San Diego, Day 2: Church & Coronado Island

The ward we were going to attend started at 9am on Sunday the 24th. We got up really early and had breakfast at Richard Walker's Pancake House which is a small but an elegant and popular place not far from our hotel. Later we discovered it is even highlighted in the tourist information packets. It was de-lish.

Then we went searching for the address of the chapel we had looked up. When we got on the street, we saw a chapel straight in front of us and headed for it. Whoopsies! There was a cross on the top of it so we knew that wasn't our church building. At the last minute, Jared saw the chapel on the left.


We almost drove right past it. If it didn't have the Church's name on the front, I wouldn't have guessed that was the building. I'm not used to seeing the unconventional chapels. It's definitely got character. Very San Diego-ish.

The ward members were very welcoming even with lots of visitors and tourists all year round. (My parents were some of them back in March). Turns out, a couple we house-sat for in Anchorage the year we got married are the missionaries assigned to this ward and the military ward. They were, unfortunately, not at the ward we were visiting that day. But my goodness...let's all break out in singing "It's a small world after all..."

I'm very grateful that Jared took the time to go to church...all three hours...before going to his mandatory CME classes later in the day. It would have been very easy for him to justify not going but I'm glad he did. He sacrificed some credits to do so.

As we were sitting in our pew, with nothing to do, we both commented on the weirdness of it. It was very odd to not be setting up a Relief Society room or making sure the Teachers have the bread and are preparing the Sacrament and attending the Young Men's prayer meeting, or herding and hushing children before the start of the meeting. This unbusyness was what it was like 12 years ago without kids. Though I wouldn't change our current situation for the world, it was fun and slightly unnerving to go back and experience church as a couple again. Actually, Jared found it easier to doze :)

On our way back from church, we saw the Cruise ship "Elation" had come into port. *sigh* Someday I would love to take a cruise. Maybe they're overrated, but I'd really like to find out for myself.


While Jared was in class, I took a stroll through the Gaslamp Quarter of Historic San Diego. I also needed to find a place to eat, by myself. I chose a Thai restaurant and got pad thai noodles and a banana bamboo drink(yummy). I didn't care for dining as one, but it proved to be for the best as I was able to outline my Relief Society lesson for the beginning of June while in my lonesome.


This picture is in honor of my friend Alison.


When Jared came back in the late afternoon we were ready to head out for dinner and then drive to Coronado Island.

We are big food network fans. We don't follow anything religiously but we enjoy "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives" hosted by Guy Fiere to see fun places to eat or if we've been to any of the sites that are highlighted on the show. We found one in San Diego we wanted to try. El Indio. And here's the proof.


Here's a view from the Coronado bridge going away from San Diego. Our hotel is middle center.


This is the famous Hotel del Coronado. We walked on the beach behind it at sunset. (Fair warning: there are LOTS of pictures of just me and Jared on this trip.)








We have a really cool new camera and that we love and we were having waaaay too much fun taking our own pictures. That's how we got most of them on this trip as you will soon see.






We rounded out the night by trying the local Mondo Gelato. I've never had gelato before and not being much of an ice cream lover, I found it pretty tasty. I got lemon. It was very refreshing.