San Diego

I'm blogging again!!! Crazy I know. 

To get right to it, Hondo and I have not taken a vacation vacation in 2 years. The last trip we went on was to Ireland in 2014. We have been working hard to save money and pay off debt so we can buy a house, and vacations were not a priority. 

Fast forward to about a month ago and Hondo in particular was going a bit crazy. Doing the same thing every day with no breaks and nothing to look forward to becomes wearing. We had talked about how fun it would be to take a family vacation, since we've never gone anywhere but to visit family with the girls. Hondo was so stir crazy that he started planning trips that were way too expensive and repeatedly saying "I don't care how much it costs." I had to step in and purchase our trip before he went way overboard.

San Diego had been discussed by us before, and in searching for tickets I found a decent semi-last minute deal on Delta. I booked our flights, found a cute little Airbnb close to the beach, and off we went.

Aside from RUDE people on our flight there, the girls did fabulously and we  got to CA in no time. Our house was only about 15 minutes from the airport, in Ocean Beach. The location was even more perfect than we had realized. Being blocks away from the beach also means blocks away from shops and restaurants. So once we dropped our stuff off we walked down the road to a Cuban bakery called Azucar. Hondo grew up eating Cuban food (his grandfather was Cuban) and I quickly fell in love with it once I tried it. There aren't any Cuban restaurants in Utah so we were excited to find one so close by. We got Cuban sandwiches (obviously the best) and tried the papa rellamas (if you have the means, eat these ASAP!) plus a few of the desserts. IT WAS SO GOOD!!! I wanted to go back while we were there but sadly there were to many other good places to try.

After eating lunch we headed to the ocean. I was so excited for the girls to see it for the first time. I didn't see the ocean until I was 17 (which was coincidentally also in San Diego) so I was happy to give them the same experience early on. Plus I love the beach! 

The temperature outside was about 64 and cloudy, so you can imagine how freezing the water was. Mara is not really a water fan, so once she felt the cold on her toes she turned around and ran in the other direction as fast as she could. Mo was much more excited, and she played in the water the whole time we were there. Her squeals of delight were exactly what we wanted to hear. Hondo and I both instantly felt relaxed and refreshed. There's just something about the ocean.

Since it was so cold, we only stayed for about an hour before heading back to the house. For dinner we kept it simple and just ordered pizza. Since we had a full kitchen Hondo also went to a local store and bought tons of fruit, which we successfully ate over the course of our stay. 

Sunday morning we got ready and walked to a restaurant called Old Town. It  was a diner style place that only serves breakfast. We liked it. Then we decided to head to the San Diego Zoo. It was still kind of cold so we bought the girls some souvenir hoodies from the gift shop that they wore all day. We rented a double stroller, too, which I don't think we would've lasted without it. The zoo is so huge that even though we walked around for 3 hours I didn't feel like we saw that many animals. We did wait in line to see the pandas which I thought was really cool. The girls had fun but were tired and cranky so after eating some awful zoo food we left. Maybe they'll enjoy it more when they're older?

We headed to the beach again as soon as we got home. Once again Mo played and played in the sand and water while Mara sat wrapped in her beach towel and looked for seashells. Kids are funny. 

Dinner was Jack-in-the-Box, my favorite and also not available in Utah. The place we stayed was an adorable 2 bedroom 1 bathroom house, and the  girls loved it. They shared a bed in one of the rooms and felt very at home. They play so well together, we're very blessed. 

Monday we didn't have any specific plans for the day so we headed to breakfast at Hash House A Go Go, which we've had before in Vegas and enjoyed. We also tried to go to a place called Snooze which was just up the road, but the wait was over an hour there. Our CO friends have probably heard of it or been there in Denver or Boulder--apparently it is a super popular place to brunch! 

After breakfast we spent some time just relaxing and reading at the house. It was so nice to just hang out and have no stress or agendas. The weather that afternoon was supposed to clear up a bit finally, so we waited until the afternoon to head to the beach again. At this point the girls were pretty tired so we didn't stay as long, but the sun did come out and we got to soak it in. 

Dinner that night was within walking distance again, a Thai food place that was delicious. After dinner we walked down to watch the sunset. It was cold so we didn't stay long but it was beautiful.

I mentioned Snooze earlier because on our way to the airport we decided to try to go there again Tuesday morning and I'm glad we did. The host remembered us, and he was excited for us to try the food so he sent a free blueberry lemon pancake to our table to try. It was so good! If you go, totally order that one. It's worth it! We appreciated the gesture for sure, plus the other food we ordered was great. 

Our flight home was quick and easy, both of the girls fell asleep and stayed that way. We were glad to be home after a short but perfect trip. 

PS I wanted to title this post "A Whale's Vagina" but since my parents are like the only people who read my blog and they probably wouldn't remember the Anchorman reference, I didn't.