Trip To San Diego !!!

HERE WE GO AGAIN REMEMBER TO SCROLL UP AND DOWN NOT TO MISS ANYTHING.

Well our trip to San Diego ... without kids, was amazing.  Thanks to Colleen and Joe which kept our kids for a couple of days while we took this trip.

Sadly I cannot remember all the details and I took so many pictures with this huge update I am trying to attempt I am just going to post a few.

We left on Saturday the 18th of August which was the week before Jade started school so I could not stay for the full time Dave was out there as I needed to come back and meet her teacher and get her ready and all but the time we had out there was amazing.  Vegas has always been my most favorite place but now after our second trip to San Diego I have to say that San Diego is my favorite place.  Our first trip out here a couple of years ago, in fact when Amber was still an infant was crazy but so much fun, we did all the kids stuff like the famous San Diego Zoo and Lego World and all the Wild Animal Reserves, not to mention SeaWorld but this time, it was all about the adult time and it was equally amazing !!!

First things first, when we arrived there, Dave left me at the airport to go get our rental car, when he picked me up on the curb with all our luggage, he said, mmmm you should have seen all those convertibles Trace, this is the perfect place for one don't you think ?  But he already had a rental so what was he saying, anyway on the way past the rental place I said to him, can we change our car now or is it too late ... long story short and it did take way longer than we anticipated to make the change, as part of his birthday present I paid the extra to rent a brand new 2012 hot red Mustang convertible, ok yeah, I know, Dave is so not a Ford kind of guy but he felt spoilt rotten to ride around in this all week :-) and I was happy I could do that for him, especially on our long trip up to LA which we took the next day, more on that later.  Anyway here are two pics of him taken that day while we were looking for a good sunset to photograph.

Doesn't he look cute :-)  Anyway we stayed in a really cool hotel that had a great complementary breakfast and cocktail evening but what was a nice treat is they had a valet service too, not that Dave would ever have chosen that but you actually could not park your car yourself at this hotel but I thought it was a nice touch to a adult only trip :-)

Anyway the Sunday we left as early as we could and took a drive up the coast to LA, the coast is so nice, my gosh something we definitely miss about living in SA but anyway, we stopped here there and everywhere we could and then eventually after lunch ventured inland to LA.  LA to me had the feel of Vegas, probably why I liked it so much but I needed lots more time there, we did not have enough time to see all we wanted to that was for sure.  We walked around as much as we could and walked the entire Hollywood Walk Of Fame which was just too cool knowing that if you stood on that star, that celebrity had actually been there while they put that star in the sidewalk.  I took so many picture of the stars, too much to put here but yeah, just some were Matt Damon, Tom Cruise, Celine Dion, Barbara Walters etc.  Had to post this one for my mom ...  Patrick Swayze !!!

While we were having lunch, across the street from where we were eating they were setting up for the Premier of Oogieloves ?  Yeah we didn't see it or even hear much about it so it could not have been a big hit movie or anything but just thought that it was our bad luck that on the day we were visiting there was this silly movie premier and not a big movie premier with actual movie stars :-(

Then I surprised Dave with another birthday present, a tour of Hollywood Celebrity Homes, yeah I know that sounds more like a present for me (hehehe) but thought we would both enjoy it which we did.  Only thing is you kind of expect these houses to be mansions and it is amazing how plain Jane some of these houses really are.  Big but plain much of the time, unless you are looking at a commune like Justin Timberlake has, ok that was huge.  I had a list of all the houses we saw but cannot find it now, go figure !!!  We did get to see Simon Cowells house which looked really modern and nice and the house where all the American Idols stay while they are on the Idol journey.  We saw Marilyn Monroe's cute pink house, the house where she was rumored to have had affairs with some of the Kennedy boys.  Some other celebrity houses we saw that I can remember are Julia Roberts, Robert Redford, Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Leonardo  DiCaprio, Nicolas Cage, John Travolta, Jack Nicholson and so much more.  Here is a picture of Sylvester Stallones house, I zoomed in as much as I could coz there were people sitting outside but couldn't see if it was him, sadly we did not see one star sighting :-(

What was also amazing to me was standing outside the gates of the house that Micheal Jackson died in or at least where he was taken from.  We could not stay there long as his family are trying hard to get a law passed where tourists are not allowed up that road.

I could not believe I was actually in Beverly Hills, how cool was that or that we had earlier been in Orange County or are the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, or that we were outside the Kodak Theater where you see so many awards shows.  We actually drove Mulholland Drive that so many stars drive on a daily basis and we still didn't get to see anyone famous, that's my luck for you.

Then we also got taken up as close as we could go to see the famous Hollywood Sign.

Can't believe we also drive Rodeo Drive which yeah we cannot even afford to look in the windows let alone shop there and we still did not see any super stars :-( oh well there is always next time right and there will be a next time, totally loved it there.

Then once we were done with the tour, on our walk back to the car we stopped to watch something else really cool, there was a foundation there similar to Make a Wish Foundation that treat kids that have life threatening disabilities or kids that don't have long to live to something fun, well they had 4 or 5 Lamborghinis that they were giving these kids rides in, they had a stretch of road closed down, right there on Hollywood Blvd and they would open these amazing sounding vehicles up for a short distance, then turn around and come back our way fast too, amazing to see, obviously I had to pick Davids mouth off the sidewalk when it was time to leave.  Anyway here is a pic of one of the cars, we were there right close, so amazing.

