San Diego

Look at me, totally catching up on my blog posts! Back in June we went to San Diego for a couple of days for my brother's wedding reception. The wedding reception was Friday, so we decided to drive down Wednesday afternoon and hit up the San Diego Zoo on Thursday. The drive was long and made me even more excited (not really) for our upcoming drive to Utah. I got a couple of new things to keep Stella busy in the car.

A new puzzle which she figured out really fast but still liked a lot:

And, at the brilliant suggestion of good friend LJ, a glow stick for when it got dark. A simple toy, but Stella LOVED it.

After many hours in the car, we arrived very late at the home of good friend Amy, where we would be staying during our time in SD. Stella was exhausted and not in good humor. She was won over, though, by the dog statue that belongs to Amy's roommate. Stella fell in love with it and would greet it every morning, give it hugs and kisses, and say goodnight to it every night. She still talks about it when she sees pictures of it.

Stella was super tired from the long journey the day before and slept in pretty late on Thursday. When she finally woke up, we quickly got ready and headed to the zoo. My parents and my oldest sister and her husband met us there for some good times. The zoo was a huge hit with Stella.

At first she was calling all of the animals "doggy", but then she figured out they were all different and loved seeing all the different animals there. I think her favorites were the monkeys and the lion.

She also like the flamingos because they were fighting over food so that made things exciting.

At the giraffes, Mr. Frisby decided to ruin the picture by not wearing sunglasses like the rest of us.

I liked the koalas and was envious of their sleeping skills (yes, he's asleep).

The zoo is big so we made good use of the different apparatuses they had for moving us around. The escalator:

The skytram:

And the buses. I did not get any pictures of us on the buses, but they were, perhaps, the most exciting aspect of the zoo for Stella. Surrounded by exotic animals that she had never before seen in real life, Stella would pay them no attention and scream, "bus" at the top of her lungs whenever one drove by. Which was often. And riding on them? Well, let me tell you, that was just a treat.

The zoo was lots of fun, but it is big and, after a long day, we were tired. We left the zoo and got dinner with all of my family that was in SD and then called it a day.

Friday afternoon was the wedding reception. It was great. Here's the happy couple:

It was on a Navy base, so Stella was enthralled with all the ships and planes that would periodically go by. When we left the reception, we found this seagull just hanging out on our car. He didn't leave until we actually opened one of the doors.

After the wedding reception, we headed to Old Town San Diego to walk around there and check out the Mormon Battalion Visitors' Center. We found a shop that sells all kinds of root beer. I mean ALL KINDS! And the girls working there were able to help us pick a good root beer based on what we were looking for in it. It was great. Stella had her first taste of root beer and did not like it. Don't worry - she's since come around to the tastiness of a good root beer. We also paused for a picture. Here I am with my mom, sisters, and nieces that were there for the wedding festivities.

After Old Town, we got dinner in Little Italy and then headed to Extraordinary Desserts for some tasty treats. As usual, it did not disappoint. We got several desserts so we could split them and try them all.

The next day we headed home, but decided to stop and see the Mission in San Diego on our way out of town. Mr. Frisby and I have a goal to visit all of the California Missions and last time we were in San Diego, we ran out of time and didn't get to see it. So, we stopped off and, as luck would have it, they were having a wedding there. That meant that we could only briefly go into the church and had to stay at the back, but they also didn't make us pay to see it. Win, win. Win. We were perfectly happy exploring the surrounding grounds and Stella wouldn't have stayed quiet in the church anyway.

On our way home we stopped at V.G. Donuts in Cardiff at the suggestion of my sister's sister-in-law. We picked up a few donuts to get us through the long drive home. It was a bit of a detour off the main highway, but well worth it. Those donuts were tasty!

And thus concludes our San Diego travelogue. We packed quite a bit into two and a quarter days and had a great time. Until next time So Cal!