Travel Tuesdays - San Diego anniversary

One year of A + K and we spent the weekend celebrating in San Diego!

There was a fire station open house on the island of Coronado. We got to see lots of equipment, watch them put out a fire for a demonstration, got hot dogs and bottled water for a donation to the girl scouts and even got free massages! It was great!

Our hotel, the Omni was fantastic!!! Go priceline!!!

The staff there was super nice and even moved us to a nicer room partway through our stay. The first night we were able to see fireworks right at eye level out our window because the hotel is connected via skybridge to Petco Park home of the Padres. The next two nights we had views of the pool and the bay beyond. It was beautiful.

starting to see a little bit of baby bump

We had a great time walking along the Embarcadaro

seeing the WWII aircraft carrier, the USS Midway

neat nautical graphics

the riggings of an old ship

boats in the harbor with downtown behind

Plus, we ate really, really well (we like to call it food tourism).

If you're ever in San Diego, may we recommend:

Filippi's - we walk up to a line out the door that continued a good 30 feet into the restaurant. We were assured by locals around us in line that it was worth the wait. We didn't have to wait too, too long and along the way we were able to peruse the shelves of imported Italian groceries. Our server was one of the best we've had in a long time and the basket of garlic bread, antipasto salad and the spaghetti topped with a giant meatball hit the spot! The sauce was very fresh tasting and yummy.

the Farmers' Market in Little Italy - this was our first destination on Saturday morning and we were not one bit disappointed. My favorite sample was the Basiltops pesto. The people were friendly and the weather was great.

While we were at the Farmers Market, we stumbled upon a book talk and food tasting sponsored by the restaurant Tender Greens. They just kept bringing food over for us to try, from the best salad I'd had in quite awhile to a plum cake with delicately flavored, fresh whipped cream! And, get this, it was all free! Woohoo!

Pappalecco - fantastic gelato, great atmosphere, fun Italian speaker to talk to, a hit!

Mootime - that perfect vacation cone, both of us agreed it was a premier waffle cone and I choose the triple chocolate (dark, white and milk) paired with the birthday cake ice cream with marshmallow creme as my mix in. It was delish!!! For real . . . sugar overload! Oh and did I mention that the birthday cake ice cream had sprinkles in it too? And, get this people, they did not charge one cent extra for the waffle cone or the mix-in and you can get two different flavors in the small scoop size! Happy, happy!

Heavenly Cupcakes - As you probably know by now if you've been reading long, we are cupcake connoisseurs of sorts. Well, I have to admit, when we walked in, it looked like a Sprinkles clone and I'm not too much

a fan of theirs and I also like places that have originality. But . . . the mint chocolate cupcake was VERY

good! Good job afterall, heavenly cupcakes and a reminder to me not to judge a book by it's cover.

Zanzibar Cafe - I really liked this place. It may have been my favorite place we went just for the whole experience. It was a wonderful night, cool breezes, open windows, candles on the tables, good, fresh, interesting food and a great hostess and waitress who we got to chat with since we were practically the only ones in the restaurant.

Cafe 222 - their website is almost as fun as our dining experience. It was exactly what I was hoping for our last morning in San Diego. Fun, funky, fresh . . . lime green walls, quirky, pastel teacup and tiny spoon chandeliers, a broken egg painted on the floor, etc. The Eggs Italia were truly scrumptious (and I saw that she has the recipe on her website - yum!), the orange juice was very good as was the pumpkin waffle. Bravo, Cafe 222.

And last but certainly not least,

Extraordinary Desserts. It was um, yum, yum, yum, yum! Thanks for the recommendation, Edmund! If you follow the link, I had the pavlova - fluffy meringue shell with passion fruit cream and fruit in the photo. Adrian had this cake.

and, any guesses what this is?

their signature kiwi lemonade! delicious!

We also thoroughly enjoyed being so close to the airport and seeing all kinds of planes land right over us, visiting Balboa Park, the weather, the weather, the weather and watching the Steelers beat the Chargers. :) (Not in person, they were playing in Pittsburgh, not San Diego.)

All in all, it was a wonderful anniversary trip!