San Diego

Nate had a work conference in San Diego last month

and we decided to make a mini vacation out of it! 

My mom was on fall break from teaching early morning seminary
so she flew out to spend the week with Mabel.
Our first big trip ALONE!
We were meeting up with Nate's business partner Aaron,
and his wife Andrea and they left their kids at home too.
PAR-TAY!!

First things first:
My vacation could not officially begin until
my toes touched the ocean water. :)

La Jolla Beach

(and I am ordering myself a pair of prescription sunglasses asap)

We rented cruisers and biked the 3 mile boardwalk

along Mission Beach. It was so much fun.

Perfect weather, crazy people watching, and

a bike bell. Loved this day.

We text messaged this picture to my mom to show Mabel

and she was pretty concerned. 

Aaron was the YELP master and we ate

at some great places. I ordered a salad at this little

Greek sandwich shop...my salad was not so little.

That night we went to check out historic Old Town.

It was full of cool old buildings that had been restored as 

much as possible to their original state.

This little general store was my favorite.

Andrea and I got some great shopping in while the guys

sat outside each store. 

For you black licorice lovers (Aaron, Nate, and my mom)

this general store had jars and jars of more 

varieties of black licorice than I ever knew existed.

We bought a beautiful carved gourd for 

my mom as a thank you gift...I should

have bought one for me too, they were so neat!

 Fresh tortillas made street side,

yum!

The next day we went to see 

Hotel Del Coronado - built in 1887!

It was gorgeous inside and the gardens

surrounding it looked like Hawaii.

We explored the tide pools behind the hotel:

Stopped in Little Italy for lunch and had 

the best Stromboli EVER.

A sailor's kiss when the end of 

WWII was announced.

The USS Midway was ginormous!

We drove past the San Diego temple on our way to Oceanside. 

(which was about an hour car ride because of traffic.)

We were going to Oceanside because I had read about these

gorgeous Sunset Cliffs and wanted to check them out.

Once we got to Oceanside and I pulled out my phone to get the exact

directions I realized the cliffs were NOT in Oceanside...they were

about 10 minutes from where were before we left!

So annoying.  Not sure where I got Oceanside from. Brain fart apparently. 

We couldn't make it back to the cliffs in time to see 

the sun set so we decided to make the best of Oceanside.

We went to the beach and rented a Surrey!

It was hilarious driving this thing around.

The next day the guys had to go to meetings all day so 

Andrea and I went thrift shopping.  We both love hunting for treasures.
It was a bust as far as finding much but we made

some great memories! 

That night we met up with Nate's NARPM group for dinner

in the Gaslamp Quarter. I didn't get pictures at dinner 

(and I can't remember the name of the restaurant)

but our food was really good and I had fun getting to know

some of the people that Nate works with in this group.

One of Nate's friends, Paul, took us all on a little

stroll after dinner to check out this yacht.

He had heard about it being docked here and wanted

to see it.  It is owned by a German bazillionare 

and it has a 30 person staff at all times.

The next day the guys had to go to meetings again

so we went shopping at Seaport Village.

Lots of fun shops and great conversation.

Andrea is so easy to talk to and fun to be around,

we need to do this more often!!

Mabel sure had fun with Nana while were gone,

here are some of the picture messages I got:

Bubble baths, candlelit dinners, pumba rides...

I'm surprised she actually wanted us to come home!

Mabel was so excited about this sign...so cute.

It was a great getaway! 

My kind of "work" trip!! :)