The Beach!

Last week C and I took our first vacation together. We went to San Diego.....more importantly.....the beach!!!  We had a blast.  He had a bye week last week and I was able to take some time off so we spent 4 days in California.   The 5 hour drive went by quick....which I was a little nervous about.  We sang country music the whole time and stopped to get fast food twice (Burger King AND McDonalds!) As soon as we got settled in I made him join me for dinner at my favorite place, Pick Up Stix.  It used to be all over AZ, but they closed down and the closest ones are in California now.  I make it a point to go there every time I visit. We spent the night in watching the Hangover 2 in our hotel room and playing Skip-Bo on our various Apple products. What fun are we?

Day Two:

We woke up (after the maid barged into our room that is), ate lunch in the same complex as Pick Up Stix and then packed up and headed to Ocean beach.  It was coooolllllldddd and really overcast. Such a bummer. We didn't get into the water at all.  We did lay down some towels and spend an hour or two reading though, which was just perfect. Somehow I managed to burn the back of my legs while I was laying there. Whoops.  C was baffled at how someone could get a sunburn when it was so overcast!

He loves to play in seaweed....as evidenced by the photos below.  He said in Tampa he'd always find all types of little sea creatures in it, especially seahorses.  Alas, we found none.

After the beach we headed once again back to the same complex and I visited my first Chinese Buffet. C loves these kinds of places.  Probably because he is huge and he can get all the food he wants for a reasonable price.  I wasn't nearly as impressed with Yummy Buffet, but they had packaged almond cookies (7 of which I stuck in my purse for later) so I was happy.  Then we picked up some rum and juice and hit the hot tub. I crashed out that night around 12.  C stayed up until 2:30am playing Skip-Bo on my iPad.  Addicted much?

(Pizza in the hotel room at 11pm? Why not, it's vacation!)

Day Three:

After waking up and getting ready around noon we realized it was already lunch time. Oh well, we were on vacation! We grabbed some breakfast at the Broken Yolk.  I've heard this is one of the best spots in San Diego to eat breakfast and it just happened to be right by our hotel.  It was pretty tasty!

(Enjoying his juice in a fancy glass with a lovely pink straw)

Next we headed down to Seaport Village in downtown San Diego.  We spent the afternoon walking around the shops and looking out at the water.  At one point I saw a sign for a shop that said they proudly brew Starbucks, which I made a beeline for.  Turns out, they probably do brew it, but they certainly didn't use it in the coffee drinks we bought. Blech! After choking down my expensive latte we went into a candle shop.  These candles were seriously awesome!  They are giant balls of wax that they dip into a bunch of different colors so that there are layers. Then they carve out patterns in the layers and when you light them the different colors show though. So neat.  They definitely weren't cheap, but C bought me one. I picked one out that had two birdies on a tree branch and when you light it you can see a sunset and even little stars.  I call them my love birds.  This was the first real thing he's ever bought me :)  Well besides food and movies and silly things like that. 

While walking around downtown we noticed that the sky was clearing up and the sun was coming out! Hooray! We headed back to the hotel to change and pack up our beach bag. We got to Pacific beach just in time for the sun to head back behind some clouds.  This time it was ever colder!  But we didn't let that deter us.  I was gonna lay out in my bikini darn it. C dug us some "chairs" in the sand (they were pretty ingenious) and we settled in with our books. 

Look! He reads!

Somebody was getting artistic....

I had to keep my sweater on the whole time :(

We decided that we would go out for a nice dinner that evening in the Gas Lamp Quarter. We got back to the hotel room (after stopping at the hot tub for awhile) and got ready.  By the time we finally were ready to take off it was 9:45pm.  Putting it slightly, possibly, maybe lightly.....I was grumpy.  So yeah, C learned the hard way that I get grumpy when I am hungry! It seemed like every restaurant we found only served pizza or the kitchen was closed down except for serving....pizza.  Ugh. For some reason I wasn't feeling like pizza.  We finally found a mexican food place (at the suggestion of a bouncer from one of the pizza serving establishments) and I was happy. C was happy too by this point since he'd had several drinks! We had a good night that ended way too late and with C not remembering too much the next morning :)

Day Four:

I woke up in a panic after looking at my phone and realizing we needed to be checked out of the room in 35 minutes. Eek!  We rushed to get ourselves ready and everything packed up.  C was still....um....a little drunk hehe. That didn't make it any easier to move quickly.  We made it out in time though (well maybe a few minutes late but they didn't hold it against us). We packed up the car and headed out for bagels and coffee (again, same complex!). After C was feeling better, we went back to the beach one last time. Mission Beach this time.

                              

I think I saw C skip about 100 rocks that morning.

He spent an hour or so being adamant about not taking off his shoes and running from the waves....and then he gave in.

 

"Let's taking a picture of each other taking a picture of each other"

I don't think I've ever been to the beach without taking a picture of my feet and the water.  This is a perfect view of my happy place, where the water meets the sand.  I could walk up and down the beach for hours with a smile on my face and not a care in the world!

Us. Perfection.

After that we headed home.  I made C drive most of the way as "punishment" for making me deal with his drunk self the night before.  He took it like a champ.  Earlier in the day my mom had asked if we wanted any fresh ears of corn because she was going to the farm. Who says no to that?  Not us.  So as soon as we got back into town we headed to my parents house.  C had met my mom....but not my dad.  I was a little nervous.  He was definitely more nervous though because my brother had tried to "scare" him into thinking my dad was mean and scary.  So not true.  As soon as we walked in the door my dad came around the corner and said "I thought you'd be bigger" and we all started laughing.  It was great. We chatted and all went and picked apples and grapefruit from my parent's trees and I even showed off one of C's football highlight youtube videos.  It couldn't have gone any better.

After leaving there we headed back to C's.  I didn't know this, but he had completely turned off the AC the whole time we were gone.  Bad idea!  It was about 95 in the apartment when we got there.  We immediately put our swimsuits on and headed to the pool for awhile to let the place cool down.  Note to self.....never ever turn off the AC in the summertime in Arizona!

All in all it was a fantastic trip.  I can't wait to take more trips and make more memories with my love!