On vacays and babymoons

It's probably pretty clear to everyone that Mike and I like to take trips. In the five-plus years that we've been together, we've gone on two cruises and we've visited Rocky Point, San Francisco, San Diego, Cabo, St. Petersburg/Tampa, Ocean City and Las Vegas. We've been all around Arizona countless times, to Flagstaff, Sedona, Jerome, Prescott, the Grand Canyon, Tombstone and Bisbee, not to mention numerous trips to Ohio and Pennsylvania to see our families (and places like Wisconsin for weddings).

We like to always have a trip to look forward to and have been known to plan our next trip while on our current trip. (Next up: maybe another cruise next October? ... Mom, wanna babysit?)

In my opinion, life is all about experiences. I would rather spend money having a fun, relaxing vacation and making great memories than buying stuff we don't need, driving fancy cars, or living in a huge house.

It only seems fitting that we found out I am pregnant the very day that we were leaving home on a New Year's Eve road trip to Prescott. And we began to realize fairly early on in the pregnancy that our days of easy traveling were slowly coming to a close (Seriously, Mom ... you could have him all to yourself for a WHOLE WEEK ... We'll even stock the fridge with Diet Coke).

Of course, we are beyond excited to take our little guy on some great family vacations. We want him to experience Ocean City as a kid, the way Mike and Erica did (boogie boarding, hours upon hours in the arcade, etc). I want him to trick-or-treat in Ohio, where the leaves are brilliant colors and the air is crisp. We've discussed how we should probably take him first to Disney Land (a much closer and cheaper alternative) before Disney World. We figure a younger Ryan will be very impressed with Disney Land, and once he's a bit older and can really appreciate the amazement that is Disney World, then we can shell out the big bucks. And I have no doubt that he'll get his first taste of Flagstaff before he's even six months old. Heck, if I know us, we'll be dragging him up to Sedona to look at the Christmas lights before he's even three months old!

But we also think that "Mom and Dad" need some alone time, too. Our marriage is the foundation of our family, after all. Therefore, we plan to go all out in Cabo for our five-year anniversary. (Mom, I'll have Mike stash a huge batch of spaghetti sauce in the freezer ... all you'll have to do is thaw it and heat it up!)

Anyway, as is our style, we figured we needed one last "hurrah" before the little guy arrives. A "babymoon," so to speak. We thought about just heading up to a bed and breakfast in Flagstaff for a couple of days or maybe trying out a town we haven't visited before, like Williams or Oatman. But it just didn't seem special enough. And besides, the AZ road trips will probably be the easiest for us to manage after Ryan is born, so we'd be better served to go someplace we might not see again for a while.

Enter: San Diego. We loooove San Diego. We went there on a quick weekend trip a few years ago with a couple of friends and hit it again for an afternoon during our Baja Mexico cruise. The weather is beautiful in June (um, mid-60s and sunny? Yes, please), and there is so much to do. Each time we've been there, we've left with a list of things we still want to do next time. Plus, it is just a six-hour drive away, which saves us on flight and car rental costs.

We hit the road bright and early on Friday, got into the city in the early afternoon, and immediately hit the Gaslamp Quarter, a historic part of San Diego's downtown area that has lots of shops, restaurants and bars. We walked around for a bit, scoping out all the possible dinner choices, before hitting an Irish Pub to really get our vacation started:


Don't fret, people. It's an O'Doul's (i.e., non-alcoholic). I've been meaning to try one the whole time I've been pregnant, but honestly, beer hasn't sounded all that appetizing to me most of the time. Plus, I've heard they're pretty bad and didn't want to be disappointed. But I figured, "What the heck. I'm on vacation; it's time to give it a shot." And you know what? I thought it was pretty darn good! It seriously tastes just like a Bud Light or Miller Lite.


Next we stumbled upon Fred's Mexican Restaurant, a place where we had eaten lunch the day we visited San Diego on our cruise, and we remembered that they had really good food. So we scarfed down some delicious dinner before heading to Seaport Village, a touristy shopping area. Of course, at that point, a self-portrait by the water was in order:

We made it an early night because we had big plans to get up and out to the San Diego Zoo early on Saturday morning. The zoo was amazing. I can see why it's considered one of the best. The most spectacular thing is that in a lot of the exhibits, the animals are right there. They're so close to you! Of course, we were most excited to see the rhinos (we call our little guy "ryno") and headed straight for them. They were passed out in the dirt and didn't move for us AT ALL, but we enjoyed them anyway.

I must say that I did an amazing job of walking around the entire zoo. We hit almost everything, and my energy was really high until the last hour or so. Luckily, by the time I felt worn out, we had seen all we wanted to see and were able to take this back to the front of the zoo:


We just had one last stop -- the zoo gift shop, to buy our little guy a stuffed rhino souvenir.


We went back to the hotel to relax for a bit before hitting the hotel bar (you know, to throw back a couple of O'Doul's) and heading out for a nice seafood dinner at Anthony's Fish Grotto. The next morning was Father's Day, so we celebrated the Dad-to-be by going out to breakfast at our hotel's "cafe" (my treat, of course). Then we got cleaned up and headed over to Coronado Island, otherwise known as "the place I want to retire."

On Coronado Island with the San Diego skyline in the background.

We had a blast on Coronado. We hit a bunch of shops, walked around to enjoy the scenery, had some awesome BBQ for lunch, and then rented one of these:

We biked that sucker up and down the coast for about 40 minutes, working off our lunch and dodging other tourists. It was way fun.

We finished off the day back in the Gaslamp District for a little more shopping and some dinner/drinks at yet another awesome Mexican place. Monday morning, we headed to a little coffee shop owned by one of Mike's college friends to catch up with her and grab a smoothie for the road before heading back to Phoenix (and the heat... bah).

All in all, we had a GREAT babymoon. And we think San Diego/Coronado has huge potential for lots of family summer vacation trips in the future. It's a little crazy for me to think that the next time we hit the road for a weekend trip, we'll have a third little Walbert with us!