Actually, a bit longer than that even, if you count the last time that Brian and I had actually gone somewhere together, just the two of us. The last time Brian and I went anywhere together, outside of the Pittsburgh region, was for our first wedding anniversary....September of 2007. A few months later, we had Jake and hadn't gone away since then.
It's not that we don't leave the kids....I've gone away for work, and we've both left separately for time with friends....he's gone skiing or fishing, I've gone away for some girls weekends with the bestie. But together? Not in SEVEN years.
A few months ago, I learned that a conference I have attended in the past for work was being held in San Diego....Brian's company has another office in San Diego, and it's actually where his boss lives, so the location could not have been better. We could both combine work with a trip away for just the two of us! Perfect! It was time.
So last Saturday, after some tearful goodbyes Friday night (me, not the kids...they were totally fine, knowing they were going to have a fun week with Nana and PopPop!), we stepped on a plane and took off for the west coast!
Funny side note- I was telling Liam that I would miss him and his response was "Don't worry, I'll miss you too...but I'll still be alive when you come home!" Well, ok then. :)
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| Airport waiting. |
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| courtyard area of the hotel |
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| Who let these pale people out in the sun?? |
After checking into our room and getting settled, it was pretty much time to get ready to leave again; we had dinner reservations at Jake's Del Mar (sweet name, right?) with Brian's boss and his wife, which was very nice. Unfortunately, the jet lag (and just general tiredness, I couldn't sleep the night before we left, I was like a kid at Christmas!) and sinus/ear issues (presumably brought about on the plane) caught up with me at dinner. I was having trouble hearing most of what was said throughout dinner, which was annoying, and I felt like I could fall asleep into my food. But dinner was very nice (what I could hear of it, ha!) and the food was delicious, and of course, it was very kind of them to take us out. I was in bed by 8:30pm...so much for trying to adjust to west coast time!
We woke up bright and early the next morning after such an early bedtime, and after a very leisurely breakfast (I didn't have to make anyone food! or pour milk! or remind anyone to brush their teeth!) we headed out to Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. When we pulled in, Brian asked the attendant where we should park and she told us it would depend on if we wanted a serious hiking trail or more of a scenic walk....I'll take the scenic walk, thank you very much!! (also, if that's what they consider a scenic walk, I would have died on the actual hike)
This ended up being one of the highlights of the trip for us, we LOVED it here. Again, the weather was great, so I was warm once we started walking, but not miserable by any means. The views were spectacular, I feel like these pictures don't even do it justice, but here they are:
We did a few different trails that all lead to different views; one of the trails had this giant stone staircase that was fun to go down:
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| YAY, stairs!! All smiles on the way down... |
But the way up? Not as fun, let me tell you. I had to stop halfway up (where they very conveniently had this little bench....gee, I wonder why?) and Brian snapped this lovely picture of me:
On the next trail we came across this little bit of um, festive scenery:
He noticed my Pitt hat and told us that he's a huge steelers fan, tries to get out to Pittsburgh sometimes because he loves the city, goes to see the Steelers whenever they play the Chargers in San Diego, etc....super friendly (though also a touch creepy!) bunny. We do not have any reason as to why he was dressed like that.
After that, we found another trail that led down to the beach....only to get to the other side of the beach where it wasn't nearly as crowded, you had to squeeze through this opening...thank goodness we're not particularly claustrophobic!
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| squeeze it in there, kids! |
But it was worth it once we got to the other side!
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| Grown ups only trip, woohoo!!! |
Brian is crazy and decided to jump into the ocean (it was 61 degrees.....BRRR, no thanks!)
After all of that hiking, we were starving, so we headed to a place called Gliderport, where
We had 5pm reservations for kayaking and unfortunately, I don't have those videos or photos uploaded yet (they are on our knockoff Go-Pro camera, I didn't bring my phone) so i'll have to get those posted another time. But for now, I'll say that we had a great time (and didn't get attacked by sharks, score!) and that we were able to see dolphins and sea lions, so that was really fun.
We were exhausted after our big day, and quite stuffed from our late lunch, so we decided to skip dinner, walk around the little area by our hotel and have a froyo dinner :) It was the perfect way to wrap up such a fun day!
Days 3 & 4 recap to come soon.....
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