Day 1
Our flight was early. Lehi was able to sleep on the plane, I was not so lucky. But my doctor did get me some pregnancy approved motion sickness medicine! I think it worked because I didn't throw up, like I usually do when flying pregnant. So that was a win. |
| An eventful flight for me. He was so chatty. |
We landed in San Diego around 9:00 am, took an Uber to our hotel, was able to check in early (woot woot). Hotel Z was a spunky little place that we really enjoyed. They are known as "pineapple Z" and do not take the pineapple theme lightly.They even had pineapple cupcakes at 2:00 for you to snack on (although we only got them on one day, because they wen't quick AND we were too busy to hang our at a hotel!) The quirks & random pineapple objects were fun to find as we dropped off our luggage before hitting the town for the rest of the day.
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| Those are not two huge pillows, as I though when I jumped on them. They are two separate comforters so you don't have to share. |
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| Pineapple TP |
We headed off to Little Italy Farmer's Market. The walk was beautiful. The weather all weekend was a perfect mid 60s, slightly overcast. The streets were lined with these gorgeous trees full of purple blooms that smelled amazing!! The whole city actually smelled good---which is saying something!
We happened to walk through a huge crowd outside a pub, who were singing & celebrating Liverpool's recent soccer win.
Y'all. I love my farmer's markets and this one was the best I have even been do. So much food, fresh produce, live music, flowers, trinkets, bakeries, etc all with the ocean in view. And it went on for block after block after block. I was in heaven. Lehi was successful in snapping many flattering photos of me ;) I even found one of those big ol' beach hats that I really liked, but decided not to pursue a purchase, dispute Lehi telling me to do so (he liked the hat, too).
We ended up sampling lots of delicious food, bought a couple of pastries, some dry rub, berries, oranges, and settled on a Korean Food truck for lunch. Trying our best to be adventurous, we said "yes" to the kimchi as a side. Worst decision ever. We both gagged trying it and guzzled water to get rid of the taste. But at least we can honest say we tried it and hate it!
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| To the right: Delicious Korean BBQ To the left: What people who want to be miserable eat |
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| I would always have fresh flowers if I lived here!! |
We decided to scooter back to the hotel to drop off our goods before our next activity. It was the first time I had been on one of the new & popular electric scooters. We learned the next day it was illegal to ride them on side walks....but we were sure able to haul when we did, accompanied by lots of dirty looks.
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| Scooter Duo |
Next up--a harbor cruise! I actually love that we did this on our first day, because it helped orient us with everything for the rest of the trip. The ship was huge, the weather was beautiful, and the captain was hilarious. Highly recommend this to anyone going to San Diego. It was a 2 hour cruise around the harbor, perfectly relaxing and oh so beautiful!
For dinner, we stopped at the Fish Market, a "must eat" place according to a lot of people I talked to who frequent San Diego. The menu changes daily, based on the catch of the day. We sat dock side with our table over the ocean. We dubbed this my (early) birthday dinner and splurged a little more than we usually would. We did calamari appetizer that was awesome. For an entree I went with salmon and Lehi with a tuna. He talked about how the monk fish sounded good, but then did a quick google search and said "I'm not eating something that looks like Satan's guppy." In 100% honesty, neither of us we super impressed with our main dishes, but were still happy we tried it! Next time, we think we will go a less expensive route, like their fish tacos, that sounded amazing.
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| He was telling a story. So happy I captured this moment. |
We wrapped up day 1 with wondering around the Marina, a big shopping part of town.It has a lot of little shops that were fun to walk around in. I decided that I wanted a big beach hat for our adventures the next day, but nothing lived up to the one at the farmer's market. After store after store (packed with hats) Lehi and I were not sure if the farmer's market hat was as amazing as it seemed in our mind, or if we had just talked it up so much that nothing would ever compare.
Our last shop at the Marina was Frost Me Cakes--a winner of cupcake wars. First off, their shop was adorable. Second, their cupcakes were bomb. We actually didn't eat them until we were back at the hotel, however. I had set them on the bed for a second and then Lehi knocked one of the boxes off onto the floor. Naturally, it my cupcake was the victim. I think he was secretly jealous of mine so he threw it on the floor. Despite its less than perfect look, it was delicious.
