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My Big Fat Cuban Family

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We’re. On. Vacation.

August 19, 2013 By Marta Darby Leave a Comment

Every year we look forward to our week down in the beach town of Del Mar, California. It's about an hour south of where we live.

What a difference that hour south makes.

We've been coming here to this same beach house in Del Mar for the past 4 years and it always manages to feel both fresh and familiar. Unpacking and cooking is easy. I know my way around this kitchen just like I know my own.

Part of vacationing for me is attempting to un-plug from social media. This is HARD. (I said, attempting, okay? I know my limits.)  So, I do it in baby-steps. I start by limiting my reading-what-everyone-else-is-doing-right-this-minute on Facebook.

And I only post photos on Instagram. Also, because I work on Project Life all year, sharing on Instagram helps me remember and organize where we were and what we were up to on certain days, but that's not important right now.

Vacation. (On Instagram.)

The first thing we do when we get here is… drop everything. ("You can unpack later!") We head down to the beach immediately (It's exactly 238 steps from our front door) to get sand in our toes and feel the breeze in our hair.

Marta & eric

Some days we make a big, fat, bacon-and-eggs-with-all-the-trimmings breakfast. Other days, there's cereal-that-reminds-them-of-childhood and coffee. Either way, it's all good. We're on vacation.

Cafe la llave

Our first day here, the kids asked,  "Can we just order a pizza from the beach for lunch?"

Calling from the beach

Answer: "Of course. We're on vacation."

Del mar pizza

Eric unwinds best when he surfs, so the first thing he did was wax down his board. There's something to be said for a happy husband. He's obviously on vacation.

Eric surfing

We're usually here on the week that we celebrate our wedding anniversary and Lucy's birthday. Our tradition has been to go to Little Italy in San Diego to our favorite Italian restaurant called Filippi's Pizza Grotto.

Lucy was in LA for the summer, so we bumped our vacation to this week. But that's not stopping us from celebrating. It just means our celebration has been postponed.

Little italy

Little Italy is all kinds of charming. You have to wait in line inside the Italian market to get to the restaurant in the back.

Walking through market

Walking to filippis

Our theme for the dinner was "Red Food." (I cracked my self up right there. Can you tell I'm already relaxing?)

Italian food

Eric decided to surprise us and took us to the epic Mr. A's for dessert. It was a beautiful and clear night, with the lights of downtown San Diego just below us. Quite magical.

Mr A's

And that was just our first day.

Most days we sit around unwinding in our own distinct ways. We spend most of them on the beach for at least part of the day. We will have friends come down and visit sometime during the week. We play lots of games and take long walks on the beach. And we build sandcastles.

Also, we are definitely getting to the Del Mar Racetrack because that's one of the things on my Summer Manifesto. Of course.

The only rule is that there are no rules. This is our one week when we've given ourselves permission to do everything or nothing. This is our week to be very deliberate in re-charging, collectively and independently.

Eric

We're. On. Vacation.

I share my day-to-day vacation silliness on Instagram. If you're on there, you should follow me. I'm Smrtqbn.

I have to go now. The sun just broke through the clouds and my beach chair is calling…

You might also like:

I’m. On. Vacation. (via Instagram) Taking Time Off “If everybody had an ocean…” or How I spent my summer vacation. Default ThumbnailWorth a thousand words…

Filed Under: Lifestyle Tagged With: beach vacation, Del Mar, Del Mar Racetrack, Filippi's Pizza Grotto, italian food, Little Italy, red food, San Diego, travel, vacation

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I love all things Cuban. I love to share stories, my family, food & recipes. I'm Marta. 💋🎉 @martadarby
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Marta Verdes Darby is a Cuban-American food blogger in South Orange County.

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