1st Anniversary/California Trip

Well.. finally.

In the summer, our friends got orders that they were to be stationed outside of San Diego. John and I had been looking to use our free Southwest rapid rewards credits and we now had the perfect opportunity! The tickets expired right before our anniversary, so we decided to use them for a long weekend in California visiting our friends over our anniversary.

Friday morning we had a morning direct flight into San Diego. Since we were traveling "back in time", we got to San Diego at 12:30 PM and still had the whole afternoon!

Our first stop was to rent a car, but after that we went downtown to Seaport Village. From here we left on a Seal tour. Apparently this is a different type of vehicle than a Duck tour, but they are both amphibious water vehicles.

The main highlight of the tour was the sea lions. It was kind of neat to see the city from the water, but we didn't really learn anything very exciting from the tour guide or anything.




After the tour before heading to our friends' house, we stopped at a little cafe in the village for a late lunch. Then, it was time to hit the road. Kind of. There was a ton of traffic. And the road! When we got onto the highway, there were EIGHT LANES on our side of the road alone! Holy crap.

Without much trouble, we finally got to Fred & Marie's house. Once Fred got home from work it was time for supper! We took them out to a delicious Mexican restaurant. Marie and I had margaritas, and holy heck were they. Those were STRONG. But we liked them so much we each had another. Good gravy. That was most definitely the most "drunk" I have ever been.. and it was just tipsy.

Once back at Fred and Marie's, it was time to hit the sack. We had a big day planned for Saturday:


YAY!!! We went to Disneyland!! I grew up going to Disney World frequently, but never really thought that I would ever make it to Disneyland. Before we left for California, I spent an evening mapping out a strategy for the park and figuring out what we would do and were everything was. Because of this, we were able to do everything that we (I) wanted to and call it a day.

Thunder mountain- was always my favorite Disney ride!

Miniature Cinderella's castle from the Storybook Cruise ride. This was a neat ride that is not at Disney World- it is a little boat that takes you past miniature homes/places of many Disney stories.

It's a Small World. It was still all decked out for Christmas. Inside they were singning Christmas music and it was all decorated for Christmas.

The parade. The confetti at the end was all shaped in Mickey heads!

A sign on the Autopia (car driving) ride.

John and I in front of the lit up castle at night while waiting for the fireworks.

The grand finale.

When we got back to Fred and Marie's John stayed up a little later to play cards, but I was just so pooped that I went to bed. At midnight John woke me up to tell me 'Happy Anniversary' and then he gave me a present! I was still mostly asleep and couldn't see, so I opened it and felt a necklace. I set it aside to check out in more detail in the morning :)

We got up a little later than the last couple of days and then headed out to the beach with Fred. We went to a ridiculous beach that we had to walk down like fifty bajillion steps to get to the beach. Of course going down them to get there meant that we had to go UP in order to get back to the car. Awesome. I didn't bring my inhaler and was definitely the nerd wheezing.


John was ridiculous and insisted on going in the water since we were in Southern California, even though it was the middle of the winter and Marie TOLD him that it would be cold. Fred joined him. I joined the beach.

After the beach (and once my wheezing stopped), John and I got BACK into the rental and headed to a winery about an hour away. We went to the South Coast Winery, which was California State Winery of the year.

Neither of us really liked wine, but we figured that we were in CA and wine is supposed to be super good there- so why not? We did a wine tasting ($12 for 5 tastes officially, but we got more like 7-10 each and still had tabs to bring back for Fred and Marie.. plus we got wine glasses with the name of the winery on them) and wandered around the site.





After we had our fill of wine (a couple of which we found that we liked!) John and I headed back to Fred & Marie's house and got ready for our date. I booked us a dinner cruise around the San Diego bay for our anniversary dinner. Before we left the house, Marie took a couple of pictures of us.


Once on the boat, we were seated at our own little private table overlooking a window. The boat was 3 floors (the second was partially outside and the third was completely outside) and had a DJ and bar. Our dinners were good (mine was the vegetarian strudel and just eh, but John really likes his!).


After we ate, we just hung out and then explored around the boat- watching the lights on the shore.



Monday morning it was up and at em again. We got up early so we could have breakfast with Marie before heading the hour back to San Diego to the airport. She took us to a delicious little cafe on the ocean.

After we ate, we walked on the pier to get a last glimpse of the sun and water.






From the beach, we said our goodbyes with Marie. John and I got back into our little rental and headed back to San Diego.

Our little trip went WAY too quickly. There is still so much more that I would love to see out there. Anywho- thanks to Fred and Marie for letting us crash with them and for being awesome hosts :)

For the full album of pictures from the trip, you can check here.