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| Marina Shopping Area |
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| Frost Me Cupcakes. Told ya it was cute! |
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| The non-dropped S'mores and my lovely double chocolate ganache disaster |
Day 2
We rented a car to do some of the things we wanted that were not in realistic walking distance. Somehow, everything was timed so perfectly. Things got busy as soon as we were leaving each area and had little to no one there when we arrived.We started with the Tidepools, by Cabrillo Memorial. It was a light, 2 mile hike with stunning views. It was one of those places that made you just feel small. It was quiet and peaceful while we were there, too. When we started back to the car, more and more people started hitting the trails. We were happy we got there as early as we did.
Close to the tide pools was Cabrillo Memorial and the Point Loma Light House.
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| Stairs in the light house |
Our next stop was Target for some snacks and so I could look for a beach hat (you are most likely sensing a trend here...don't worry, I found one! ;)We discovered you paid $0.10 for any plastic bags in the bagging area, so we opted to carry our finds. Among our snacks (aka junk food) were s'mores Oreos that Lehi wanted to try.
We knew we needed to eat some "real" food and decided when in CA, eat as the Californians do, and punched in In & Out in the GPS. We do have one in Texas, but I have to admit, this location was much better.
La Jolla Beach was our final (major) destination while we had the rental car. In contrast with the tide pools, there was a small segment of beach to explore (opposed to cliffs & hiking trails). We got our feet wet in the freezing water, looked for sea shells to bring home to the boys, and took in the views. Lehi decided to scooter back to get the car, since we had walked a ways from where we had parked, so I wandered around a bit waiting for him. I told him I would "head up that way" and he had a hard time finding me again (oops!) I was looking for the car, but spotted Lehi walking around looking for me. He admitted to being pretty worried, losing his prego wife (I didn't have my phone on me). It was just a little cute, despite his obvious annoyance.
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| Feat. My big beach hat |
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| about 18 weeks preggo, people. |
Hotel del Coronado was THE fanciest hotel west of the Mississippi in its prime. It was talked about on the Harbor Cruise and is open to the public. They have a shopping center on the lower levels of the hotel along with a picture perfect beach. The hotel itself is a huge tourist spot. It didn't disappoint. The small "island" it is on is one of the most expensive zip codes, next to Manhattan, with the average home going for 1.2 million. We drove around and were (not too surprised) when most of the homes were small, maybe 2-3 bedroom, "starter" type homes. We walked around the hotel, beach, and a few stores. The beach in front of the Hotel del Coronado was pristine--not a piece of seaweed or trash to be seen, but as you got further from the Hotel's property, the beach got kinda gross. It was crazy the contrast!
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| So...I can't find any of the pictures of the hotel that we took. Whoops! This is shamelessly a google image search pic. The hotel is HUGE. This is a very small part of the whole |
Dinner was Pappaleco, a tiny restaurant in Little Italy. When I was in San Diego for the ACSM conference almost 5 years back, we discovered this gem and I told Lehi all about it. As soon as we decided on San Diego for our trip, I had to look up the name of this place so we could go there to eat. It was every bit as amazing as I remember it.
Finally, we ended the day of exploring with Le Parfait de Paris, a super cute place to eat and get fancy little desserts/crepes. We went with the desserts since we had already eaten so much food. I went with the Parfait Signature and Lehi with a Ludis Macrron (which had lychee in it, a favorite fruit from Madagascar).
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| This was sooooo rich. A drink of water was needed between every bite! |
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| Lehi was pretty excited to find chunks of lychee in this masterpiece |
Day 3
Our breakfast started with about 20 pounds of sugar via the Donut Bar. Oh my goodness it was delicious. Neither of us finished our donuts, however. They were ginormous.
