Family Photos at the Hotel Del

Well, our disc arrived today. I've only viewed the 134 pictures twice, but here are a few of my first favorites.

I hope I'm not boring everyone with my vacation. I just live for vacations! Look for more postings of the rest of the days of our vacation soon;))

Day 4- San Diego 9/9/08

Day 4- Aquarium, Miramar Speed Circuit, Boomers, and Family Photos

Aquarium- the best parts of the aquarium were the tide pools (the sea cucumbers felt soft & slimy, the unemies (Nemo's home) felt like the kid's sticky hand toys that stick to walls and doors) and the feeding of the sharks off a pole with a clothes pin. They actually make sure each and every shark is feed and keep track of what they eat, including the vitamins that they stuff in the fish that they feed them;))

Miramar Speed Circuit~ next we headed to Miramar Speed Circuit. M and T had a blast. It was neat to see T driving a car!
Boomers~ since we had time to do something else today, we checked out Go San Diego Card booklet and saw that Boomers was close. We played a round of mini golf. T got 2 hole in ones & I had 1!. After Boomers, we headed to Red Robin for "LaDinner".
We had an appointment for family pictures at the Hotel Del Coronado at 5:50pm. We were a little early and so was our photographer so Michele started taking pictures of us early in the hotel garden area and then we were off to the beach for pictures. The sand on the beach was one of the softest, finest grain sand! I can't wait to see the pictures! I should have the CD in the mail any day now. (I will post some once they arrive). Michele was very nice and patient. We saw a seagull knock over a man's Corona beer and started drinking the beer from the sand. It was a funny sight. M informed the wife of man so that she knew what happened to his brand new beer. Michele recommended that we walk around the hotel and shops after our photo shoot. I loved the hotel and would love to stay here someday! It was so beautiful! We had ice cream at the hotel's own ice creamery (like Coldstone). T and S shared a choc/vanilla large ice cream cup and M & I shared a chocolate/peanut butter with Recees' pieces sundae. YUM!!

A Little History!

A little history about our hotel (timeshare) in San Diego.

The hotel, Gaslamp Plaza Suites, was built in 1913 and was known to be the city's first "skyscraper" - 11 stories of marble, brass, mosaic tile, and Australian gumwood. The building was first occupied by banking, financial and jewelry businesses. Many of the original architectural aspects are still evident such as original marble on walls and stairways, coiffured ceilings, brass elevator doors, and Australian gumwood carpentry around the etched glass windows and doors. All are preserved meticulously in keeping with our status of being listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It was like going back in time, especially going from the very contemporary Aloft hotel the night before to this historic hotel.

I was a little worried about staying in downtown area of San Diego when we first exchanged our timeshare, but the location was perfect for us. We were able to walk to many areas, there was lots of places to eat nearby and the kids got an education (homeless, nightlife, smells of things that were not cigarettes;))

Day 3- San Diego Vacation

San Diego Vacation DAY 3- Sept 8

San Diego Zoo, Museum of Natural History & Corvette Diner

We started off all of our days at the top of our timeshare hotel, the Gaslamp Plaza Suites (more info on the old historic hotel later) for breakfast. The views were incredible!

Next we headed to the San Diego Zoo. The last time we went to the zoo as in 2001 (sept 12, 2001~ yes, the day after 9/11. We were on vacation in Anaheim and thought the zoo would be a very safe place to go.) S was only 3 months old. So this was all new to her. We loved seeing all the animals. My all-time favorite is still the giraffes.
A few more wild animals!

We took the double decker bus tour and the sky tram along the zoo. Other animals that we loved seeing where mericats, an eagle (eating a rabbit- YUK!), and a peacock that came right up to me and I did not have my camera on (darn). It was so beautiful and the bluest cobalt blue I've seen around it's neck.

