48 hours in san diego

Personal

Well it took me FAR too long to blog this, but hey, it’s busy season! AND I think I may still be in a little bit of denial that we ever had to leave California in the first place! But seriously, we had the best time and it went by so quickly and we’ve been bumming ever since. We loved our time on the west coast and we’re spending a good portion of our conversations on how great it was. We’re hoping that we get to head back over there, sooner rather than later!

So here’s the deal: my dear friend Sarah has been living out in San Diego for a few years now and she decided to get MARRIED out there! EEK! On a Thursday!! EEK! It was the best plan ever. And obviously we had to be there. It was the second week of school (aka college ministry crazy and david starting his new side gig as a professor crazy!), but we figured out how to make it work! We flew out Wednesday evening and left Friday evening…so literally 48 hours in California! NOT long enough! I think we jammed in as much as we could manage while still relaxing – we had a nice balance of wedding/relaxation/exploring. Also Sarah’s been my friend for 13 years and we did high school AND college together so there was a double mini reunion in store for us!

Here’s a run down of our time in Temecula: We got to our STUNNING airbnb in Temecula late Wednesday night, after a lovely little stop at In-N-Out of course. The next day we spent a few hours laying by the pool with the permission of our super gracious host. If you saw it on instastories, then you KNOW, it was the most luxurious set up I’ve ever seen in someone’s personal home! Laying around by the pool in September made us feel really west coast and it had us day dreaming about being able to both sit in a pool and watch tv. (because there was a big screen OUTDOORS!) Then we met one of my high school friends for the prettiest cheese/bread plate I’ve ever seen at a winery (Temecula is wine country) and headed over to the wedding. I’m a little bummed we didn’t get to do wine tasting…but hey, hanging poolside was more than worth it. My jaw DROPPED when we got to Sarah’s venue. It’s the prettiest place I’ve ever seen. Like it was straight out of a movie. I’ve shot at a lot of gorgeous places, but they don’t make them like that on the East Coast 😉 The wedding was perfect. We had a blast being there on our own, not shooting, and without Ollie! We spent the night catching up with my friends, reminiscing over old inside jokes, and jamming as many people as humanly possible in the photo booth. And drinking watermelon martinis and dancing quite a bit :] SO much fun. The night finished up with an afterparty at the local country bar (where the line dancing was very, very choreographed and we were hypnotized by it) and grabbing 1AM In-N-Out burger because they’re everywhere and we are now addicted.

Our time in San Diego: On Friday we bid adieu to our beautiful airbnb and ate crepes in the California sunshine before heading to La Jolla. We were just ENTRANCED by the beauty. The ocean looked so different and so much bluer. And we were quite fascinated with the sea lions and seals. We always feel so relaxed when we can wander without an agenda! So next up, we went to Ocean Beach because my sweet friend Marian said it was a must. And she also said walking into a liquor store and buying an acai bowl was a must. So we did that too. Doing both of these things made us feel a little bit like locals :] Ocean Beach was a lot less touristy and we loved it. We finished up our time by walking around Liberty Market and by me wrongly thinking we’d found a shark tank business (Cousins Maine Lobster) when really it was a copy cat…but it was too late so David got a lobster roll anyways haha. And then we sadly headed to the airport and enjoyed a crazy gorgeous sunset. And then our flight got delayed while we watched The Big Sick at our gate (highly recommend btw). Phew. We flew through the night and got back around 6am Saturday morning. And then we shot a wedding the next day! Our life is weird and full, but goodness do we love it!

**Here’s the best part! We did this on a budget. Airbnb and Spirit Airlines were our biggest money savers! Instead of paying at least $300 for hotel stay, we paid $50 a night and stayed at the most gorgeous place ever! Legitimately it’s the way to go. We’re still unsure of how we got such a great deal! My mom also found us crazy cheap flights on Spirit airlines. Here’s the quick down low on Spirit – come prepared. We did NOT know that they don’t provide food, entertainment, or comfy seats. We survived, but it wasn’t our favorite plane ride ever.

Okay let’s get to the picture recap :] Here’s us when we were still excited to see how planes have “changed” in the last five years! That’s the last time we flew! (hint these planes were lame-o) Also we almost missed our first flight EEK!

First stop? In-N-Out!! (after watching homecomings at the airport of course)

Goodness. Best morning ever. Wish I’d taken more pictures of our pretty home.

Can you tell how much I was loving life?

Wedding ready!

The prettiest wedding venue! (and bride!)

Our sweet friend Marian! We hadn’t seen each other in YEARS! David studied abroad with her in college and I was actually baptized with Marian :] (so much more to that incredible story!)