The Bubela Family: San Diego

Kenan and I returned yesterday from a trip to beautiful San Diego. We had a wonderful time and took around 500 pictures, so get ready for a long post. We recently bought our first HD camcorder and it also takes stills, so Kenan was testing that feature out in the plane on the way to San Diego.

Apparently I was supposed to be looking at the camera, but instead I was doing what I do best :)

So we tried again. This is what we always look like...really.

So we stayed in a beautiful suite at the Hotel del Coronado, a famous historic landmark in San Diego. Here is the view from our balcony:

We fell asleep and woke up every morning to the sound of the Pacific Ocean. Marvelous!

We did a few tourist activities while we visited including a whale watch. Now, it is just our luck that it happened to fall on the same day as the city's celebration of 100 years of naval aviation. Countless people visited San Diego harbor that day, and we had the best seat in the house for the air show because we were on the boat!

The USS Midway in the harbor

The Coast Guard did a mock rescue

Here we are on the whale watch boat. The weather is funny in San Diego, we were scorching hot in the sun, and then in the shade once the boat got going it was chilly!

We did have a few whale sightings; this one is particularly good because it's a two-fer (another whale is on the outer edge of the photograph). Good thing Kenan is so tall or we wouldn't have gotten any pictures!

At one point we had gone so far out into the ocean that this photograph is of Tijuana. Hello, Mexico!

One of only two nuclear submarine dry docks in the world. Very cool.

Check it out - San Diego is home to lots of naturalists who study marine life of all kinds, include a very large colony of sea lions who live literally next door to the submarine docks. This photograph doesn't show them all, there were close to a hundred. They were so cute - fighting and barking with one another.

We did other stuff too - including the famous Sunday brunch in the Crown Room at the Del. It was hands down the best brunch I have ever had in my life - we both had three plates full of food.

I took this picture to show the magnitude of the place - this isn't any seating; just food stations. Also, you can see how the Crown Room gets its name - check out the chandeliers. The place is beautiful - it's been around since 1888.

Here we are in the front lobby. I am slightly obsessed with chandeliers and I just loved this one. It was entirely crystal and way over the top.

Another fun thing we did was visit both the Air and Space Museum and the Automotive Museum.

Here we are on the runway!

We are on the moon ;)

Kenan and Charles Lindbergh

Us with the actual Apollo 9 command module

These are all the different uniforms worn by the flight attendants for PSA, the San Diego airline. I found fashion at an air and space museum!

Here I am piloting the helicopter. If that ever becomes necessary, well - God save the Queen, as they say across the pond

Next we were off to the Automotive Museum:

Here is Kenan with a 1914 Model T. We heart Ford Motor Company!

Every kid who really loves Back to the Future has to have their picture with the DeLorean :)

Who knew International Harvester made cars? This one is actually a very early model that was originally a horse-drawn carriage converted into an automobile.

Here are some more pictures of the hotel, grounds and beach.