After the zoo, we went next door to the Museum of Natural History. The new H2O Exhibit was the best. We learned/realized that there is not very much drinkable water in the world and I got grossed out by the unsafe drinking water organisms living in water and can kill someone within 3 days. Scary! We actually got in trouble at the museum because we were having a lot of fun in the H2O area and did not realize that the museum had actually closed and were told to leave.

Next, I surprised the kids by taking them to a really neat old 1950's type diner called Corvette Diner. I had read about it on-line and decided to not tell the kids anything about it. All the employees dress in 50's style type of clothes, they have an old corvette inside the diner and all the decor and music is in 50's style. Our waitress decided to wait until we were not looking and threw straws all over us and the table. The kid's and M laughed so hard! M and the kids had homemade ice cream milk shakes and they looked yummy. I decided to order a diet cherry coke. Well, it was more like a bowl or cherries with a little diet coke. (see picture below). We all got a laugh at this along with the waitress throwing Bazooka bubble gum all over us at the end of our meal.

After dinner, we headed back to our hotel and the roof hoping to see the sunset but some buildings got in the way. Instead, we had a bubble blowing contest with all of our bazooka gum from dinner.

Day 2- San Diego vacation

On day 2 of our vacation we headed over to Knott's Berry Farm. The kids had never been here and M & I have not been here since we were first dating (about 18 years ago). We had a good time. The kid's favorite ride was Montezooma's Revenge which is just like the Tidal Wave at Great America. This was S's first upside down roller coaster and she loved it. When T first came off the ride he said, "Yea, that was awesome!!". Within 5 mins both kids were asking to go again. We did go again, but later in the day. I think that I'm getting older because I used to be able to go on these type of rides over and over with my dad, but my stomach did not feel so great after going on this 2 times. We also enjoyed 2 water rides and the new pony express ride even though it smashed my chest area a bit;))

After a day at Knott's Berry Farm we headed to Baja Fresh for what we call "LaDinner" = lunch and dinner together; can either a late lunch or early dinner however you look at it. We have been doing this for many years on vacation to save money. We just have a decent size breakfast, snacks along the way and then LaDinner and then snacks/dessert later in the evening.

After LaDinner, we went to the Anaheim Disney Outlet.

Then we drove to San Diego. It was a nice drive and we saw 5 hot air balloons near the ocean along the way.

San Diego Vacation- DAY 1

We just returned last night from our San Diego vacation. Over the next couple of days, I will post entries from each day of our vacation as I kept a journal during our vacation. This was our first time on a San Diego vacation so everything (except the zoo) was new to us and we had a blast.

DAY 1- September 6

Soccer and travel day

Today the kid's had their first soccer games and both won!! T's team looked awesome! After S's 1pm game, we headed to San Diego. We decided to stay in the L.A. area on the way to San Diego to ease up on the long drive. Since we arrived in the L.A./Anaheim area around 8:45pm, we decided to head over to our favorite Starwood Anaheim hotel to watch the Disneyland fireworks from the parking lot (this is the best place to see the fireworks as the hotel is right behind where they ignite the fireworks). We met a father & son from Australia who gave us lots of travel ideas for our dream trip (someday:)).

We stayed at the new Aloft hotel. This is a very modern, contemporary hotel! I really liked the change to the traditional hotel. There was interesting blue water "goo" (kind of like liquid slime) on the floor board of the elevator. The hotel was organized like a loft type dwelling. I would definitely stay here again!

September 6 is also my little sister's 39 forever birthday!! Happy Birthday, Sis!! Love ya!!

The Twilight Series is now over for me:((

I finally finished the last Twilight series book, Breaking Down. My favorite books were Twilight and Breaking Down of the 4 in the series. I know that the author, Stephanie Myer, says that this is the last book in the series, but I think that there could be another book to continue to story. For example, we never experienced Bella's mom meeting her daughter or seeing her after she transitions or seeing how Jacob and Renesme react when she gets older. Do they get married? Are they able to have children? Maybe, I just don't want it to end?? Can't wait for the movie in November and the 2nd Twilight book in Edward's eyes to come out.