more from san diego

the whole reason we were in san diego was the ESRI map conference.  it is a yearly event that some 15,000 map nerds come to.  it is pretty amazing.  the company that puts on the conference is based here in redlands and a lot of the professors he works with work for them.   the conference center was across the street, it was h-u-g-e.  it is where luke spend a little- i mean, a lot of his time while we were there ;)

the hotel gave the girls cups that they could take to the restaurant and have filled for free.

 

needless to say, we had a lot of orange juice in the mornings. it was fun to go down the elevators with them in their jammies and bed head to get juice,

and watch them run with their full cups down the hall back to our room. 

only stopping to steal roses from people food trays. we kept them in our room for the week, they were beautiful. 

on the thursday evening of the conference they put on a huge, huge party.  it was mardi gras themed, and it was amazing.  these people go all out, all out.  there were street performers, at least 4 bands,  guys walking on stilts, tons of balloon animal maker guys, people reading palms, character drawers, face painters, carnival games, heaps and heaps of food and desserts, spray on tattoos, lots of random performers... and more and more.  and it was all free.  

this is what happens when you let random strangers take your picture... the whole point of the photo was that we were sitting under this huge mardi gras guy. but, he lost his head in our pic.

apparently, velzy looks needy. some girl gave her a balloon hat, because she was too tired to hold it- umm, it's air, it weighs nothing. and then this guy walked up to velzy and asked if she wanted his jester hat. he said had been looking for someone special to give it to and thought velzy was "the one" he should give it to. it was really sweet. luke looked good in it.

and then there was the free sugar.  yes please! velz made so many of these things and ivy hit em up pretty hard too!

i can't help but laugh looking at these pictures, how talented were the face painters? ha! those are stars on velzy's face, and the blue/black blob on ivy's arm is a dolphin!

we called it a night and walked back to the hotel along the marina, holding two sugar-high crash victims and made it to the pool deck just in time to see the fireworks. those map nerds sure know how to party!