It's the McLay family vacation time again. Every year they get together for a week -- hanging out, cooking and eating, and some form of recreation, depending upon the location. They've been to Turks and Caicos, Majorca, the Outer Banks, and here. This year we are in San Diego, right in Mission Beach. It was a seething mass of humanity for the Fourth. I walked from the beach house to the bay and then to the Oceanside. Not a long walk, but informative. I took pictures. The beaches and parks look empty, but the reality was it felt incredibly crowded. Even though it was before 8 am, the parking lots were full of tents and screened rooms, beach chairs, and playpens.
Now it's Friday morning and we are thinking about our flight home tomorrow, about cleaning the beach house, doing laundry, and packing.
This year we had a special event -- Tom's oldest son, Robert, married Dina Testoni. His younger brother David married them. Did you know that in California any person can be the designated officiant? Robert and Dina exchanged their vows, and then David proclaimed, "By the authority vested in me by the state of California,I now ..." It was a very sweet service witnessed by all the family members who are here: Tom and I, Robert's sons Kian and Devon and Devon's girlfriend Jess, Tom's son Jodie, Jodie's daughter Haley and her friend Sharon, and Joe Henry, cousin of the McLay boys. Then we traipsed off to the beach to take pictures.
After the photo shoot, we walked back to the beach house for a feast. Jodie had prepared a shish kebab dinner: skewers full of shrimp, steak, vegetables; baked sweet and white potatoes. The whole meal was delectable. Last of all was the wedding cake which Jess and Devon and I had made. Carrot cake with pineapple and coconut in it,and buttercream frosting of ambrosial dimensions. We had made flowered decorations, too. I'll try to post a photo of the cake when I'm back at my regular computer.
