Well, earlier this year Mark told me that there was a work conference in SAN DIEGO this year! I know this kind of thing is normal for a lot of your honeys, but mine works for a city, and past work events have been in lively places like Waco. We waited all year for it to get cancelled in budget cuts, but it never did! So, Mark and I embarked on our first trip alone without Landrie! We missed her like crazy, but it was great to have some time alone with my love!
The Padres' stadium was right by our hotel! Of course my baseball-loving husband had to get a picture there. :) (As with any great couple's trip, we got lots of these oh-so-awkward-I-hate-to-stand-in-a-picture-by-myself shots!!)
We stayed at a boutique hotel called Hotel Indigo. It was gorgeous!
We were in the heart of downtown, in an area called the Gaslamp District. It was a perfect spot to stay! This is the view from the roof. They even had a grassy area on the roof to bring your pets!
In between all of those pesky convention meetings, we were able to see some of the sights!
We took a ferry ride over to Coronado Island one afternoon.
It's this cute little quaint island, and you can have a great view of downtown across the water!
Of course we checked out the famous Hotel del Coronado. The whole island felt like something out of an old Hollywood movie. There were beautiful old homes and cute little shops. I just imagine that all of the old movie stars used to come out here to relax and vacation!
We went to the beach in our tennis shoes! I don't think this Texas girl has ever done such a thing!
It was my first time to see the Pacific Ocean. Since it was WAY too cold to swim, I just wanted to touch it...
So I did!
Right after Mark snapped this shot, I had freezing water all in my shoes. Oh well! It seemed like a good idea...
My honey and I on the beach
We rented bikes to get around the island. It was SO fun!! The guy said it was a mile ride around the island to get to the beach. He obviously has no idea what a mile is! ha!
I got a ridiculous chocolate peanut butter cupcake from a little cupcake shop to snack on while we waited for the ferry to come get us.
Yup, it's 4:30 pm and the sun is setting! Who knew it would get dark SO early??
Mark with a famous baseball player...
Yes, there were beautiful flowers there in DECEMBER!!
Friday was our last full day, and I thought we needed the FULL San Diego experience. I convinced Mark that we needed to take the friendly-looking trolley around town.
It's kind of like the DART, if you're a Dallas person. I am not a city girl, but I checked the schedules and figured out how we could take a bus/trolley combo and go eat in Little Italy. The bus part went great. We made it onto the trolley just fine too. There was even an early one, so we hopped on! That was our fatal mistake. The orange line splits, you see. One way goes by the nice beach and touristy convention center (the way we were SUPPOSED to go) and the other line, well, we saw about 30 of these under the first bridge we went by...
No, I didn't take that picture...I was too busy staring straight ahead as the people on the trolley started yelling at each other and one girl started banging on the trolley driver's glass door and screaming and cussing at him! We were scared to get off in that area, but scared to stay on too! We finally found a stop that looked like we might not be mugged the second we got off the trolley!! Mark was in charge of trolley planning for the rest of the day. :)
On Friday night, I was SO excited that there happened to be the huge, annual December Nights, December Lights Christmas festival! They expected like a half million visitors over the weekend. It was MASSIVE! Later in the night, this place was packed. (Remember, all of our pictures had to be taken before the 4:30 sunset!!)
It was in Balboa Park, which is a 1200 acre park full of museums, the famous ZOO, and on this day, lots of festival festivities! All the museums were open and completely free, so we popped in and out of a lot of them when we needed to warm up. We didn't visit the zoo, although many of you recommended it. Did you know tickets are $40 each!? We'll save that for another trip when Landrie is with us to enjoy it!
Forget little park benches and jungle gyms, this "park" was full of beautiful architecture like this!
I had to give the Christmas tree a kiss for Landrie! During Christmas time, every time she saw a tree, she LOVED to give it kisses!
Mark is quite the cheese lover, so we had to stop at the Cheese Shop before we caught our flight. The gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches were heavenly!
The few days away were amazing, but nothing beats coming home to a sweet baby girl like this one!!!
**Thank you Mom, Dad, Aunt Megan, Uncle Greg, Aunt Christy, Uncle Kevin and all the cousins for loving on Landrie while we were gone!**
3 comments:
Props to you for getting SUCH great pictures of your vacation! I think that will go down in history as a trip you'll never forget... ;)
so glad you had fun in my new town!! If he ever gets another "work" trip here, you need to let me know! Glad you guys had good weather....it was so rainy in December. You just gave me a list of things to do. Coronado is one of our favorite places to go and the zoo is amazing. You'll also be glad to know that it's now light until 5:30. The early sunset took me by surprise too! Glad you guys had a great trip!
So glad you had fun in San Diego! I found you through Kelly's Korner & I am your newest follower! We live in California (I was born & raised here, but in Northern California) glad you got to enjoy part of our state. What time does it get dark in Texas during winter? It is light until 5:30 now & we gain about 2-3 minutes each night until Daylight Savings.
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