… how I love thee!  I have to say, if I ever decide to live on the streets, San Diego will be the place I go.  The place is beautiful and the weather mild.  I don’t understand why more people aren’t there! The beach. Culture. Nice weather. The beach. Tons to do. The beach. The cost of living is higher than, say, Tulsa, but there aren’t many places cheaper than here. Besides, I’d rather pay more to be in a place I enjoy. This is not an I-want-to-move-to-San-Diego post, so I’ll move on.

San Diego rocked. I would have loved to spend more time there because we didn’t get to do and see as much as I wanted to.  It was still an awesome trip though. The only truly upsetting thing was that my camera broke on the second day. Uh. Me going without my camera is like Jan Crouch going without her wig. It. never. happens. I felt pretty awkward just walking around, not taking pictures. BUT, rather than be upset, I decided to really absorb everything around me. It was relaxing and I felt no pressure. A good vacation… minus the pictures.  Haha!

We stayed in the Sofia Hotel. It was a great place to stay! Matt and I love old buildings and this place was just beautiful.  People complain that it’s small, but I thought it was just great.  It had everything we needed and was modern and beautiful. The Sofia is near downtown, so we spent a lot of time walking around the Gaslamp District.  LOVED the old buildings!  Here’s a shot from our hotel room (the cool old buildings are in the other direction!)… squint and you can see San Diego Bay.

The first thing on our (Mary and me) agenda was to meet up with the Curtis and Matt. We ended up getting to Miramar soooooo early… three hours to be exact. There was another mother (who happened to be one of Curtis’ friend’s mom) and another mom/dad duo there too. I don’t regret getting there early because when we walked into the hangar, there were a couple of CH-53′s being unloaded. It was neat to see them up-close… and it turned out that the one out front was Curtis. If I hadn’t lost my phone, we would have been able to tell him we were there and said hi early. Oh well. After they took off, we had another couple of hours to wait before other family members showed up. Here’s Mary looking for her kiddo.

We finally got word that the marines were coming in and we got to see somewhere around 15 helicopters fly in, taxi up to the hanger area and get out. They all lined up, while everyone on our side of the barrier took pictures and yelled out to their Marine. It was crazy and I felt a bit like a poser since I was excited to see Curtis but I didn’t feel like crying or jumping up and down.  I was mostly looking forward to see my husband later on… which is when a cried.  What a wimp!  Anyway, they did their thing and then everyone went running to hug and kiss their Marine. It was pretty emotional. Here’s Curtis in front of his helicopter.

I kind of forgot Election Day was Election Day until we walked into an Indian restaurant for dinner and saw CNN on the TV. When we first walked in, the numbers were fairly close, but the next time we turned around to look, McCain was speaking. By the time the food came, which was soooooo delicious, Obama was speaking. Everyone, but those at our table, had their eyes glued to the screen.

The next day we went to the San Diego Zoo and after taking about four pictures, my camera took a dump. That was a bummer. I managed to pull myself together enough to have a good time though.  I’ve wanted to go there since I was a kid. We spent several hours there and got to see almost every exhibit. I started out really excited to be seeing all the animals but ended up feeling pretty sad that they were all caged. They all seemed fairly unhappy, except maybe the hippos, who we caught getting jiggy in the water. Oh. my. God. Hippos having slow motion sexy time. It scarred me. For life.

Balboa Park was beautiful! I would have liked to chill on a blanket, reading a good book, for hours. It was so warm and beautiful there. There are several museums there but we didn’t have time for more than a few. We went to the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego Automotive Museum and San Diego Museum of Man. The first one was great, the second one was awesome, the third one had a neat Ferrari exhibit and the fourth was just okay.  The skull exhibit was pretty neat but overall I wasn’t thrilled.  The Museum of Man is housed in one of the neatest looking buildings though.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to the USS Midway but it turned to be awesome. Matt walked off towards a plane as soon as we were on the aircraft carrier, so I wandered off and picked up headphones for an audio tour and toured it on my own. It was really interesting to see all the different parts of the aircraft carrier and to listen to guys who had been on the ship back in the day. I loved it. I finished my tour before Matt and Mary, so I took off in search of Coke. Pepsi = blek. I walked for quite awhile until I found some and then took a pedi-cab back. The driver was a nut and we had a great conversation about San Diego and the people who live there. He told me that San Diego is the 8th largest city and has the 6th lowest crime rate in the country. I can appreciate that!

We took the ferry across the Bay to Coronado Island. Mary found herself a nice place to sit near the water while Matt and I speed walked across the island to The Hotel Del Coronado. We walked through an amazing neighborhood and joked about which homes we’d consider living in… if had to… hehehe. The Hotel Del was just beautiful. We pulled off our socks and shoes and walked in the sand. I stepped into the water a few times. Fu-reezing!

The four of us took a harbor tour one morning. It was pretty neat to see how everything was laid out around the bay. I love water and had a great time taking it all in. We ate at a fresh fish restaurant after our harbor tour. My chicken sandwich rocked! hehe.  Matt had shark, which was really good.  Not fishy at all.  

Matt and I hung out with Curtis and his pilot buddies one night. That was pretty neat.  Those guys keep going, and going, and going.  

It was so much fun being in a new city again! I can’t wait to go back when we can spend more time there.