 

My last request that day was to drive to the Santa Monica Peer which I have seen in so many movies, most of all my favorite Private Practice and watch the sun go down so that was just what we did.  It was a fast drive down there as we knew we didn't have too much time till the sun started to go down, actually we got there just in the nick of time.  The pier was such fun, wish we had longer to stay there too, it is a long old pier with many stores on it, there are restaurants and entertainment people, juggling, playing musical instruments, singing or stalls selling all sorts of stuff, really cool.  At the end of the pier they have this huge ferris wheel which you see in all the movies, we stayed to see it light up, too cool.  They have other small rides and amusement park games there too, all on this pier, too cool.  Anyway we had a 3 hour drive back to the hotel so we couldn't stay longer :-( it was 9 before we left and we still had to have dinner.  Love, love, loved it there, have to come back one day again or perhaps actually stay somewhere overnight close by so we can spend more time there.  Even taking the kids would be great, the beaches are so nice :-)  Very Baywatch kind of beaches if you know what I mean.

Here is the sunset at the Santa Monica Pier.

The drive back to San Diego was so mind blowing, we had traffic all the way back but when I mean traffic, it is bumper to bumper going about 75 mile an hour in 8 lanes of traffic, not 4 one way and 4 the other way, 8 lanes going to San Diego and 8 lanes going away from San Diego, never seen anything like it in my life, too crazy and scary if you ask me, glad I was not driving !!!  Apparently many of these drivers are people coming from Mexico, they stay locally during the week and then go home on the weekend, this was late Sunday night so they were probably on their way back to wherever they stay during the week, ok that explains some of the traffic one way but not the other ???

Monday Dave went off to his conference / training and I got a slow start which was a real treat and then I walked across the road to an outdoor shopping area right on the water, amazingly pretty spot with fantastic weather and so much to see.  I walked around there for a while, the highlight of my morning was the local fire department came and did their workouts there, all fantastic looking men, darkly tanned with their shirts off, yeah I know I need to stop now :-)  Anyway I met my friend Des from SA cousin Tania there, she lives in San Diego, you may remember last time we were out I spent a day with her too.  It was so good to catch up with her, she brought her kids with and it made me sad that my girls were not with me as they would have gotten on so well but next time ... she treated me to a very yummy fish and chips, then we shopped a bit and she was off, again so good to see her, catch up and just hang out for a while !!!

After that I shopped a little and then met Dave for yet another birthday surprise, I took him on a Seal Tour, nope not a tour of local seals like you think although we did see some local seals on this tour, this is what we went on ...

This is a boat that half the tour is on land and half of it was in the ocean, very weird I tell you.  Have to say though even though the day was really warm, it was pretty chilly on this tour.  They took us past many historical sights, many were army, navy kind of sights which was cool since so many of the navy get trained in San Diego.  Then we hit the ocean where they took us out to show us where the navy seal, the human kind get trained, that was cool, but then they also told us how they train seals, the animal kind how to go down and place bombs or cameras on stuff deep down in the ocean, also how they train dolphins to do similar things, we could see the dolphins in the distance, all very interesting.  Pretty cool tour but I was cold so note to self next time, take a jacket !!!

That evening Dave and I went and walked the very lively city which is amazing and seemed so safe even though there are tons of homeless people in this city, very sad :-(

The following day which was my last day, Dave was going to be stuck in his conference all day so I had to keep myself busy so I took another tour which was amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed, it was a hop on and off trolley which took me through the city, over this huge amazingly high bridge onto the island of Coronado which Dave and I had driven to earlier but this tour dropped me at several places where I got off and took a walk around, so very pretty, did I say how much I loved San Diego.  It also took me through Little Italy where I didn't get off because I was running out of time but I got off at Old Town which was fantastic, too cool but I just didn't have enough time there, so many little stalls to look at and it had the vibe of Spain and Portugal what Dave and I visited all those years ago, very Mexican and so festive.  We actually went back there that night so I could show Dave it a bit and had dinner there.

Then I went onto this long dock where I got off a ways from my hotel so I could walk it, yeah I didn't know how far it really was but am glad I took the walk, there was all these amazing boats, from old fashioned Southern Paddle Boats, to huge huge sail boats, even one that looked like a Pirate ship, to this amazingly huge USS Midway Museum, you have to google that to go check it out, with all the aircrafts on it, fantastic to see even though I didn't go on ... and submarines, so so much to see.  Again took so many pictures but this is taking so long to load I am only loading a few.

That night my last night there, before we went back to Old Town for dinner, we went along the coast again for our last sunset, sadly the weather was not nice and clear so I didn't get the best shot but still here you go. And to finish this update, only last pic of the handsome fellow in my life.

Thanks Dave for this fantastic trip, was such a nice treat for us both.  Love you babes !!!

Now I have to go rush and supervise cookie decorating for Santa and frost some cupcake for our party tonight so the rest will have to wait, maybe I will get some time tomorrow afternoon.  

HERE WE GO AGAIN REMEMBER TO SCROLL UP AND DOWN NOT TO MISS ANYTHING.