A year already?

It's hard to believe, but Sean and I have already been married for a whole year! Just about a year ago, we were all gathered in Minnesota with friends and family, celebrating a new marriage and taking advantage of having so many loved ones in one place! Since then, so much has happened, including many travels. Sean and I are in agreement that our favorite thing about the past year, besides being married of course, is all the trips we've taken. Beginning with our honeymoon last August, and coming full circle with another trip to San Diego for a co-worker's wedding at the end of July!
This time we stayed on Pacific Beach a hotel right on the beach. The hotel was okay for the weekend, but I wouldn't recommend staying in a small, beach side hotel with no A/C for longer than a couple days. Our first night in town (Thursday), we met up with some of my co-workers for dinner. We ate at a pretty good restaurant on the main drag called Gringo's. It was pretty good Mexican food, and they had giant margaritas! After dinner we wandered down to the Tavern on the Beach where we all took advantage of the "3 Dollah Make Ya Hollah" special. We then continued the night at Sean's pick, an Irish pub called Hennesey's where our friends were the stars of karaoke night! By then it was past all of our bedtimes, so we called it a night. The great thing about the whole evening was that all the restaurants and bars were close to our hotel, so we got to walk everywhere. The next morning Sean and I took a walk on the beach, picking out what house we would buy if we won the lottery. Would it be the modern, all-white one, or the Tuscan style one? What about the adobe one, bringing a little piece of Phoenix right to the beach? Ha! We can dream, right? We then searched for a breakfast place and stumbled upon Belgian Frys, a little place that makes great, well, Belgian foods! Belgian fries, Belgian waffles, etc. We couldn't resist ordering fries for breakfast, so Sean got his ranchero style (eggs, cheese, salsa, etc.) and I got mine benedict style (bacon, eggs, hollandaise sauce). The perfect greasy breakfast to follow a late night! Then, deciding that waking up early when I didn't have to, I crashed back at the hotel for a nap. Never ones to miss a meal, once lunch time rolled around we decided to get moving. We walked on the beach again and stopped in for a beer at the PB Shore Club. They had great windows overlooking the ocean. A cold beer, a cool breeze and the ocean view with the sun shining made us glad we weren't sitting in our offices! By this time we were ready to eat again so while Sean tied some things up for work (hey, at least it wasn't in the office!), Stacey (my friend and co-worker) and I went to Santana's to get their delicious California burritos. These gigantic burritos hold carne asada, salsa, guacamole and fries. They are absolutely amazing. And yes, Sean and I had fries two meals in a row. You can probably hear our arteries clotting from wherever you're reading this. After a huge, filling lunch, we had just enough time to wake up from our food coma and get ready for Kelly's wedding. They provided a coach bus (or as our driver said, with whatever accent, "cooooch" bus) for us to ride to the wedding in Balboa Park, to the reception at El Cortez, back to our hotel on Pacific Beach. How nice!
The wedding was beautiful, the reception was a blast, and we returned to the hotel pretty darn tired! Saturday was the day I was looking forward to the most because we planned to spend time on Coronado Island, where we honeymooned. We drove over to Coronado about 9 a.m. and ate at a cafe we enjoyed the last time we were there. We then parked our car on Star Park Circle, right by the house L. Frank Baum summered in while he was writing the Wizard of Oz. We wandered back on to Orange Avenue and stopped in at the Coronado History Museum. It was fascinating to see the time line of events, from the time the first land purchase was made, to when the Hotel Del Coronado was built, to present day. By this time we thought it was late enough in the day to justify getting a drink. We walked over to the Del (what many people call the Hotel Del Coronado) and took a walk on the beach, then got a drink on the deck. It overlooks the beach, and similar to our beer at the PB Shore Club, this beer was equally as blissful with the beautiful weather, cold beer and salty breeze. Although this was only my second visit, I can definitely say I am in love with the Del. It's special because of being our honeymoon location, but also just a relaxing, beautiful place to spend time. One of my favorite things to look for when we stayed there, and again on our most recent visit, was the fresh floral arrangement in the lobby. Each day there is a new arrangement and it's always beautiful and ornate.
After our drinks we took another walk on the beach and took a few photos. With our beer cushioning our stomach, we thought it appropriate to indulge in an overpriced drink at the Babcock and Story bar inside the Del. Sean ordered his drink-phase-of-the-moment drink, a Manhattan, and I tried a strawberry lemonade concoction. And what better addition to a liquid lunch than some ice cream? We wandered over to Moo Time Creamery and ordered a Monkey Sundae: vanilla bean ice cream, bananas, peanut butter, hot fudge and a cherry! We enjoyed this on the deck, although all the good seats overlooking the ocean were taken. After one last walk on the beach, we walked back to the car to drive back to Pacific Beach. We took an alternate route through questionably safe Imperial Beach, but on this route there was a point where we were driving with water on both sides of the road! We've been watching John From Cincinnati lately, which takes place in Imperial Beach, so we were curious to see it in person.
We returned to the hotel and went for another walk, this time on Pacific Beach. We returned to the PB Shore Club (I guess we were regulars by now!) for a drink and a late-afternoon snack. We sat in our same spot facing the water. We discussed what a great time we were having, and how some day if we're lucky we'll be able to make San Diego an annual thing. We've already got two years in the bag! We took the beach route back to the hotel, walking closer to the water and watching the surfers. We cleaned up for dinner and headed to a sushi place we'd spotted the first night. It was delicious! I'm not a big seafood person, and when I do have it it has to be a very specific food prepared in a very specific way (calamari: FRIED squid, tuna salad with MAYO, crab rangoon FRIED with CREAM CHEESE, seeing a pattern here?) and the California roll I had was amazing. I think because it was real, fresh crab. Not the usual Krab I'm used to when dining in a land-locked state. We sat right at the bar and got to watch our sushi chef prepare everything. Very cool!
Again, we found ourselves at the PB Shore Club after dinner. This time we ran into one of my co-workers and her husband, and we spent evening with them, chatting about San Diego. After our fairly late nights on Thursday and Friday, we turned in early to the hotel.
Sunday morning we packed up and headed to downtown San Diego to eat breakfast at a famous-to-Chicago-people restaurant, Walker's Pancake House. Good food! Then it was on the road back to Phoenix. On the way in to town we stopped at a new development, a kind of faux town called Verrado. The houses were beautiful, but we sure did not like the idea that we were still 25 miles outside of the very western edge of Phoenix!
And so, there's a probably way too detailed summary of our most recent trip!
Other than travel, Sean and I have been busy with work. I'm in planning mode for a big event in November and Sean is working on several cases, one of which he'll have to travel for next month, we think. And of course, only a couple more weeks until Sun Devil football!
Next up: Minnesota for a long weekend to see my family and help celebrate my grandma's 90th birthday!