San Diego

We must have brought the overcast weather from PA to San Diego. All we heard was how it's always sunny and beautiful out here. Of the 3 days we were there we only had one morning and another afternoon of sunshine. My roommate from college, Veronica, moved out to San Diego for grad school a few years ago and fell in love with the city. She has half of her siblings living out there with her now. I finally got to meet her beautiful baby Ilo too! His name means joy and sunshine. He really is such a beautiful baby too. 6 months old bundle of joy for sure! V is living with her sister Molly and her son Jack. We had a blast with them. 

 Went to the local farmers market and got to try some of the delicious local produce. We enjoyed touring the city on our bikes too. They are the best way to get around and see the city. Their apartment is just a short ride from downtown and it was a easy city to navigate around. We went and toured Balboa Park and rode through the city, and saw the Padres stadium. V puts Ilo in the bike and rides. He is such a little trooper. 

We rode for over 20 miles around the San Diego Bay. We stumbled on some type of picnic with a live reggae band and we made ourselves comfortable for awhile. We made it to the Del Hotel on Coronado Island... (which is really just a peninsula). It's a beautiful turn of the century resort hotel right on the beach. We just relaxed for awhile on the beach and then took the ferry back across the bay and enjoyed a beer while  the sunset before riding our bikes back to V's place for dinner. We went out dancing too. V's brother works as security at this bar in Pacific beach so we checked that out for a bit and met up with V's boyfriend Chris later on that night.

V showed us around Shakti Rising where she volunteers a few days a week.  Shakti Rising is this amazing social change organization that helps with empowering women to utilize their personal transformation as a catalyst for positive change in their families and communities. That's right from the website, but I couldn't say it any better.  Helping the women out to make the world a better place one person at a time.  It seems like a really powerful and beneficial organization.  

I always love hanging out with V and it's not much different now that she has a baby, she is still living life and appreciating everyday and that's what I love about her! 

We also got to meet up with James, another friend from Westminster. We went to Cabrillo National Monument which is where the first European set foot in western US in 1542. The coastline is pretty neat with the rocky cliffs right into the ocean. We traversed across the rocks and played around some. Annie stood over at the edge of the rocks for a picture and this anomalous wave came and soaked her. That is some cold pacific water too! James had a Austrian couch surfer that was staying at his place and we had some delicious Mexican dinner before heading back up to Orange County for the night.