San Diego: The Over-21 Version

Not to worry, this post is G-rated 🙂 Our trip to San Diego was broken into two halves: pre-Mazen reunion and post-Mazen reunion. I’m recapping our first 2 days in this post and will share our kid-friendly fun tomorrow!

T and I flew in on Friday morning (afternoon EST but still morning in San Diego so we made the most of the day). Despite getting up at 3:45am, we adjusted well to the new time zone. This was really my first time staying in a cute Airbnb! Whenever I travel, I always look for them before staying in a hotel, but I can’t seem to find the cute ones other people do. My searches usually pull up crusty, outdated options. But San Diego had a ton of really cute, updated choices! We settled on a one bedroom condo in Mission Beach, the same neighborhood where I spent a week for the 4th of July in 2015.

How cute was our place? Upon moving in I had all the minimalism feels, but by the end of three days I was itching for a bit more room : ) It was perfect for two people and luckily had an AC unit, which is not the norm in San Diego.

The bed was very comfy, and the balcony was nice to have as well. Everything was updated, and I loved the wall designs!

We were two blocks to the beach and were walking distance to some convenient places.

A post shared by Kath Younger, RD (@katheats) on Aug 13, 2018 at 9:44am PDT

After checking in, we went to the beach walkway for a little sightseeing.

When I was last in San Diego back in July 2015, I spent half the week chilly! It was just barely turning summer, and the sun spent half the day behind clouds… so I was not expecting for it to be so HOT! I think I was hotter in our three-day visit than I’ve been all summer back in Virginia. Within 20 minutes of venturing out, we were dripping with sweat and ready for some refreshments.

I Googled juice bars and we found one just a block away – Juice Wave. Turns out I had an açaí bowl here three years ago as well! The peanut butter layer made it epic.

We stopped into Better Buzz Coffee next door for a passionfruit tea and good coffee for the morning. There was a convenience store next door to that where we bought half and half and a few staples (OJ, trail mix) for the weekend. All within steps of our Airbnb.

After all of our travels, we just wanted to relax on the beach for a bit. Thank goodness our place had a little umbrella for a tiny bit of shade or I would not have lasted more than 10 minutes! It was pretty tough being 30 weeks pregnant without a beach chair. I had high hopes for digging a hole for my belly and lying in the sand, but that didn’t work out too well. (I needed more hip support to keep from sinking down into the hole?) I spent an hour flopping back and forth on my sides reading.

Back at the casa, we took showers and got ready for an early dinner.

We asked a neighbor we met for recommendations that were close by and didn’t require an Uber or Lyft, and she recommended World Famous up in Pacific Beach. The menu looked good and the views were great.

The meal was just ok – we loved the fried shrimp and side salad, but were a little underwhelmed with the crab cakes and snapper. Touristy spot, I suppose!

We kept our walk going up the coast and watched an epic sunset from the PB pier. We also found a million surfers that were fun to watch!

Our final destination of the night was The Baked Bear. With a selection of cookies, ice creams, and toppings, they create custom ice cream sandwiches. I went with S’mores on S’mores with Heath bar topping. OMG – so good! I only ate about 2/3 of this because it was huge.

The next morning we sipped coffee on our balcony and then went to Better Buzz to bring back breakfast.

I had the avocado toast, which I loved on some grainy bread, and T had a breakfast sandwich.

Afterwards we walked south for a while to get in some exercise. So, so hot!! I would never walk in full sun in the south except ON the beach, so I don’t know why we thought it was a good idea here.

We cooled off in the ocean afterwards, and then I did some more side-reading on a towel.

Thomas loves to surf and rented a board for the day. I saw him catch a few!

We rinsed off and then headed out for lunch. We weren’t too hungry, so we decided on sharing another açaí bowl. Plus two bao buns from next door. Love these things!!

We walked a few more blocks to the Mission Bay Yacht Club to meet Karen and Mazen for the afternoon. The anticipation of seeing him again was so high!! I’ll tell you more about our afternoon there in tomorrow’s post. After swimming for a while, Karen and Mazen dropped us off so they could go home for one final dinner and pack up all of his things. It was hard to say goodbye, but we had a full day planned for Sunday that kept us from being too sad.

T and I showered and took a Lyft up to La Jolla for the night. (This was my first time using Lyft, and I like it so much more than Uber! It’s way more user friendly.)

I spent a summer in San Diego in middle school and came home proclaiming I was going to live in La Jolla when I grew up. (And drive a Geo Tracker…lol) It sure is beautiful up there!

Two of our friends recommended Herringbone for dinner, so we had to check it out. The setting was very cool, and the menu was full of creative options. (It was quite expensive though!)

We shared these tempura stuffed squash blossoms with whipped goat cheese and lemon curd that were out of this world.

For our next course, we split a crab and fried rice dish with peanuts and cilantro and a spicy sauce. I just loved the texture of the crab paired with the crispy rice!

Finally, we shared a Halibut with a sun gold tomato and bacon sauce that was delicious and fresh. I love it when fish gets that perfect brown crust.

Our server asked us if we were celebrating anything, and I laughed and just said “the third trimester!” He brought us a complimentary chocolate dessert.

We finished dinner just in time to watch the sunset (and randomly bumped into friends from Cville!) And we ended the night with some seal watching. They are so cute!

Family swim.

And this baby nursing on his mother was so sweet!

See you tomorrow for our zoo day!