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| Strawberries & Cream, Maple Bacon, & Big Poppa Tart |
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| Lehi's Big Poppa Tart literally had a full pop-tart baked inside of it. |
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| Our duo scooter rides were always an adventure! My squat form was questionable, but Lehi had to be able to see! |
Most of our day was spent at the USS Memorial. Again, we seemed to time everything perfectly with going to the top deck when no-one was there, and leaving when everyone started to trickle in. They have these awesome audio boxes that you scan at the various areas so you can listen to information about certain places/areas of the ship/etc that are mobile so they move around with you. We really liked the audio tours of the planes they had on the upper deck because they had former pilots or navy servicemen sharing short stories. It was pretty humbling and really helped us appreciate those who serve and did serve on these ships. One thing that I really liked is 99% of the tour guides are former service men and women, so everything they are telling you, they experienced first hand. There is SO much to tour. In the belly of the ship was insane--the variety of rooms and the thought of being there for weeks at a time, without ever going outside was pretty mind blowing.
We got the boys model jets from the souvenir shop--on all of our stops/walks we were hunting for something for them, but were being pretty picky. We decided the jets were perfect. We took a million pictures, but here are some!
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| Some of the tourist were shameless posers. This couple had us cracking up. She was positioning his leg to perfectly mimic the display. |
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| This room was pretty cool because it was actual data (from years ago) where ships were. There was a huge coding system to know what kind of ship, friend or foe, etc. |
We had a little down time after the touring & before the baseball game we were going to, so we hit up Mariscos El Pulpo for lunch. Ironically, I had been here before, just couldn't remember the name! The fish tacos were awesome. Then we went to Theater Box to see Aladdin. It was all fancy inside and coupled with the Sugar Factory, basically self-serve candy/insane milkshakes/drinks that you could order while viewing the movie. We opted out of spending $20 on a soda packed with candy or a like-mannered milkshake. Honestly, we were getting sick of eating out after doing so constantly. Next time, we need to make sure our hotel room had a fridge.
The theater itself was fun to walk around in. Sugar Factory was started by Pit Bull and has a big celebrity following. So there were a lot of pictures/cement slabs with foot/hand prints throughout the main lobby.
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| With Robert Pattinson being the rumored new Batman, as soon as Lehi and I saw this, we looked at each other and said at the same time, "It's Batman!!" |
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| And the second floor had Lego batman, which we snapped a picture for, for Mav & Linc |
Our trip just happened to time perfectly to watch the Phillies playing the Padres. Despite being a Padre's home game, there were SO may Harper jerseys in that stadium. We got pretty rad seats. Weather was picture perfect. Dinner was overpriced stadium food, BUT it was really good stadium food. Lehi did his research and found Hodad's (a burger place) was supposed to be pretty awesome...and it was. We split the meal since we had lunch not too long ago, but knew we would need something to hold us over during the game. I also got cotton candy, because, I love cotton candy :) The Phillies did not have a great game, but you can't win them all!
They had one of those "follow the ball" games on the screen where the hats move around and one of them had the ball under it...after being shuffled, they asked which hat, which Lehi yelled out "7!!" I was rolling with laughter because there were only 3 hats, and the 7 was actually a 1.
Our hotel was only a few blocks from the stadium, which was rad with all the "end of the game" traffic. We were exhausted by the time we headed back and the thought of leaving tomorrow I think made us even more so.
Day 4
Our last day was a half day, so we weren't able to do too much. Each morning, we noticed a line outside of this one restaurant we passed, so we got up early (because no one likes lines) and tried out the Pancake House. Afterwards, we packed up our stuff, checked out of the hotel, and hopped on scooters to head to the airport. It was a fairly long trip for scooters, but we wanted to go along the harbor and do something other than sit in an Uber. Lehi was a trooper and put the suitcase on his. I snapped a picture because you could see his Pringle's can sticking out of his backpack and the whole image couldn't have screamed tourist any louder. It was a decent distance on scooters, but it was the perfect way to wrap up our adventure.
We loved our trip, but sure missed our boys, who we chatted with daily. Maverick told us, "This Tuesday, I just couldn't stop thinking about you. You and Dad." I mean, how could you not miss those faces? (Maverick got teary eyed a couple of time in our video chats; Linc was just excited and silly).
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| Until next time, San Diego! |
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