California, In Pictures

I’ve already posted some pictures of our vacation to California, but there are so many more! Jesse was taking pictures like crazy and his turned out really great with the fancy camera. Here’s a few (or a lot) of our favorite things:

It’s hard to pick, but I think my favorite parts of vacation was visiting all the places we used to frequent years ago. I’m a very sentimental and memory loving person, so seeing my old house and old town was high on my priorities for while we were there. Plus I wanted Jesse to see all my old favorite places.

Rancho sign

A walk down memory lane, our old neighborhood

Jesse and me at the lake

The family at the lake

Jesse and me appreciating the mountains

Andrew and Nicole chasing birds

We loved seeing these purple trees everywhere

We gawked at the Bugatti Veyron and the fancy shops along Rodeo Drive

Jesse thoroughly enjoyed his Pink

We took a drive through Hollywood

The family overlooking the Hollywood hills

We were all so excited for the graduation events. We managed to score front row seats for both the hooding ceremony and the graduation ceremony. I’m pretty sure Ashley’s friends thought we were a little crazy. We had our seats so early that we got to watch the rehearsal too. Dad was giving all Ashley’s classmates high fives as they passed us to take their seats. But our craziness paid off with some great pictures!

The main event

Ashley getting hooded

Ashley after hooding

Dad checking Ashley's hood

Ashley hooded

Ashley laughing at our crazy family

Ashley's hand shake

Ashley receiving her diploma

Ashley exiting graduation

Ashley with proud parents

Ashley with proud siblings

After the graduation festivities, Ashley was able to join us for more site seeing and remembering of memories.

The beach we loved going to for years

Beautiful beach view

Mom and Dad enjoying the beach

We've always laughed at this triangular house, no piece of land goes unused

View driving down Pacific Coast Highway

Ruby

La Jolla Cove waves crashing

La Jolla Cove seals soaking up the sun

La Jolla Cove beach

Jesse and me at La Jolla Cove

Hang gliders over the ocean

The bridge to Coronado Island

We thought the valet parking for boats was too funny

Andrew and Nicole at Coronado Beach

The girls on Coronado Island

The boys on Coronado Island

The boys being told to take a funny picture... Andrew looks the same

The boys being told to be funnier

Me shopping on Coronado Island

View of the San Diego runway from the top of the famous parking garage

Jesse and me imitating the famous Unconditional Surrender statue

Is that enough pictures for you? Do you feel like you were there too? We really had such a great time. Now we are back home and back to real life. However, not back to our normal sleeping schedule. Adjusting to the time change has been much more difficult coming home than it was when we got out there. It was really hard to get up this morning, but I’m still up later than normal again. Just think, in three years Ashley will be getting her doctoral degree and we’ll get to do it all over again. We loved California!

Vacation: Fun and Food

Today we spent most of the day hanging out on Coronado Island. The island is just across the bridge from where our hotel is. It is so pretty on the island it almost looks like a movie set. All the grass and the flowers are done just perfectly. We walked down onto the beach and climbed on the rocks right by the ocean.

Jesse at CoronadoAshley at Coronado

Next we drove over to the parking garage that overlooks the San Diego airport. We watched a show on airports not too long ago that explained how tricky this airport is to land at. To land at this airport the pilot needs to maneuver through downtown and then clear the parking garage right before the runway. Technically, people aren’t allowed to be up there, but we went anyways. Dad just stared the guy down until he let us through. We got out of the car just in time to see a plane fly over and land, then a guy came and told us we had to leave. But at least we got our pictures first.

San Diego runwayPlane landing

Then we drove over the see the famous Unconditional Surrender statue. It was made from a photograph of a WWII sailor kissing a nurse. So of course we had to get our picture taken next to it doing the same thing.

Kissing statue

Lastly, we headed to Peohe’s for a graduation celebration dinner. This is one of Dad’s favorite restaurants to go to while he is here, and I can see why. It was delicious! He was even fancy and had a special message printed on our menus. We had an awesome view of San Diego Bay with the mountains in the background.

Peohe'sFamily dinnerSpecial menus

Eating out was kinda a big deal for me. Because of my allergies I really don’t eat out anymore. I’m pretty sure the last time was in October for our anniversary, which made me pretty sick. I was pretty nervous, but I took plenty of medicine (Gastrocrom) and I’m still okay so far. I was really brave and even had a piece of coconut crusted onion rings from our appetizer. I went with what I’ve read is the safest go-to meal to limit the amount of mystery sauces and flavorings. Grilled fillet minion with steamed veggies. It was so yummy!

Steak dinner