Another year, another gray hair

Sorry I've been slacking on this blog a bit, but we've had a lot going on.  We finally got Stephen moved out of his condo and settled (mostly) into mine, and in the course of having his condo on the market for just a couple weeks, we just closed escrow and made a nice chunk of change to save towards a new house. First thing's first though - yesterday I celebrated my 37th birthday :)



We started our day with a quick breakfast at Sunny Side Kitchen, this great little ma & pa shop in Escondido that has a simple breakfast & lunch menu of various paninis.  Their works breakfast panini (half sandwich with side of fruit) includes egg, cheese, bacon & avocado on seasoned sourdough bread (or you can ask for gluten free bread) for only $5, and they always have fresh cold brew coffee and house made lemonade, along with an assortment of mini muffins and cookies.  They usually have a daily soup and a quiche as well, and a few salads to go along with the full size lunch paninis. The family that runs the place are just the nicest people - when the owner heard it was my birthday she even gave me a box of her home made mini cookies to take for the road.

Sunny Side Kitchen

155 S Orange St
Escondido, CA 92025

b/t Valley Pky & 2nd Ave 
Escondido

Chicken Pozole - healthy, hearty soup option from onsite Cafe Sole

Ahi Tuna Salad from Cafe Sole

After breakfast, we headed up north to Glen Ivy Hot Springs, in Corona/Riverside area.  Since it was my birthday, I got free entrance to the spa for booking a 50 minute pedicure service (normally entrance on a weekday is $46, so basically it was like I got a pedicure for only $4 more.) I have been going to Glen Ivy for probably over 10 years now, and it seems the prices just keep going up.  But they have upgraded their grounds quite a bit and added more services, so I think if you plan your day right you can really get your money's worth.  They have various mineral water springs & saline/salt water pools, a heated lap pool, cold & hot plunges, a lounge/float pool, red clay mud bath, dry saunas, awesome men & women's locker rooms that have roman baths and steam rooms, along with showers & lounges with all spa quality shampoos & products for guest use.  During the day they have various activities, including yoga, water aerobics, painting, and more.  

Red clay mud bath leaves your skin glowing

Our newest addition to our family!

I gotta say, hot springs always do wonders for my achiness.  I felt great after a soak in the saline pools and my skin felt super silky.  After just a couple hours though, Stephen got the notice that our money came in from the condo sale so we headed out of there to go buy a car.  His truck was literally on its last leg and would overheat after going just a few miles, so we had mostly been using my car to get around.  Since my car is leased, I'm already over my annual mileage so we figured we should invest in a good car that will last a long time and accommodate our space requirements for all of Stephen's music gear and, oh, I dunno, if we should so happen to start a family in the near future the space would be nice for car seats and strollers and junk. So driving back through Riverside to San Diego I had an epiphany - many people I know had bought the cars up in Temecula since they typically have more inventory options than over crowded San Diego city area dealers.  Seeing a Mazda sign off the freeway, we took that as a hint and headed into John Hine Mazda of Temecula.   They made things pretty easy on us, and as luck would have it - they had a 2015 dealer model of the CX5 we had decided on with no previous owners and just around 9,000 miles on it (from mostly test drives.)  Best thing is we had thought we'd end up going with a base 2016 model, but this 2015 model is a fully loaded Grand Touring with all the extras for about the same price.  Stephen is especially excited about the option to shift gears on your own instead of only relying on automatic transmission.  

After a couple hours at the dealership, we ended our celebration with a nice dinner at Robataya Oton.  I used to go there sometimes with my coworkers, but hadn't been for over a year.  It is a little more pricey, but the quality of the food is just so good and it is super authentic; I always feel like I'm transported back to Japan.  We were lucky to have a couple of our good friends join us so we had a nice variety of food to share.  Funny thing is though - I had just one glass of yuzu (citron) wine and I was too buzzed to remember to take pictures most of the night!  A couple of these I swiped from yelp, and the ones I took might be a bit blurry. Yuzu wine is always worth it though; I got hooked on it when I went to a sake factory in Kyoto a couple of years ago, but you can't find it in many places.  Bottles I buy in Japan seldom make it home to San Diego because I end up devouring them while still in Japan with friends.

grilled chicken meatball skewers

grilled beef tongue - tastes like steak & delish!

grilled wild duck skewers

chawan mushi - steamed egg custard with mushrooms, chicken & shrimp

chanko nabe - type of hot pot sumo eat!

steam always makes it hard to get good pic, but has chicken meatballs, pork, tofu, various mushrooms, onions, bok choy, cabbage, & shirataki (yam) noodles in a miso broth.  Add ramen noodles at the end to soak up more of the brothy goodness!

green tea & mango cheesecakes - perfect for sharing

thanks so much my love for every smile you put on my face :)

All said and done - this was a great birthday and I'm super excited for the next year ahead of us!  Now if I can get over this fibromyalgia flare (how dare I skip taking a nap on my birthday apparently...) I can move ahead with planning our wedding, honeymoon, & quest for a bigger home!