a fun day out

Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica

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When your daily life revolves around everything being within a 5 to 10 mile radius, venturing to anything outside this circle seems far. It really isn't. It can just feel far and, more often than not, any place north of Camp Pendleton (i.e. Orange County, LA, etc.) also has the traffic factor, making "not really that far" feel even further. Needless to say, we generally spend our time in Carlsbad or head south. But today a college friend was celebrating her son's 1st birthday so we decided to head north to join in the festivities and make a full day of it by spending some time in Santa Monica, too. There, we walked the world-famous pier, strolled the fantastic Promenade shops and dined at California Pizza Kitchen before heading home. Only 110 miles separate the two, but Santa Monica and Carlsbad are a world apart. It was fun to be there again and also great fun to celebrate cute Xander's 1st birthday today!

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