Photo Recap

As I said in my previous post, my best friend Jess came to visit over the last week. She just left yesterday afternoon and, while I miss her like crazy already, I'm so exhausted from all of our shenanigans! It had been nearly a year since I'd seen her and much longer than that since we really were able to hang out and spend quality time together. She sacrificed a lot to come out here and visit me and I'm so thankful to have such a great friend. So without further to do, here's a photo recap of my week!

Jess and I have a tradition that every time we see each other we  make t-shirts for each other. I made tie dyes with California Dreamin' on the front and our notorious nicknames on the back. Jess is Tuna and I'm Dizzle. I must say I made some pretty kick-ass t-shirts! We also spent several hours of the week doing our nails. Jess did my super amazing toes!

We did some super fun and some not-so-fun things. We spent a day at the beach and got a nice sunburn. We then decided to go get some refreshing smoothies. It just so happened that they had a lot of super health nut type things and naturally we decided to try a shot of wheat grass. To say the least, it was disgusting! It tasted like, you guessed it, grass. Straight from the ground grass.

Needless to say, neither of us will be doing that again anytime soon! After that we decided to find some fun things to attempt from Pinterest. As you can see, our taffy was an epic fail.

We were super pumped because a few weeks ago there was a deal on Groupon for a kayaking cave tour. Wednesday we got to go. We were pretty bummed since we weren't able to actually go in any caves due to water conditions. We did get to paddle right along side some seals and sea lions and we saw where Dr. Seuss lived! 

And what would a visit to Cali be without a night out. We consumed a few too many Jager bombs, but we finished off the night with an epic drunken night swim in the ocean. Overall, I'd say the                     horrendous hangovers the next day were well worth it!

We stuffed our faces daily while she was here. These are just a few samples of all the amazing food we sampled around the San Diego area. We found the best breakfast place and I've pretty much decided to walk there every morning...although I think my waistline wouldn't be too happy about it. We also found a Mexican restaurant that blew our minds. Well done Senior Grubby's, for the best carne asada tacos ever.

 

Saturday we decided to go down to San Diego for the day. We went to Balboa Park and explored. They have several different museums and cool things to see. We went to the train museum, which is the world's largest operating model train museum. Initially, I was opposed to the idea, but I was out numbered and it turned out to be pretty cool! I don't have any pictures, unfortunately, but it was really neat. There was also a variety of street performers and activist groups in the park which were...interesting. Overall, it was a really cool place to go hang out for the day!

One thing on Jess's vacation bucket list was to eat at a place that had been on the show Diners, Drive-ins, 

and Dives. We found a place called Hodad's and after watching the episode they were featured on, knew we had to go there. It's a little beach burger joint with the best burgers! Not only do they have Guy Fieri stamp of approval, but they were also ranked in the top five burger joints in the country by CNN. For those wondering, a 'hodad' is someone who hangs around at the beach with a super nice board and gear, but doesn't surf. AKA: poser! We got lucky enough to land a seat in their old VW bus turned booth!

We spent a lot of time just hanging out, talking, and reconnecting. It's nice to think that distance doesn't have any effect on a friendship, but the truth is it's very difficult to maintain the closeness you have with someone when you lived just around the corner from them from the other side of the country. Hanging out at the beach was an excellent setting to just enjoy spending much needed time together! Our last night together we went to the beach and had a camp fire, which was probably my favorite thing we did. The beach at night is so incredibly peaceful. We woke up early the next morning and went to a local bagel shop, got our bagels and coffee and made one last trip to the beach to eat breakfast. It was an absolutely incredible week!