Monday, April 2, 2012

San Diego

On our only FULL day off in California, Brandon and I decided to spend it in San Diego, CA, one of my favorite places to be. I have a few girlfriends that live there and my good pal, Kate, spent a good portion of her 20's there, and has some funny stories about time spent there, but most importantly-she knows all the best places to go since she lived there for several years! (Not only does Kate know all the best places to go in CA, because she is a California girl, but all over the country actually because of the years she has spent on the road! This girl knows the best places shop, sight-see, wine taste, and especially EAT!! Man-o-man she knows all the MUST GO restaurants in pretty much any city!!).

Brandon and I decided to spend our night downtown San Diego in the Gaslamp District. It was a week night, so I didn't know what to expect, or how busy it would be, but much to my surprise, by the time we actually got there, there was so much going on. The streets, restaurants, and bars were all packed with young professionals- mine and Brandon's kind of crowd! We decided it was a good idea to cab it from our hotel to the GLD so we just had the driver drop us off on the corner and we walked down the street looking into each bar and restaurant trying to decide which one we wanted to go to first. The first bar we went to, and where we spent most of our night, was a place called Henry's Pub. We are huge fans of places that have a tavern or pub atmosphere. They had really good drink specials and great live music! Brandon and I had a great time spending some time out, a welcomed change from what our evenings normally are after work!


via

The next morning we woke up and decided to head to Mission Beach for breakfast. I actually spent some time there last April with my girlfriend, Tamara, from the Burton Tour, who lives right next to the beach. She and I had a blast!! We sunned, rode bikes to the bars, played beach volleyball, and not to mention had a TON of head stand competitions in the sand. I won, well most of the time! :)



**Mine and Tamara's blissful beach time together***

So it was really nice to come back to a familiar place to spend some beach time with Brandon. Our plan was to grab breakfast at The Wavehouse and then lay out on the beach all day and enjoy the weather. Well when we woke up it was FREEZING!! It was wayyyy too cold to lay out on the beach even though there were crazies doing it anyway!! Even though it was way cooler than we expected, we still wanted to go to the beach for breakfast to to walk around and take fun pictures. The Wavehouse's breakfast is soooo good!! You get entirely way too much food (if there is such a thing?) but its so affordable it doesn't matter if you aren't able to finish it all! Brandon wasn't able to, but me being the garbage disposal of an eater that I am- I was able to throw back 2 eggs, 2 pancakes, homestyle potatoes, 2 pieces of bacon, and a side of french toast. I REALLY wish I had taken a picture of it. I was pretty impressed that I ate that much. But lets be honest, had we not already decided it was too cold to lay out, I would have never eaten all that before laying around in a swimsuit. Talk about being bloated!! Ew-gross.

After we ate, we spent about an hour walking around the beach in our long sleeves, trying to figure out how people were able to lay out in that weather, and just breathing in the ocean air. I am a Pisces so I am a natural lover of all things water, I just gravitate toward it! Being from Missouri, oceans and beaches aren't an everyday thing for me, so I literally could just sit and stare all day long. Brandon, however, lived in Hawaii for some time, so just sitting and staring at water really isn't his idea of fun.


By the time we left San Diego, and got back to our hotel in San Bernardino we were rested and ready for our short 3 days of work that week! The days flew by, and before we knew it, we were down in Texas with the week and a half off ahead of us! Brandon stayed down in TX with his sister, brother-in-law, nephew and niece, and I flew home to Missouri to spend time with my family and to throw a bridal shower for my future sister!! Its been a great week home!!