India Princess.  Before we left we took the dogs to Mission Beach Dog Beach.  It thouroughly wore out the dogs and Rohan got one more taste of the Ocean.  It was a nice cap to an awesome trip to San Diego.
On the way back we stopped outside Mohake, AZ.  There is little to no light pollution, and the stars were AMAZING.  We played around with our camera and got some good pics of the stars.  The Milky Way was really bright, but didn't show up on film very well.  It was well worth the stop.
Sunday we had a really rewarding experience with Heather & John.  First in the morning we caught up on our half marathon training and ran 11.5 miles.  We weren't sure how it would feel since we just spent 12 hours in a car and walked probably 15-20 miles around San Diego in the last 48 hours.  It ended up feeling great and we were really glad we got up to do it.  Afterward we headed over to Heather & John's where we helped them get ready for thier christmas toy drive.  They had collected toys all year, and John's Mom, Dorothy, crocheted stocking hats.  We drove around on the back of one of John's flatbed trucks and handed them out to kids in some nearby neighborhoods.  It was really great to see them light up, especially when they saw John dressed as Santa Clause.  One little girl flagged Mara down and told her the puppy she got was "exactly what she wanted".  It was a lot of fun.
Hope you enjoy all the pictures & videos.  There are a TON from this weekend.  Maybe this next week we'll get some of Rohan walking...:)


Rohan Rides The Worst Ride Ever!:


Rohan See The Ocean For The First Time:


Dad & Rohan Hanging Out In The Ocean:


Rohan Is Great At Sharing:


Rohan Jams To The Accordion:


Rohan's New Truck From The Schmit's: