San Diego - 10 year anniversary trip

David and I had talked for a long time about where we could go to celebrate our 10 year anniversary.  I decided I wanted to go somewhere near the beach where we could enjoy a relaxing environment and still be close to yummy restaurants, shops, and cultural attractions.  San Diego turned out to be the perfect spot!  And it worked out perfectly because State Farm happened to come out with a promotion that allowed David to earn two free nights and paid flights to San Diego at the beginning of September, just a month before our anniversary.  So we stayed a few extra nights and enjoyed a whole five days to ourselves in what we now consider the best place in the States!  If we could afford to move there, we would in a second. :)  It was the perfect combination of Spanish culture and everything else we appreciate. 

Our first stop was Balboa Park.  David felt like he was back home in Spain!  It was gorgeous!

Funky cactus garden.

We even got to eat lunch at a Spanish fusion restaurant called The Prado.  It was a great introduction to the city!

From there we went to find our hotel on Coronado Island, the Glorietta Bay Inn.  I instantly fell in love!  It was so quaint and beautiful and so close to the beach - the perfect place for a getaway!

Those flowers were amazing!

Our view.

We were across the street from the famous Hotel Del Coronado, and we just had to walk through their grounds to reach the beach.

It was a small piece of heaven.  So relaxing!!

We loved Coronado Island, and anytime we went into the city and drove back over to the island I felt like we were returning home.  Cheesy, I know, since we were only there a few days.  But it was so cozy, quaint, and laid back.  We enjoyed being able to walk to different restaurants and shops from our hotel.  Thanks to the Yelp app on our phones we found some great places to eat, like this yummy organic burger place.

We had a whole list of places we wanted to visit during our stay, so aside from our relaxing time on the beach, we didn't waste any time at all.  We packed in as much as we could!  And we had our little convertible to take us wherever we needed to go.  (Just like Michael Scott's car!)  It wasn't the Mustang David had hoped for, but it was still fun, despite the fact that my hair never looked good! :/

One place we knew we needed to see was the Mormon Battalion memorial site.  It was so well done, and I just kept thinking how I couldn't wait to bring the boys back to see it.

We also visited  the San Diego temple, which was more spectacular in person than I'd expected!  The Church is definitely well represented in San Diego!

Next to Coronado, we'd heard that the best beaches were in La Jolla, so we drove up there for an afternoon.  It was so picturesque!  If we had the chance, David would move there in a second!  He was pretty depressed thinking that it will likely never happen...

We took a walk down one of the beaches to see some tide pools we'd heard about.  We didn't see a ton, but the walk was nice.

Cool designs in the sand.

We visited Old Town and ate some great Mexican food.

David wanted to go to the real Mexico, but we'd forgotten our passports so we only went as far as the border...

Because I'm a nice wife, we spent a whole afternoon on the U.S.S. Midway.  It wasn't the beach, but it was still pretty awesome.  Again, I kept thinking how I couldn't wait to take the boys one day.

As part of the State Farm promotion, we got to stay two nights in the Grand Hyatt hotel overlooking the harbor.  (Here's a picture of a picture I took at the hotel.)  It was very different from our inn on Coronado Island, but it was fun to experience the two different extremes.

We'd heard good things about the Gaslamp District downtown, so we spent one evening checking it out.  We found a good Chinese restaurant, but we felt very out of place, or I did at least...  It was crazy!  I'm much more at home in quieter, more conservative places. :/ 

We did find our all-time favorite restaurant downtown, though!  It was The Kebab Shop and it had the best kebabs and saffron rice.  Mmmm.  David and I both still crave it!  We ate there twice in the short time we were there.

One of the times we got the food to go and ate in the cutest little shopping area just behind our hotel called Seaport Village.  I loved walking around there and we really enjoyed seeing the yachts in the harbor at night.

On our last day, we started off visiting Point Loma, a beautiful nature reserve overlooking the bay and the city.

Then we drove up to Pacific Beach to eat at a Spanish restaurant called Costa Brava.  It was just a couple doors down from a Spanish shop where David was able to stock up on some of his favorite Spanish foods.

We wanted to go to the beach one last time so we walked up and down the beach there in Pacific Bay. It was a much more lively beach than any we'd been to, which David really liked.  It reminded him of the beaches in Spain.

That evening we got to go to a Padres game with some of David's State Farm friends.  We decided last minute to go and I'm glad we did because it turned out to be lots of fun.  I'm always up for a good ball game, the stadium was beautiful, and we had all-you-can-eat snacks and hot dogs!  What more could we have wanted on our last night in paradise? :)

We were so sad when the week was over and we had to leave, but it made it bearable knowing we were coming home to our kiddos, who we'd missed a LOT!  Jose and Julia had been nice enough to come down and stay with them while we were gone and everything went great, but it was still nice to see my babies again.  Five days was as long as I want to be away from them for a while.  Still, I have to say the break was good!  David and I needed some good time to ourselves, and we absolutely LOVED San Diego.  It was just the anniversary trip I'd hoped for.  Now, when can we go back?!