long weekend in san diego

oh hi! i've returned from my second winter get away this month. i admit i feel sort of guilty recapping yet another lovely vacation on the blog (please don't hate me!). i promise we are done traveling for a while. umm except...i just found out i'll be going back to san diego in april for work, but that one's not on my dime. haha. now onto the recap...we survived our 4th round trip plane ride with azalea (her last time flying for free!). this one was the hardest yet. her tantrums are getting stronger and more frequent in general, which is the ultimate test of patience for thatcher and me. we had absolutely beautiful weather (70's and sunny) in san diego. they claimed it was in the 50's the week before and was supposed to cool down again after we left. thatcher's aunts, uncle, and cousins all enjoyed meeting azalea. here's how we spent our days...

thursday morning we had to get up at 4:45am for our 7:15am. its always rough, but i love arriving at our destination with the whole day ahead of us. azalea kept us on our toes the entire flight. she simply does not enjoy being told that she has to sit down, be quiet, etc. we even lucked out and had our own row, but she was busy busy busy. this flight was also an hour longer than any other flight she has taken. we were all relieved when we arrived in san diego. the sun was shining and it was already in the 60s at 9am. after waiting a good 30 mins at the car rental place, we were on the road to encinitas to thatcher's aunt and uncle's house. the drive was only about a half hour and the scenery was beautiful! 

our first stop was the frame shop/art gallery that thatcher's aunt and uncle own in town. we chatted with them for a while outside.

we grabbed some lunch and then came across a frozen yogurt place called berry happy on the main street, so we enjoyed a little treat. after that, we found our first playground of the trip and explored the beach right next to it. :) 

         

after that, we headed to thatcher's aunt and uncle's house to see if we could get azalea down for a nap. this was the first trip where we didn't have a pack n play for her to sleep in. we tried laying on the bed with her, but of course she had no interest in napping. so, we decided to go out and do something fun with her instead. we headed to the library a couple blocks away with thatcher's aunt's library card and got azalea a couple books. we also stopped at the playground across the street (oh yes, 2 in one day!). we came back to the house for dinner and hung out for the rest of the night. azalea and i shared a bed. besides her violent sleep habits (haha) and the 2 hour time change, we all slept pretty well.

friday azalea woke up around 6:45, which was better than expected. in the morning, the three of us headed up on coast to check out a couple towns. first we stopped in carlsbad, which is an upscale, beautiful town. we walked around the business district and also made our way to the beach. by late morning we were quickly realizing we under estimated how warm it would be! it was getting close to 80 as the high and we were in pants. oops! next we headed to oceanside, which was also pretty. it had an awesome pier, which we walked out on a little ways until azalea had a little (big) meltdown and we decided to head back to the car. 



we went back to encinitas for lunch and to see if azalea would lay down for a bit (we can dream, right?) no real nap, of course. so we decided to hop in the car and cruise down the coast to san diego. luckily azalea fell asleep pretty fast and slept about an hour. we arrived in coronado (an island off of downtown san diego). it has this huge, beautiful historic hotel right on the beach called hotel del coronado. we walked around the property a bit and also spent some time on the beach. 

we didn't really pack beach attire because for some reason i was convinced it just wasn't going to be warm enough to be at the beach. boy was i wrong! oh well.

 after coronado, we spent a some time exploring little italy in downtown san diego. that may or may not have included a trip to another froyo place (yogurtland). gotta try them all, right? i've been going through withdrawals since it's not really frozen yogurt weather in minnesota. we left on what should have been about a 45 minute drive back to encinitas, but between crazy rush hour traffic and some construction, it took us two hours to get back!! azalea was not a happy camper about that. whew! we had dinner at his aunt and uncle's and hung out there for the rest of the night.

this is getting long, so i'll post part 2 tomorrow...