Our month of visitors started with Andy’s cousin Peter and his S/O Haley coming into Ramona from L.A.  We had a great time taking them around our small town and showing them a bit of our slower paced life.  It was great to see family and to show them what our town has to offer (not much, but it was fun)!

On Tuesday, our friend Anita flew in from Minnesota.  We’ve been acting as tour guides for  Southern California and have been exploring some fun areas.  It seems that our normally beautiful weather is being a bit fickle now that we have a visitor.  We took the opportunity to enjoy the beach before the rain came in (seems like the Minnesotans keep bringing in the bad weather).

We walked around the harbor and saw baby sea lions nursing.

We went down to the pier to watch the waves and surfers and have lunch at the end of the pier.

We saw dolphins at the end of the pier but I wasn’t fast enough to take a picture.  The wildlife and ocean life (and the ocean itself) are the main reasons why I find it fascinating here.  I love it!

Andy and Anita went to see a baseball game and watched the Padres lose fabulously.

Of course, we had to go to the zoo.  Andy and I now have annual passes so it’s a great place for us to take people when they come into town!

We caught a jaguar playing while we were there–pretty neat to see!

We also visited the Giant Pandas twice, once while they were sleeping and once while they were eating.

Nerd that I am, some of my favorite animals to watch at the zoo were the ducks wandering around.

I took Anita down to one of my favorite places: the Birch Aquarium.  We had a great time checking out the fish and seeing the ocean from a great viewpoint.  We also had lunch at my favorite fish taco place and took some back roads back to Ramona for a pretty drive home.

Today we went up to explore the town of Julian (adorable!) and had a fun time exploring all the little shops.  I scored a great deal on some amber earrings (I’m obsessed with amber jewelry).  We also took the dogs for a short hike at the grasslands.

We have a fun rest of the weekend planned so stay tuned for more!  California has so much to offer that it is hard to decide where to take people while they’re in town.  One thing we did decide to do was rent a car for her visit here.  The Jeep is terrible on gas and is uncomfortable to ride in for long distances.  With all of the stuff we had planned, it was a better option for us to rent a car for the week (plus it’s much easier for me to drive).  That’s just another interesting hurdle of living our lifestyle!