San Diego!!

So I've really gotten behind lately as you can tell from the lack of posts. I'll post 2 more about the county fair/rodeo and our camping trip to Stanley. Look for them at the bottom of this VERY long post with lots of pics!

My work paid for me to attend Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo in San Diego this year, so since we had a buddy pass for Ty we decided to take an early anniversary trip. Josie stayed with Grandma and Aunt Lo and Cousin Ava, 1 month younger than her.

We flew out Friday morning  and stopped in Seattle for a layover. Here is a pic of Mt. Rainier from the air. 

We got to San Diego mid-afternoon. Our first meal, after checking in to our hotel was AWESOME! It was called the Tin Fish and man was it good. I ordered the calamari tacos and Ty got shrimp tacos. After relaxing for a bit we headed out to walk around the bay. We stayed at the Omni, which is about 2 blocks from the convention center and attached to the San Diego Padres Home Base, Petco Park, with a sky bridge. Ty thought that was awesome! (He also got a sweet SD Padres Ball Cap, which I'm sure you'll see more of throughout the trip).

Saturday morning we headed off to find the Trolley Station to take us to Tijuana, Mexico. We ate at Broken Yolk Cafe and ended up walking through the Ball Park on our way. Cool Sand Castle!

 This one is for all you Pysch fans out there! Hehe!

We got Josie some cute shoes, maracas, some awesome sandals and earrings for me, a wallet and belt for Ty and some super carne asada tacos for lunch for $4. P.S. Leslie that sweet basement restaurant went out of business 3 years ago. Darn!!

This is the view from the bridge on your way back to the States! Awesome! Definitely a captive audience!

We then spent the afternoon at Imperial Beach! Oh My Gosh! The water was literally freezing! We played in the waves for like 10 minutes and were completely numb from the chest down. WOW! 

Sunday -Tuesday was my conference and it was awesome! This was my first time at the annual meeting and it LOVED it! Besides all the cool classes I went to, there was a HUGE food expo and all kinds of fun things to do and taste there!

I got a few new books: My Two Year Old Eats Octopus and I have yet to read The Small Changes Diet. (Keri Gans signed it for me!)

 Here are a few pics at the Expo!

Just in case your not as much of a foodie as me, this is the Frosted Mini Wheat and the Laughing Cow and David Grotto dressed up as a strawberry! 

Monday night we went to a Padres baseball game. It was fun and we had awesome seats, but it was a little dull with only strikes,  balls and fouls until the 4 or 5 inning when  they scored a home-run. Unbeknownst to us the Padres are awful, but surprisingly they still be the Chicago Cubs 2-0.

 This is Ty's "Walk of Fame" across the Omni Skybridge to the ball park.

We ate again at the Tin Fish, Tuesday before we relocated. After the conference ended, Ty and I moved to an other much cheaper hotel down the street. It was nice, especially for the price we paid!

That night we went to Old Town and walked around the Historic Spanish Square and watched a Mexican Fiesta dance. It was fun!

We ate at a restaurant in Little Italy that was delicious! Our favorite of the trip for sure! It was called Vincenzo. This is a pic of what I ordered, Burrata. Again, YUM!!

We walked around for a bit and strolled back to our hotel, dreaming of living in San Diego!

Wednesday we spend the day at Mission Bay Park. We headed to Sea World first thing and rode some rides, and saw the penguin feedings and saw the polar bears and the walrus.  The walrus was a lot bigger than I thought! WOW!

We had a sweet (and cheap) sailing reservation that afternoon and walked across the Bay to get there. In the end we walked down the entire boardwalk (not intentionally). My memories of sailing have definitely been skewed compared to this. IT WAS EPIC! I loved it!

 The instructor taught us how and I steered for the first part and then Ty finished up.  This was one of the boats we took out! It was so relaxing. We were out there for an hour and a half!  

 

  After that we ate at Rocky's. Literally the best cheeseburger I've ever had! YUM!!! Then we headed back to Sea World and rode a few more rides, saw the dolphins, Shamu show and otters.

 That night we rode the ferry to Coronado on a sunset cruise. It was beautiful!

We walked all the way down to "The Del" (Hotel Del Coronado). 

Ty was in love with all the nice wood work at the hotel and the houses that lined the streets on the way there and back.  Here's a pic of one we found, although Ty really wanted to go back and see them again in the daylight we ran out of time! :(

Thursday morning we walked down to the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum. That was cool!

 After that we headed up to Balboa Park and went on a Double Decker San Diego Zoo Bus ride. It was a nice break from all the walking we had been doing.

 

 We visited the  railroad model museum, which by the way is incredible! The amount of time spent on the displays were unbelievable! We stopped off at the science museum before we headed off to Belmont Park for some amusement park fun on the beach!

 This sign is totally appropriate for San Diego! Hehe!

 Friday morning we spent a few hours at the Miramar Air Show for the 100th Anniversary of Naval Aviation checking out copters and tanks and watching the flybys. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the Blue Angels due to poor planning on the part of the tour guide.  :(

 That afternoon we drove up to the Zoo Safari Park. This was way better than the zoo!

 This is Ty pretending to be a wood chuck! :)

There was a baby elephant that was born on Monday that was neat to see. They are 250# when they are born...after they have been in the womb for TWO YEARS! Yikes!!

While we were waiting for the Cheetah to make it's daily run, we took a pic of the lions catching some rays. We were literally 15 feet away from them with nothing but a low fence between us.

The tram safari was fun to ride and see all the various African animals.

That evening we were able to attend a session at the San Diego Temple. The almost-considered-homemade temple food was a welcome break from restaurant foods we had been eating all week. In fact, Ty had 2 slices of pie! It was sooooo good!

It was soooo nice to end our trip in the temple! So peaceful and beautiful. We saw the the flower atrium, the celestial room and the sealing room where my friends Leslie and Josh (and I'm sure about a million other people) were married!