California! | Vacation Recap

I was gone all last week, in case you didn’t notice. I wasn’t just being lazy with the blog, I was on the opposite coast for the first time since I was a wee childling. It was quite a fantastic trip!

Let me show you :)

There are iPhone/instagram photos in here mixed in with others.

We stayed at the US Grant in San Diego, at one of the ends of the Gaslamp Quarter. It was a great place to stay and was close to nearly everything! We never had to drive more than 20 minutes to a destination our entire time in San Diego. Our first night we stayed near the hotel and walked down to the pier. It was pretty but apparently not pretty enough for me to feel compelled to take a photo. Ha!

The next morning we got up early, ate breakfast and headed out to find Ocean Beach. We couldn’t quite figure out where to park (went back another day and did that!) so we turned up a random street and parked and walked down a set of stairs to what we thought would be the beach. We were wrong. We found our way to Sunset Cliffs (which is… within walking distance of Ocean Beach… we ended up doing that very walk a few days later) which was breathtakingly beautiful.

Love this guy!

I look tiny.

And here are some instagram photos of the same place, some from that day (overcast), and some from when we went back on Monday (sunny). My parents and my Uncle Tom spent a lot of time here when they lived in Ocean Beach. Can you blame them? I have to say, it was pretty cool being there and knowing that they had been in the same place, doing the same thing when they were my age and younger.

On Sunday we spent the day at Balboa Park (which is also where we had our session with Melissa McClure on Tuesday, April 30th!) checking out the Museums and enjoying the beautiful weather. Though my favorite part was seeing the rose garden where my parents got married 27 years before <3 I had seen it in pictures, obviously, but seeing it in person was surreal.

Right next to the rose garden was a desert garden! So fun.

Monday we had a ton of time to kill! We went to Coronado Island for a while, drove on Fiesta Island, and finally found Ocean Beach. We parked and walked out to the end of the pier.

We watched surfers for a while and then got some ice cream before we walked back to sunset cliffs along the beach. We found ourselves back at the exact place that we took the stairs down to just two days prior! We had no idea we were so close then! My dad told me that him and my Uncle Tom would go down there and watch the waves and the little critters that got washed into the tide pools. We saw lots of little crabs!

After several hours baking in the sun (and burning badly… one day before our photo session with Melissa… whoops. We accidentally left our sunscreen in the hotel room :-/) we went across the street from our hotel to Horton Plaza. It is the coolest/weirdest/funnest (not a word, just roll with it) mall I’ve ever seen. My dad suggested going there, looking across the way to see a shop and then trying to figure out to get there. Sure enough, he was right, it was tough. Each level was like a half level. It was really interesting!

Tuesday morning came along– our last day in San Diego, and the day of our photo session. I woke up BURNED. I mean, it was BAD. My forehead and nose were tomato red and the rest was still pasty white. Steve was also burned but at least his was even. He joked (accurately) that I looked like a matchstick. Of course this was the day of the photo session with Melissa that I had planned months ago, paid for in advance and had my heart set on. I couldn’t (wouldn’t) cancel! So we went over to Horton Plaza and let a very nice lady do my makeup so I looked like a normal human being and then she tried to swindle me out of hundreds of dollars. I left only having spent half a fortune, with only one little container of foundation to show for it.

Now that that crisis had been averted it was time to go to lunch at Arby’s! Now I realize that lunch at a fast food joint doesn’t sound like an exciting thing to blog about, but this wasn’t just any fast food joint. This Arby’s literally SHAPED MY LIFE. I wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for this Arby’s.

32 years to the day prior to the day we were there my parents met at this Arby’s. My mom was the assistant manager, and my dad has just transferred to the store (on his 21st birthday!) to become the manager. For him it was love at first sight. For her, well, she was just pissed that he took the job she wanted. It was just so sweet picturing little 18 year old (a few months from 19) Joanne and 21 year old Jim meeting at this very place. I got choked up. Their years in San Diego still remain to be some of the best of their lives, and the beginning of a beautiful relationship, happy marriage, and ME all started there. Pretty cool.

It was also pretty cool that they had special roast beef and hawaiian bread sandwich as a limited time only special. I obviously had to order this. If you’ve never had Hawaiian Bread, CHANGE THAT NOW!

We went back to the hotel after lunch and relaxed for a little while before our session with Melissa… which you’ll see tomorrow on the blog! :D

The next day we left bright and early and got to Disneyland right when it opened. It was a lot smaller than what I’m used to with Disney World but we still had a great day! I might have cried when I saw the little girls waving at the ladies dressed up as Disney Princesses. The wonder and awe in their eyes was amazing. So freaking cute.

After our long day at Disney we met up with my good friend Tyson for dinner. We’ve worked together for several years until he decided to quit and move to LA and start over! It was great catching up with him :)

The next day was my darling husband’s 30th birthday! We spent the day at Universal Studios. Just like Disneyland was smaller than Disney World, Universal Studios Hollywood was much smaller than Universal Studios Orlando. There were two things that Universal Studios Hollywood had that Orlando doesn’t: the amazing backlot tour with some seriously amazing sets and sound stages (my favorite part!), and Steve’s favorite: The Hero “A” car from Back to the Future. That’s right, the REAL DeLorean. It was recently restored and put on display!

The next morning we set off to find a few of the filming locations from Back to the Future and get some shots of them! This was a lot more challenging to line up than it looks!

(and here’s the McFly house without the photo in front)

Later that night we saw Iron Man 3 on its premiere day and had dinner with some friends!

It was such an amazing trip! California is certainly amazing. San Diego is officially tied with Vermont for my second favorite place in the world– with Maui obviously in the top spot. It’ll definitely be less than 25 years before my next visit :)