San Diego 2011

About three weeks ago, David and I joined my brother, his family, and my mom on a short trip to San Diego. Thank goodness we left the Arizona heat when we did. The day before we left, I think it got up to 100 degrees and it was extremely dry. These two combinations and working all day led to swollen legs and feet.

We hit the road early Thursday morning, May 5th and arrived at our hotel about 6 hours later. We decided to check out Seaport village and just meander around. My brother and his family had arrived the day before and were at Sea World. David and I didn't get tickets to Sea World due to how far along I was in my pregnancy (all the walking and not being able to go on rides). We ended up buying these yummy Watermelon flavored suckers (a Mexican candy) that were covered in sugar and chili powder. Sounds gross, right? But I shortly became addicted and wish I would have bought more! Our purchase of the candy ensured we payed 1$ for 2 hours of parking at Seaport Village, instead of 8$ for the 2 hours (can you believe they charge you 1$ for every 15 minutes of parking!) David and I got to take pictures by several large ships, one of which is in the new Pirates of the Caribbean 4 movie.

For dinner, we ate at the "Old Spaghetti Factory". We were going to eat dessert at the Ghiradelli Ice Cream shop, however, our meal at the Spaghetti Factory included ice cream! (I definitely recommend going to that place-a full blown meal for a decent price). So we just strolled down 5th avenue in the gas lamp district and headed back to our hotel.

On day 2 of our trip (Friday, May 6), we toured the USS Midway ship (took us about 5 hours to tour!). It was very fascinating, but lets just say that I could have toured the thing in about 2 hours. In front of the Midway with our niece Kiara and nephew Dallin.

Kiara sitting in one of the airplanes

My mom sitting in one of the soldiers bunks. Not much room and if you were the lucky soldier that got this bunk, you'd have to be extremely careful to not sit up at night or you'd whack your head.

On the bottom floor of the ship was where the jail was. We tried to get Kiara to frown but I guess being in jail was too fun!

Upon arriving in San Diego the day before, I saw the Coronado Island Bridge and told David how I never wanted to go on that thing again. It is so high up over the water! I had crossed the bridge with a few friends several years ago when we had stayed on Coronado Island-and it was scary! So, my brother, upon hearing this, thought that it would be cool to drive across the bridge for lunch (after going on the Midway). So I kept my eyes focused on the road and I survived! Whew! We went to a beautiful beach on Coronado Island. It was way too cold for most of us to go in the water. David had a wet suit and plunged right in. He also found about 10 live Sand Dollars. We were all so fascinated as none of us had every seen live ones before. My sister in law Jessica is due with baby #3 in June and I am due in August with baby #1. So, we had to get belly shots!
After a long day at the beach, we did end up going back and getting some ghiradelli sundae's on 5th avenue and boy were they yummy!

On our last day, we stopped at the Cabrillo tide pools before heading back to Arizona. The tide pools could have been potentially filled with starfish, octopus, fish etc. However, all we saw were crabs, barnacles, lots and lots of shells and some fish. The boys had quite the adventure trying to catch crabs. The crabs were trying to hide in the crevasses of the rock and when one of the boys finally got one out it would scurry extremely fast back into the rocks. I have video but for some reason it won't load onto the computer. Here are photos at the Cabrillo tidepools and lighthouse.
My brother Chris and his two children, looking for sea creatures. My nephew Dallin was more than happy just to throw rocks in the water.