Beach Days

As mentioned in a previous post, our San Diego days with Heather were bookended with beach visits.  Before leaving LA, we stopped and spent an afternoon at Hermosa Beach.  Our weather was perfect, with temps hovering in the upper sixties.  This was ideal for trekking around large animal parks, but kinda cold for busting out the bathing suits.  No boogie boarding for on this beach visit.  We found other things to do instead...

 Like hunt down this famous TV beach apartment!  Do you recognize it?  ;)

And get our pants just wet enough with wave hopping to require a change in the car.

Then, on our last day in San Diego, after dropping Heather at the airport, we spent a morning on the gorgeous Coronado Island.  Here we watched dolphins and marveled over the white, powder-like sand that massaged our toes.  We also made Bucket List plans to return to this super ritzy Hotel Del Coronado for a future vacation. 

After the beach, we started slowly making our way back home.  We first stopped in Camp Pendleton to have one last visit with our dear friends Lloyd and Heidi before they are soon moved to the NATO Base in Italy for 3 years.  We adults drank ice tea and caught up on their ocean-front patio while the girls ran all over the Navy Neighborhood with Lloyd and Heidi's kids, playing basketball, and checking in with walkie-talkies.  It's always fascinating to get a little taste of our friends' life and we wish them every blessing in their next adventure!

  

One more stop for dinner with newlyweds Anna and Derek, where we were able to sit for a few hours and recap all of the week's highlights, completed this fantastic Spring Break vacation!  We saw so many cool things and made so many great stops.  But, the memories we'll cherish most from this trip are all centered around the people we got to share it with.  Starting with meeting Andrew, to reconnecting with seldom-seen cousins, to doing vacation life with Auntie Heather, to getting to hug our friends, "Arrivederci", to reliving favorite wedding memories with Anna and Derek over artisan pizza.  This was a trip that was all about loved ones.  For having these amazing friends and family members in our life, we're counting our blessings yet again.