Our Married Life

Well our one vacation of the year is over. I am sitting on the plane as we speak. Unfortunately I can’t convince brian into taking more than one trip a year. His idea of a weekend trip is going to Austin to catch a football game or something similar. Maybe I should plan weekend trips on my own :).

Anyway I am going to miss the weather here in San diego. There were days when it was a bit too hot nut the wind made it bearable. I don’t think it ever got over 75 degrees. On thursday, we decided to forego a trip to legoland due to the ticket prices and instead opted to go to LA instead. The traffic in LA was horrid. Since it was just a day trip, we only had enough time to drive to Hollywood Blvd, go to Rodeo Dr, and drive through Mulholland Dr which was the highlight of the trip. Then it was time to head back to SD. I am sure there are other things to see and do in LA, but we will leave that for another trip. It I’d sad to see that the entire city is covered in smog. You could barely get a glimpse of the Hollywood sign because it was so bad. Oh well.

Yesterday, we headed down to Pacific Beach, had lunch on the boardwalk, took a walk along the water, then rented a couple of bikes a rode down the boardwalk. I haven’t been ok a bike for maybe 15 years so I was a little wobbly, but only because the bike was too tall for me. We met a friend of mine for drinks before heading back to the hotel. The trip wasn’t as relaxing as laying on a beach all week, but overall we had a great time. I can see why people want to live in Cali. However I am glad to be going home. Too bad it is over 100 degrees the rest of the week.

I woke up at 5:00am and couldn’t get myself back to sleep. Now I am contemplating getting on a conference call at work in an hour even though it’s my vacation. Urgh. I am sure brian will not appreciate it.

Yesterday Brian and I toured the USS Midway. It’s interesting seeing an actual navy ship. I think it’s the navy that’s on sea… We spent half the day doing that. Then after lunch went back to the room before heading back out again to La Jolla. Unfortunately the clouds were out do we didn’t get to enjoy the sunset. But we did lay around a park at La Jolla Cove and people watch/read our books. It then got too cold to sit there, so we gathered our stuff and headed out. We couldn’t find a place to eat in La Jolla so we decided to go out for burgers at In-N-Out burgers instead. Excellent choice.

Today plan is getting a massage, followed by a walk around gaslamp and exploring the rest of downtown. Then we’ll be going to a ballgame at Petco Park.

It’s so nice to not have to worry about work. We are finally on vacation. I guess my body isn’t used to the two hour time change yet because it’s six am here. I have been awake for an hour. Anyway, we landed at San Diego yesterday afternoon. Our flight was delayed for about forty minutes because one if the flight attendants was missing. We checked into our hotel- Sofia Hotel. The rooms here are itty bitty, but it is super cute and modern. Parking though kinds sucks. The daily rate is 28/day. I think we are going to try to find street parking. We will see. So yesterday we walked around the gaslamp district. Most of what we saw were restaurants. Too bad Dallas doesn’t have sonething like that. Anyhow. We had dinner at Los Puertos. The food was similar to a taco diner. It was good but not amazing. Today I think we are either going to the zoo or the beach. Yesterday I had this really awful back/stomach cramp. It hurt so bad to just walk. I am not sure where it came from but it just happened suddenly when I woke up yesterday morning. Ugh. I hope I dont feel that way all week.

I feel old. Or maybe because I treated my body pretty badly this weekend because my body feels really lousy today. On Friday, I went to a work happy hour. After mentioning that I needed a drink, a coworker organized a happy hour. I got a bit tipsy, but it was definitely needed after the long week. Those drinks at BJs are strong! I then proceeded to go eat BAD fried catfish at a local dive in Allen. Brian and I ended up here by accident because the place we were looking for was closed. So we decided to stop here since it looked quite busy. The people there looked a little rough around the edges, and there was karaoke. So weird. I can’t remember the name of the place, but whatever it was called, it’s in downtown Allen. Stay away people.

Then on Saturday, we spent a couple hours at my parents place before heading out to the ballpark in Arlington to watch the Astros and Rangers. The Rangers won. We haven’t been to a ballgame in a two years, but it was fun and we’ll have to do it again. The only reason why we went this year was because I got the tickets from work. Too bad the hotdogs and nachos we had sucked, but Brian did enjoy his cotton candy which he reluctantly shared it with me. And…shame on me for having processed meat! I suck at trying to be vegetarian.

Anyway, we left the game after the 8th inning and went to a friend’s house for some drinks. After getting tipsy some more and eating more junk food we finally headed home at 3am and crashed until lunchtime the next day. By the way, these people’s house makes me want to redecorate. It had a lofty feel to it, which is the total opposite of our decor.

On Sunday, I had to finish up my cupcakes for the cake decorating class. Before the class, we went to Chili’s for lunch and I for some reason craved their fried stuff, possibly because I was eating lousy all weekend long. My body definitely paid for it last night and this morning because I didn’t sleep well at all and woke up with a stomach ache.

So this week, I need to get back on the healthy routine. I had a veggie sandwich for lunch, and need to plan what to have for dinner since we have nothing to cook with at home.

I also need to do a better job of meal planning. I haven’t been cooking as much which isn’t a good thing. On top of that, I need to start going back to the gym and doing some of those free classes. I enjoy those much more than the boring cardio workout. I think I’ll go to yoga tomorrow morning at Sunstone. That is if I can wake up at 5:30 am….

The other to-do is finish planning our trip. We’re undecided between a fancy hotel or the standard economy hotels. I know we won’t be spending too much time in the room, but it is a vacation afterall. I looked at the rates for the Solamar Hotel that Terri recommended, but I think it’s too much of a splurge. I did see some good rates at Temecula Creek Inn, but it seems out of the way. The Hyatt Regency in La Jolla had some good rates. If I had it my way, I’d go with the Hyatt, but Brian had some sticker shock only because he doesn’t do any of the planning and didn’t realize how expensive stuff was. I guess we’ll figure it all out tonight.

Alright, it’s that time of the year where we need to start planning our vacation. Last year because of the new house, we didn’t want to go anywhere far or extravagant to keep the costs down.

This year however, I think we’ll finally venture out to the west coast.

I totally suck at trying to find the best deals, I always end up just purchasing the entire package from expedia or travelocity. I don’t really know how people compare between what you get on these sites or the actual hotel website, etc. I guess after finally picking a location, everything starts to look the same including the price.

So the question is should we try to stay in a boutique hotel or a corporate hotel in San Diego? And what location should we be staying in?? And do we want to do all the touristy stuff like the Zoo or Seaworld? I know we should since it’s supposed to be awesome. But I’d also like to venture off and do something offbeat. Not sure what though?

Before I want to book anything though, I need to pay off this month’s credit card bill. It’s higher than normal but that’s because it included the new office furniture, car maintenance, and other random big purchases. I think we blew the tax rebate payment before we even received it.