our family weekend trip....

down to San Diego through pictures...

Just got done with what would our family consider as our "summer vacation" this year. Too busy to plan anything big so we opted for a weekend getaway instead of nothing at all. Mitch planned our route and its was great. I liked that he planned our activities where in we got a little taste of everything, from nature, to historical sites and of course the beach!!!

So let me share with you our trip through pictures...

We started our trip by taking the scenic route to Julian. A small town east of the city. Here's the view of the road through my side of the car.

It was the perfect day to be on a roadtrip!

I got a remote for my camera and I LOVE it! Gives me that opportunity to be in the pictures more without having to hand my precious "baby" to a stranger!


We toured the main street, which if you're familiar with small towns, doesn't even take a whole block! So small but fun! We got to taste an authentic Soda fountain. Tasted yummy and full of flavor. We ordered sasparilla, vanilla and strawberry. mmmm good!!!




Here's a peek at our kind waitress letting me take a pic of her while making our sodas. I found out that they put phosphate in the sodas to make it frizz back then. Now it's all in the carbonated water. I have to say though that back then they didn't scrimp on flavor. You can really taste the great vanilla flavor on these drinks versus the one we have now.





After our soda fountain tasting and some window shopping/inspiration gathering, we continued on to Cayamaca (sp?) state park. We camped at a designated campsite and I got so excited cause our site was right across the bathrooms. And the plus... it had flushed toilets!!! Woohooo double score on this one!!!


Happy campers!


What our meals consisted off..... MRE's (meals ready to eat). Commonly used by military people during their tours. It was great! No fuss, mess and clean up's a breeze!


After getting our tent set up and things situated, we went on a little hike.


See the backpack Mitch is carrying in this picture? Yeah it's a good thing we brought that cause Maddie was complaining on our way back to camp. I believed we hiked about a mile (up and down) before the kids gave up on us!


The view was spectacular though, despite the many dead trees due to a brush fire in 2005 (I think)


Felt so proud of me, the "hiker", that I had Marcus (very well trained to handle my baby) to take a picture of me. He did a good job getting me in the frame. I didn't crop this cause it makes me laugh how he didn't center me in the picture! Funny dude!


The following morning we took down our tents and packed up for another big day full of adventure. The park had many trails to do and how I wish our kids were strong enough to accomplish one with us (someday!) but one that was only meters down the parking lot was this falls (I don't remember the name and Mitch is sleeping for me to ask) but it was great. The only thing I didn't like here was it's was very slippery. Marcus is a daredevil and him jumping over the rocks to play just FREAKED me out!!!Even Mitch was worried! But all was well and nobody got any head concussions (sp?).





After some swimming and playing we went back on the road and headed towards the city. First stop was the San Diego Mission. We kinda started a little fascination with these old churches when we visited the San Juan Capistrano Mission way back in 04. Both Mitch and I are intrigued at the history these landmarks have.


The place was nice but smaller than the Capistrano one and there weren't much "historic" artifacts to see.


But their garden was booming with beautiful flowers and cactus.


The fountain in the middle of the courtyard was nice too.


After the mission, off we toured the Old town San Diego. Now here, we were a little disappointed. We were expecting loads of houses/buildings/landmarks that have museums and history in it but all we saw were reconstructed buildings (houses or small buildings to make it look like what it would be when the town started) and if you go in them they were just a bunch of souvenir shops. Yuck!!!


I was so surprised at how "commercialized" they turned this historic gem to be. We did manage to find little museums here and there and one thing I learned from this visit is that the wagon business was the booming thing back then. In one thing I read that if you worked in the wagon industry, whether it be the driver or the loaders you get paid $7 a year versus the miners which only brings about $3.50 home a year. Wow those numbers are really mind boggling, especially when you think of how much income people make these days!


And after a trip to Carl's Jr we headed to the beach. You gotta admit after a few meals of MRE's you welcome fast food!!!

We ended up at the Pacific park beach. This was a saturday afternoon so the beach was packed. I didn't take good pictures of the beach cause (a) didn't want my camera anywhere near the water and (b) I was actually having fun and in the water jumping those waves with my kiddos.

So there's our grand adventure. Fun, full of excitement, got to BE with the family and saw a lot of neat things.

And now I'm back home, fulfilling the long list of to do list that somehow piled up before I left (for only two days!) and I have laryngitis!

I'm off to bed to get some rest and to get my voice back!!!

Have a great week everyone,
Grace