San Diego, family fun and sad goodbyes

We arrived in San Diego on Thursday morning and headed to Vacation Island to check into our hotel, Paradise Point. The grounds were beautiful and we felt very secluded from the hustle and bustle of Southern California. Angela and Nancy pose for a picture....

This flower is actually really soft......

Outside our rooms....

We dropped off our things and headed to lunch on Pacific Beach, at Gringos. The food and beer were delicious.

After lunch we headed north to La Jolla to kill some time until Nick's (Matt's brother) flight arrived from Vegas and Travis (Angela's boyfriend) arrived from 29 palms.

Angela tried on an Italian dress at some fancy boutique (I forgot to take a picture). We were looking for something for her prom. She looked so amazing but we decided her brothers would not let her out of the house in it.

Thursday evening Nick and Travis arrived just in time for dinner at a great Steak house Steve (Matt's dad) picked out. We were all pretty tired from the early flight so we hit the sack early.

But we woke refreshed and ready for the day.....

The day was going to be sad! Angela's boyfriend is a Marine and he left early Sunday morning to Afghanistan. Travis is currently serving a seven month tour in the rural lands of Afghanistan. The girls were all in tears and we all expressed our gratitude to Travis for making the ultimate sacrifice for our country. We are very proud of him and we know this is going to be a challenging time for Angela and Travis. We pray that God keeps all of our military in his hands.

Travis enjoyed breakfast with us, probably one of his last cooked meals.

As we ate we had to fend off all the daring birds around. This guy stole Angela's ham.....

Angela and Travis taking a moment.....

After Travis left, we headed out to Coronado Island and the famous Coronado Hotel. We put our feet in the sand but only our toes in the ocean. That water was cold! Matt and I own a book called "A Thousand places to See Before You Die" and this was one of them.

This was the hit hotel for famous actresses like Marilyn Monroe. The hotel grounds and woodworking were 5 star and showed old school class.

Friday evening Nick selected a wonderful Hibachi and Sushi restaurant called Haiku. Nick and I enjoyed some terrific sushi while everyone else experienced the entertaining hibachi. We had a few Sake bombs and left feeling pretty good.....

On Saturday we went to Sea World. It has been years since I have been there and my cousins recent blog photos of their fun trip inspired us to go. Gotta love Shamu. The show was very moving, they opened by having everyone show their appreciation for our armed forces. That got the tears rolling for all the girls.



Penguins.....

Never too old. For my cousin and aunt!

Saturday evening we headed into the Gaslamp district for a nice Italian meal at Chiantis. Leanne, a friend of Nicks joined us for the day, she was a sweetheart and we were glad to meet some of the people he has met since moving to Las Vegas.

Newlyweds.....

Matt and Angela

I ordered the risotto pescatore, it had a lot of fresh seafood and it was delicious. We all enjoyed our meals and wine but mostly the company of each other.

Siblings...what a good looking trio!

We ended our wonderful trip at the Seaport Village, good for people watching, live music, and window shopping. Thanks family for a great vacation.

"We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment"