San Diego Sunshine

First off, since it's Friday, let me say how much I'm already going to miss Friday Night Lights tonight and perhaps....forever. Since the strike happened, we are out of episodes. And since the ratings on this fabulous show are pretty low, it may never come back. Boo.
If you want to help Save Friday Night Lights, click here. I honestly can't tell if it's a joke or not. But either way, I like the idea!

And now on to more fun topics. This past week, Casey and I celebrated Valentine's Day by heading to San Diego for 2 days. Well that's kind of a stretch. Casey had to go for a training conference, so I tagged along. I'm good at doing that, especially when his work is paying for our hotel! And the hotel we stayed at was utterly unique (more on that later).

At first Casey offered, "maybe you should bring Lucy along, in case you get bored." Um, I don't think boredom will be a problem. It was gorgeous weather. The kids stayed at my mom's house (thanks mom!) and while Casey was in training....I had hours to myself. Here's what I did:

- took a 1-hour nap in my car (couldn't check in to the hotel yet and isn't a nap on the top of any mom's list of leisure activities?)
- ate breakfast in a bagel shop for an hour and read a book, without entertaining kids
- Shopped at my favorite second-hand store Buffalo Exchange (locations in LA too)
- Drove along the coast with the sunroof down
- chilled on the grass at Mission Bay (palm tree picture above)
- checked in to our hotel and took a shower in the middle of the day. Took my time blow-drying my hair while watching Martha.
- Shopped at the Horton Plaza (an outdoor mall).
- Tried on shoes, even though I knew I wasn't going to buy any. Shoes are fun.
- Scouted out dining options for me and Casey

Casey booked our hotel a couple weeks ago and told me, "it's a victorian place and they say every room is different." So I jumped on the website and there were pictures of beds with canopies over them. How fun! Totally not my style, but totally unique and different and right in the Gas Lamp district of San Diego. Here it is, The Horton Grand Hotel:

As I walked in, an old lady was walking out and stopped me, "you're so lucky" she said, "this place is amazing". I chuckled all the way to my room. The best part about our room was the balcony. Ours is that first balcony on the corner, on the middle floor. It was so quaint and pleasant and faced right onto the street. As I opened the door, I could hear a street performer playing his sax. So relaxing.
No this is not a still from Somewhere in Time. This was our room. So funny to me!
The bay wondow had a plaque next to it that said "original window". Sounds pretty old. The bathroom even had a toilet with the water tank mounted high above the seat and a pull chain. Old school.

This was the lobby on our floor. Nice organ against the wall.
And here are the banisters between floors. I seriously thought I was on the Titanic.
All in all though, we loved the hotel. It was fun to branch out and try something different. For dinner, we wandered the Gas Lamp district and ate at a cute mom and pop Indian food place. The service was great and the food was delicious (mmm, coconut curry and warm naan). After dinner the original plan was to go see Romeo and Juliet as a ballet! (I love ballet. It's absolutely beautiful). There was a little theater right there on the corner and they sold rush tickets at 5pm. But, we missed the boat. Rush tickets were sold out. So instead we took a 180 and saw the movie Cloverfield. Interesting and entertaining, but Casey literally had motion sickness by the time we left. We had to sit outside the theater for a few minutes afterward before heading back to the hotel. What a fun night though!

The next day Casey had more training, so I spent the day wandering the streets. There is some really beautiful architecture in San Diego. It's quite a charming city (depsite the abundance of pot holes I drove over.)

And then I did a session at the San Diego temple (another beautiful architectural design).
I picked up Casey by 4pm and we headed back to OC to pick up the kids. The two day getaway was the perfect detox. A short break from the craziness of daily life. But long enough to make me miss my kids again. It's funny how quickly that can happen.