sisters in san diego

I can't believe we actually made it happen. For the first time, all of us sisters made a getaway weekend together to San Diego.

Marianne came in from Utah, leaving behind her two girls with her husband, Kristen drove over from Phoenix, and Andrea and I left our boys behind in Seattle to fend for themselves for the weekend.

We'd originally planned to do this in the spring, but as we started to look for a date in March, Marianne was quite adament that we needed to go this fall as she was forced to tell us that she was expecting baby #3.

We all got to town Thursday evening with Andrea and I coming in the latest and finding Marianne and Kristen holed up in our hotel room ready for bed. One of the great things about this trip is that Kristen works for a hotel, and got us the employee rate hook up. And for a downtown San Diego location, we were really liking the savings.

Friday morning we got up and walked down to the Embarcadero to catch a foot passenger ferry over to Coronado Island. The last time I was in San Diego was in the late '90's and even then, I was there for a convention and the free time we had, we all went to Tijuana. So I've never really got to experience San Diego.

Coronado Island is beautiful. We arrived to the island, perused the shops and stopped to have lunch. Kristen had been there before, but hadn't gotten to see the hotel on the other side, so we decided that would be our next stop. There's a shuttle on the island, but strangely it only runs every hour. Since we thought it was a few miles down the road, we opted for walking. Marianne was quite the trooper given she's 3-4 months pregnant.





















Amazing hotel -- Hotel del Coronado. Built in the late 1800's, it's straight out of the old Hollywood hall of fame with "Some Like It Hot" being filmed there along with other well known flicks. I was in love. And there's this incredible stretch of beach alongside the boardwalk. I will go back there one day soon!

We'd walked so much, that by late afternoon we were ready to take the bus back to the ferry landing to head back to the hotel.

We had an hour or so to rest before we embarked on our quest for dinner in the Gaslamp District ten or so blocks away from our hotel. Marianne couldn't have seafood and Kristen is tired of Mexican food since that's all she gets in Phoenix. I drew the line at eating at TGI Friday's as chain restaurants are not on my "tourist" list. So we settled on Hard Rock cafe, and sadly, this ended up being the best food we had the whole trip.

After dinner, we managed to have enough energy to see a movie. Marianne doesn't get out to theaters too much as she's got kids, so we indulged and saw GhostTown. It was actually really funny, even more so because of some lady sitting in our aisle in the theater who cackled throughout the whole movie, and even made us jump from our seats when she screamed during an unexpected scene in the movie.





















Since Saturday was our last full day in town, we decided to head over to Seaworld.

Even as adults, we really enjoyed the shows. We'd walked Marianne to death the day before, so we joked we were going to get her a wheelchair and push her through the park.

We weren't too keen on getting soaked, so we sat up in the high rise seats where we could still get a good view of the 11 am show. Unbelievable what these animals have been trained to do. Just spectacular.





















We walked around for a bit more, and had a little lunch until it was time for the dolphin show at 2 pm. Same MO as the earlier show -- do not get wet. The morning had been somewhat cloudy, but during this show the sun came out and beat down on us. We all got a little color just from the 20 minutes we were sitting there.

There were a couple of other exhibits that I wanted to see before we left...the sharks, the aquarium....but I quickly was disappointed. The shows were the highlight and the exhibits were dark, underground, people smelly, crowded single aquarium specimens. I'd been hoping for a full wall of integrated sealife.

With that, we'd officially pooped out Marianne, so we got out of Dodge and headed back to the hotel for our last dinner together at some gross Hawaiian themed restaurant at Seaport Village.

And on Sunday, we were all making our way back home.

Rick was especially excited to have me back home. I was only gone for a few days. I'm not sure how he's going to hold up when I'm gone for 3.5 weeks next month.