West Coast, Baby!

We had 2 uneventful flights, from Albany to Cincinnati, then on to San Diego. I paid $3 for a small can of Pringles. I also had a small frappuccino. John had a Cinnabon.

Once in San Diego we got our luggage and rental car and headed to Amy's apartment. From there, we all loaded into the Durango and headed over to Junior Seaus' Restaurant. YUM! Delicious food (I had bruschetta and a Buffalo chicken sandwich) and every game imaginable on their many TVs. We watched the first half of the Giants/Chargers game. Unfortunately, it didn't end well.

After we left Seaus' we drove to La Jolla (say: La Hoya) where we got some great pictures of the ocean and the beach with all the seals. The palm trees were beautiful. It was like paradise walking through all the little shops and such. Great weather. Then Amy took us to this high point where we could take some great pictures of the view. It was incredible! And no one was there. It was definitely a spot only locals know about. Lucky us. :)

Monday, after breakfast at our hotel, we took the long drive (depending on traffic) up to Simi Valley to visit the Reagan Library & Museum. Incredible, breathtaking, amazing. I'm so glad we got the chance to go there. On the way home we stopped in LA. It was so much fun! We got delicious cookies at the Toll House shop, took pictures of the Hollywood sign, saw the red carpet for the premiere of Old Dogs and had fun walking around. We made it back to downtown San Diego in time for dinner at Sloppy Joey's. YUM. I had rotten nachos, which were not rotten in any way. And their bread sticks were delicious.

Tuesday was our anniversary! Three years! We had breakfast at The Eggery (I had the best smoothie ever) then John and I went to the Zoo with his parents while Kristen went to class with Amy. It was fun seeing all the animals. We took tons of pictures and I had a churro! I loved the pandas. That night John's family took us out to BJ's for our anniversary. They had such good food. I had Parmesan crusted chicken. SO incredible. For dessert they have...I think they're called Bazookie's. It's a freshly baked (huge!) cookie of your choosing, topped with ice cream. So imagine a warm cookies covered in cold ice cream...so yummy. John and I shared a chocolate chip cookie with chocolate ice cream.

Wednesday was ate breakfast at Cafe 222 in downtown San Diego. It was soooo good. Kristen had found them on Food Network because Bobby Flay loves their Peanut Butter & Banana stuffed French Toast. Kristen and I both got that dish, and it was so good!! We sat outside to eat, and it was lots of fun. Did I mention good food?? The rest of Wednesday was spent right in San Diego. We went to Coronado for awhile. (Gotta be rich to live there!) Then we went to Seaport Village. There is tons to see and do there. And buy and eat! We bought lots of stuff in the little shops, took lots of pictures and had fun hanging out. We took pictures of the USS Midway which is docked there, as well as the USS Ronald Reagan across the bay. There were lots of Veteran's day activities going on. For dinner that night we went to Tony Roma's. I had a yummy burger, John had ribs, of course. Since Amy was working, we stopped at Buca to say goodbye to her.

Thursday morning we left at 3:45 for the airport. It was a long flight from San Diego to JFK in NYC. They showed 2 movies and I napped a little. We had a 4-hour layover at JFK so we sat down and ate at Chili's. Once we boarded our little charter plane for Albany, we sat on the runway for about an hour and a half waiting for takeoff. One 35-minute flight later, and we were home.

We left Zoe with my parents. They had a pretty uneventful time. I know Zoe enjoyed spending time with Caleb and Olivia and all the piano students! We stopped on our way home from the airport and she was so excited to see us!! We were glad to be home, even though we had a great time on vacation. There will be pictures to come...