Hey everybody! This has been quite a whirlwind week for us. Thanks to MEA break, and the desire to go on vacation, months ago we booked a trip to San Diego. The girls, Chris and G-ma left on Tuesday morning, and I had to wait to leave until Wednesday night because of my work schedule. It was a lovely time! Here are the pictures!
Once they got to San Diego, Chris dropped G-ma and the girls off for ice cream and the Navy boat tour.
They got to see all kinds of old jets and officers' rooms on the Navy ships!
And even got to go in a rescue helicopter!
Then I started getting sent beach pictures while I was at my desk doing conferences. It was a lot of fun. ;)
On Wednesday morning, they walked around near our condo and looked at all the awesome palm trees and seaside property.
Then they headed to the ZOO!!
They took the sky ride and the double decker bus at the zoo...and then had dinner and did more sightseeing back by the condo.
By 6:50pm I was finally on my way and landed in San Diego around 8:20pm. Hooray!
On Thursday morning the girls were up eating breakfast at 6am, so I went out to greet them and Maya and I snuggled a bit. One of her deep thoughts of the morning was "Why don't I have a long name like 'FERDINANDLE'?" Then we both just giggled.
Soon after that I went for a seaside run. It was beautiful! Our condo is in the bottom right picture.
After my run, the girls, G-ma, and I walked a bit down the beachfront to a cool pink and purple park. The girls would like you to know it was super wet. But we survived, just with a couple wet butts.
Then it was BEACH DAY! We drove about 30 minutes to the first beach (Silver Strand State Beach) and because we are from Minnesota, we were the only ones there in swimsuits in the water. IT. WAS. COLD. But that didn't stop us!
We brought boogie boards and enjoyed the ocean waves. Click here for some videos of Silver Strand State Beach!
The sand was muddy and wet at this beach, so Maya was able to build a bit of a fortress to try to keep the waves from getting her.
After beach #1 we found a local Mexcian restaurant for lunch. I wanted a margarita, and boy did I get one! It was all delicious. Maya was in taco heaven!
Then we went to beach #2- Mission Beach- which was by our condo. It was still cold, but we boogie boarded again anyway! Click here for some more boogie boarding fun.
Then we headed back to the condo to shower and get ready for a sunset WHALE WATCHING cruise!
One of my friends from work was also in San Diego and told me about it, so we were able to get tickets and hang out with her and her two girls on the boat. They had a blast hanging out together and watching for whales and dolphins. It took over an hour of rough riding out to the middle of the ocean, but eventually we saw a big humpback whale and a ton of dolphins. Click here for some videos!
It was just a beautiful evening!
And the sunset on the way back was stunning.
And the sunset on the way back was stunning.
I snapped a picture of the marina as we were leaving.
Yesterday morning we got up and headed to the SAFARI PARK! It is such an amazing attraction and was our favorite thing we did in San Diego when we were there a few years ago. We had so much fun bringing G-ma along with us this time!
After a morning of seeing all the animals and beautiful views, we at lunch in the Africa section and enjoyed more beautiful views.
After lunch we had tickets to a behind the scenes tour of the RHINOS (and we got to see a bunch of other animals on the way).
Our tour guide took us to the Rhino Rescue Center, which is not accessible to the public. It had a number of rhinos there, and we got to get pretty close to them, thankfully behind a big metal gate. They were so fun to watch!
She then took us out on a ride through the different African sections of the park to see more animals up closer than we could see when we overlooked it all at lunch.
We had a great day! Click here for some fun animal videos. Cal and I got matching hats on our way out.
When we got back, Cal was determined to go back to the beach and eek out every last minute of fun we could before having to head home the next morning. It was chillier than the previous day, but she did not care at all. She needed to boogie board and that is all that mattered!
Maya had fun too...and once again we were the only ones in swimsuits at the beach. Everyone else we saw walking were bundled up in hats, scarves and sweaters!
After ordering pizza for dinner, we walked down to the waterfront one last time to see it in the evening. The view did not disappoint.
This morning we packed all our stuff up early so we could head to the beach one final time. We read that the waves would be gigantic, and they definitely were! It was drizzly and cold, so no swim suits this time!
We had fun watching the waves and all the surfers out in the waves.
Then we headed to brunch before the airport. It was delicious!
Here are a few more random videos from our time in San Diego.
We had an easy flight home.
I'm so grateful for such a fun getaway! San Diego is definitely one of our most favorite spots to visit (now that we have been there twice) and I'm sure we will be back!
Now...back to reality!
