San Diego: Beach Time

During our San Diego vacation, we stayed at the Hotel del Coronado, or the "Hotel Del". This hotel is absolutely gorgeous - the building, the beach, the restaurants, the rooms, etc. If I was pressed to name one less than beautiful thing about the hotel, I would probably have to say the pool. Nothing wrong with it, just nothing special about it. However, being that we were in California, we did not come that distance to spend time in the pool - it was all about the beach! The hotel was built in 1888, and was rumored to be haunted by a former guest who had committed suicide while staying there. The kids loved the idea of a haunted hotel - almost as much as they loved the homemade ice cream parlor and the candy store located within the hotel!

Here is a shot of the kids in the Vista Walk (aka: a gorgeous setting to take wedding pictures), which also shows the front of the hotel.

An overlook of the pool area.

Ethan in the Vista Walk area. The necklace he has on is one of the many activities that the hotel offered for kids. Each child was given a list of items to visit on a scavenger hunt, and when they had completed the hunt they were allowed to select a toy from a treasure chest. It was a very kid friendly hotel (we were just not able to take advantage of all the activities since we were always out sightseeing).

The kids in front of the "Dragon Tree". I guess that this tree was in the movie "Some Like It Hot" with Marilyn Monroe, and that movie was filmed at the Hotel Del.

Here is the view from our room balcony. It was tough to wake up every morning! ;) Notice the rocks along the shore - our kids LOVED to explore that area, especially during low tide when tide pools had formed.

Ethan on the Hotel Del's beach. Both kids were fascinated by the seaweed along the beach (which is good because there was A LOT of it!).

Strike a beach pose!

Olivia was a true beach girl on this trip. We couldn't keep her out of the ocean! She loved to jump the waves, lay down in the waves, allow herself to be knocked down by the waves, etc. One of my favorite memories is taking an early morning walk (6am) with Olivia - just the two of us (the boys were still jet lagged and sleeping). We spent an hour walking the beach and collecting "butterfly shells" (open clam shells), climbing the rocks, and splashing in the water.

Best picture ever!

While Olivia was a water girl on this trip, Ethan was a sand boy. He was not crazy about the waves, so he would not go into the water much deeper than his ankles. However, he would spend an hour making "sand cakes" with birthday candles and decorations. Once he had started this process, he would concentrate so intensely that you could not get his attention!

Sleeping in the sand. Like I said, he loved the sand!

Attempting to make a moat around a "sand cake".

Sand artist hard at work.

Olivia lying down in the waves.

Joe dreaming about Hawaii. No pineapple in this picture, though.

The rocks were a huge hit with the kids.