California Girls' Weekend

A couple of months ago, one of my sisters suggested a girls weekend with all of us sisters and our mom. We found a weekend that worked for all of us and booked tickets to go. The meeting place of choice was southern California.  My sister, Kristina, lives with her family in southern California.

I flew out of National Airport which can be cool if you sit on the correct side of the plane to see the national monuments in downtown Washington D.C. from the air.

Lara, K and I on a walk near K's house the first evening in California.

The next day Heather, Mom, and I went to the San Diego Zoo while Lara and Kristina stayed at K's house to take care of the household until K's husband got home from work.
 

We knew we were going to be hungry by the time we made it to the zoo, so I researched places to eat in the zoo. The only restaurant inside the zoo with decent reviews was Sweet Shack (but there also were only two reviews). We decided to test it out and eat at Sweet Shack. The food was delicious! (Just as a side note, although it's name is Sweet Shack, it did not only have sweet food there).

After we ate lunch, we saw most of what was on that side of the zoo. We saw cool birds and reptiles and monkeys etc.

We took the skyfari to the other side of the park and saw more cool and cute animals.

 

We saw red pandas and leopards and elephants and bears and giraffes and all sorts of other kinds of animals that I cannot name here. (H took the pictures of animals I have on this post.)

The San Diego Zoo is apparently one of the best zoos in the world. 

Mom, Heather, and I spent a lot of the day at the zoo and got a lot of steps in. It was a really nice sunny day that day (which was nice since K said it had been raining most of the days before that day).

 

After the zoo, we met up with Lara and K and walked around the area that our Airbnb was to find food for dinner.

We ended up eating at Marcy's Taco Shop which was delicious! I got a chicken taco and a carnitas taco. I enjoyed both, but I think I liked the chicken one slightly better. :)

 

The next day we headed back north (just for the day) to see my nephew, Andrew, do shot put at an invitational meet he was invited to.

 

 Andrew ended up getting third place overall in shot put. Good job Andrew!

We ate lunch at Burger Lounge which was really good!

 

 We got donuts from Sidecar Donuts for dessert!

 

We got six different donuts. Lara got a gluten-free one and the rest of us tried a little bit of each of the other five. They were good! I liked a couple of the donuts more than the others but they were all good.

 

After we ate, we went on a whale watching boat tour. It was a two hour tour and we saw two gray whales making there way north to the Arctic waters to feed. 

We were able to follow them from a safe distance and saw them blow out of their spout quite a few times and saw their tales multiple times. It was a nice tour. (I didn't get any pictures of the whales because they were a little too far for my camera to catch a good picture).

 

You know when you're on vacation, calories don't count right?! ;) We got ice cream at Cowafornia after the boat tour.

We headed back to San Diego and drove to Old Town San Diego to eat dinner. Old Town is a fun place to walk around and go into the different shops and look at all the restaurants etc. We ate at Miguel's Mexican restaurant. I don't remember what I got, but I remember enjoying it!

The next morning, Lara, K, Mom and I went on a walk near our Airbnb. It was a nice area and a lovely walk. 

We went to an hour of church this morning where the parking was horrible. K had to park a few blocks away, because no parking was available closer to the church building.

We got food from The Crack Shack, a chicken place, for lunch. It was pretty good! 

We wanted to hang out more in this part of San Diego but we had a hard time finding parking near where we wanted to go so we drove to Cabrillo National Monument.

Cabrillo National Monument has a beautiful view!

 

A view of downtown San Diego from Cabrillo!

 

 

 

After Cabrillo, we headed back to K's house. It was a fun, mostly relaxing weekend in San Diego with awesome company and delicious food!

Lara, Heather, and Mom left the next day (Monday) to go back home. I stayed until Thursday and hung out with K and her family. I might do a separate blogpost about the time after everyone else left, but we'll see if I actually do.